A NEW CHAPTER:
Revitalizing Our Palm Springs Public Library
Knowledge Meets Innovation is our library's next chapter—a comprehensive $52 million transformation creating a modernized 35,000-square-foot main building, renovated 4,000-square-foot JC Frey Building, and $5 million endowment for sustainable operations and innovation.
Join us in creating a dynamic, sustainable institution that will serve Palm Springs for tomorrow and for decades to come.
Our community-driven design includes complete systems modernization, sustainable infrastructure, and exciting enhancements like maker spaces, children's discovery zones, and multi-purpose event rooms to serve all ages and interests, while preserving the library’s historic, architectural significance.
Be a part of the transformation
How do you ensure local access to high-quality library services?
With partnership and an invested community.
HISTORY
The legacy of our library begins nearly a century ago, in a small adobe house with just a few books. Hotels, a real estate office, and even a hardware store served as the library in the past. But the first library in Palm Springs, as we know it, was the Welwood Murray Memorial Library, the very building we are in right now, established in 1919 and located in a Palm Springs hotel. Guests and residents alike took advantage of its offerings.
It wasn’t until 1975 that the main library was established in that iconic building off of Sunrise, the Palm Springs Library Center. The Center still stands today, but is in dire need of updates. Still, we’ve come a long way from our first adobe home to today’s stacks of more than 100,000 resource items.
The mission of the Palm Springs Public Library Foundation is to continue that growth, increasing and broadening the library’s use as a cultural resource and educational institution through financial support.
Ensuring local access to high-quality library services for generations requires more than just public funding. Although public funds make libraries possible, the Foundation believes that it is private gifts that make them flourish.
To that end, the Palm Springs Public Library Foundation seeks to create a long-term supplemental funding program based on private contributions that will enhance public investment in the Library.
We are destined to become the inspiring cultural and educational resource serving the whole community.
We think that’s exciting