What's happening with other OPL branches

Hi! I attended the Friends of Oakland Public Library meeting on April 30th at the Melrose Branch. Many OPL branches were represented by at least one Friends member and I found out about all sorts of good stuff happening with the other branches.

Lakeview - They are all about hosting chess tournaments! Some of the tournaments are at Lakeview but they are also hosting tournaments at Chavez and Temescal. And this coming weekend, there is a tournament at the Dimond branch. They average around 40 participants per tourney and the last tourney that Lakeview hosted drew over 100 participants!

Melrose - They are celebrating their centennial this year and they will be having a big celebration on September 24th. Part of the celebration will be an oral/written history of local residents who have used the library throughout the year. Melrose also hosts "Off the Hook" - a knitting and crochet group on the 1st and 3rd Saturdays of every month. Everyone is welcome and they also host a fundraiser where knitted headbands are sold and the proceeds go back to the Melrose branch.

Oakland History Room - They are in the process of digitizing old photographs of Oakland by neighborhood. If you have any old photos, feel free to reach out to them!

Mark your calendars because Piedmont and Rockridge are co-sponsoring the next Word for Word production at Chapel of the Chimes on June 13th. Word for Word is a stage group that reads a play out loud - their productions are always highly regarded and well-reviewed.

Playtime has been expanded on Thursday morning across several branches - with Rockridge closed until July, there are plenty of other options for the kids on Thursday mornings.

There are plans for a pop-up mobile library to be on the road in 2017... Exciting!

The Oakland Book Festival will be held at City Hall on May 22nd from 11am - 6pm. The Library Advocates group will be selling t-shirts and if you'd like to receive the OPL advocate newsletter, emails oaklandlac@gmail.com

Finally, current funding will maintain library service levels and hours through 2019. This means all branch libraries will continue to be open 5 days at week.

Thanks for tuning in... Jill