San Diego Central Library, Public library in Downtown East Village, San Diego, United States.
San Diego Central Library is the main public library of San Diego, located in the East Village neighborhood of downtown, and spans nine floors housing books, media, work areas, and meeting rooms. The building is easily recognized by its steel dome covered in mesh screening that tops the upper floors.
The current building opened in 2013, replacing an older facility that had served as the city's main library since 1954. Construction took several years and was funded through a mix of public money and private donations.
The Sullivan Family Baseball Research Center, founded in 2000 with books donated by the Society for American Baseball Research, holds the second largest collection of baseball memorabilia in the U.S. By 2012 it counted thousands of books, films, magazines and baseball cards, aiming to be the research destination west of the Mississippi.
The library is open seven days a week and welcomes walk-in visitors, with free Wi-Fi and public computers available on every floor. Guided tours are offered and can be a good way to get your bearings in such a large building.
The steel-and-mesh lattice dome sits over a two-story rare book reading room, not the whole building. On the sixth and seventh floors, e3 Civic High School opened on September 3, 2013, weeks before the library itself, with 260 ninth and tenth graders; the public can see it but not enter.
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