So the city purchased the Sears building that was formerly on this property for the library.

And legend has it that the floor would actually bow under the weight of the books.

And so the library went out for Bond in the 1990s.

And that is what funded the library that you see here today.

The original structure of this library .

In 2015, we started asking citizens what do you want in a library?

What are you looking for?

Some of the top answers were more meeting rooms, more places to connect and improved children's areas.

And then in 2018, voters again approved a bond to update all of our library system.

The Central Library here reopened in July of this year, fully renovated into a 21st century library.

So you'll see a really excellent system of children's areas that have a whimsical and playful experience that really develop the love of libraries from a very young age.

People are looking for places to connect, to be together, to use technology that they might not have access to, and of course, still access books and resources and study.

But the breadth of services that libraries provide today is wider than just checking out materials.

In some ways, we're definitely trendsetting in our children's area, in the media studios.

But you do see this shift to a 21st century library across the country and around the world really.

So on the first floor, we have a business lab and it is run by our business research librarian, Mark Pond.

And he's kind of famous in the Spokane community for entrepreneurs.

If you want to start a business, if you want to grow your business, he can connect you with cutting edge business resources that are, again, unreachable by normal citizens.

So it's New York public, Boston Public and us that are the three public libraries that offer access to a Bloomberg terminal.

And yeah, we're we're pretty unique in the public library space for having access to that and you know it's the it's the deep dive into any publicly traded company and or the industries that that they occupy business lab space, you know co-working space that's it's not unheard of in the public library world.

But I think really where we just knocked it out of the park is with the recording studio.

Where you can come practice your instrument or record a full length album or even record a track.

And you can do that on your own or with our audio engineer.

To my knowledge, we are the only library in the country that is doing it to this high level, having a control room, having a tracking space with isolation booths as well as additional separate studios with the video studio, the radio station, as well as our podcast production room.

So records that are made here will go on to our online music platform, which is Lilac City Records.

And then we have a video studio that's kind of the same idea with a video education specialist where you can come in and film your own videos, become a YouTube star or TikTok sensation using high end equipment that is not accessible to most people.

I love it, thats great.

We have an amazing events programing team, so we have an adult programing team and a children's programing team.

So we're creating all kinds of free programs for the library.

And your beautiful host, Ryan Dean Tucker Hey, Hey, How's it going, everybody?

So Lilac City Live is our program that we do the third Thursday of every month.

And it is like a late night talk show for all things Spokane.

So our video education specialist hosts that program and we bring in local celebrities to talk about what they're up to.

I know we're all excited to have our first guest on Jess Walter.

So what do you think of the new library?

Oh, it's beautiful.

I've always been so proud that the best view of the falls is a public building.

We've got a phenomenal view in the city of Falls here and the Spokane River.

And so we partnered with the Spokane Tribe of Indians to actually name the hall here on the third floor of the Central library that seats up to 300 people with a stage.

So we can have special events here.

That's where Lilac City Live is.

And so they helped us name the hall- in we we et Hall, which means life in the water.

We want people to think of the library when they're looking for something to do and, you know, find that next Tai chi class or cooking class that's on The choice is your to choose.

And we have specialists.

So we have a writing education specialist, Sharma Shields.

She is a local author and she does writing programs where you can come in and learn for free from a published author.

We have food and garden education specialist Juan Juan, so you can come in and learn from us for free how to grow your own garden, and then how to prepare it in your kitchen.

And on the youth services team, we have an arts education specialist, a STEM specialist, and an environmental education specialist, all creating free programing for the youth in our community.

We also have a lot of digital offerings that some people don't realize we have.

So you can check out e-books using our Libby app.

So free ebooks in the palm of your hand.

We have a program called Hoopla where you can read e-books, stream audiobooks or stream even television or movies.

We have a program called Kanopy where you can stream movies, and most of those are films and documentaries.

The list is endless.

We have a program called LOTE for kids, L-O-T-E for kids and its thousands and thousands of books translated into multiple different languages.

So if you're learning English or if you're learning another language, all of that is at your fingertips digitally and free from the library.

Sometimes it feels like we're the best kept secret and we don't want to be a secret anymore.

We want everyone to know these services are here, they're available to everyone and come see everything that we have to offer.