YORBA LINDA, Calif. — Everyone loves a good book, especially Yorba Linda Mayor Peggy Huang, who’s been reading up on the city’s history at the new Public Library and Cultural Arts Center. 

Mayor Huang came to the United States at 7-years-old from Taiwan, and today the library represents her American dream.

"Basically I learned how to speak, read, and write English here at the library," said Huang. "My parents just dropped me off after school and said 'go and learn English.'"

What You Need To Know

  • 45,000 square-foot Library and Cultural Arts Center opened in November in Yorba Linda

  • The library, which broke ground in 2019, cost $50 million to build

  • 13,500 square-feet is dedicated to the Cultural Arts Center, which offers public spaces for recreation and community arts programs

  • The library is open today at a limited capacity

The campus opened last November, and the thought of opening a 45,000 square-foot Library and Cultural Arts Center in the middle of a pandemic might seem out of place.

But the former library was 60 years old and with construction breaking ground in 2019, the city was determined to get the doors open, even if it was to fewer people.

Resident Shilpa Shah said the first stop her kids Shani and Sohan wanted to make when stay-at-home orders ended was the new library.

“It really is part of our community. It has been ever since [my daughter] was 3 and before he was born so it’s exciting to be able to come back and see our community here,” Shah said.

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Carrie Lixey is the library director and is the first one to admit that the campus is about much more than books.

Thirteen-thousand, five-hundred square-feet of the library are dedicated to the Cultural Arts Center, which offers public spaces for recreation and community arts programs. The city saved for 20 years to pay for the $50 million project.

Libraries fall under the “Retail” category on the state's reopening roadmap and are operating at a limited capacity, but before the pandemic, Lixey said the library averaged 1,100 visitors a day. And while she’s looking forward to being able to welcome them all back in, for now the community’s reaction said it all.

“There’s been a lot of gratefulness from the community. Grateful to have us here, grateful to have something positive for the community, something for them to look forward to, it’s just really to them coming to pick up books and having some sense of normalcy in their life,” Lixey said.

For Mayor Huang, the library is much more than a place to read.

“For me, this library project is really just a testament to what the library can do for any child who wants to learn,” Huang said.

For more information visit ylpl.org.