Summary:
Robin Holt was interviewed by Pat Riegg on May 19, 2008. She and her husband, a Navy officer based in Alameda, moved to Lafayette from Hawaii in 1975. Long a member of the Friends of the Lafayette Library, she became involved with the project to develop a new library after attending a presentation by City Manager Steve Falk in 2005. As a member of the communications committee she co-chaired a speakers bureau which generated early interest in the project throughout the community. Later on, but still in the pre-opening period, she served as a liaison with the partners in the Glenn Seaborg Learning Consortium.
Oral History:
Pat Riegg: This is May 19, 2008. This is Pat Riegg speaking, and I’m going to interview Robin Holt because of her involvement in the new library. But first of all, Robin, we’re going to go back to early memories that you might have had of libraries growing up. Does anything come to mind at all?
Robin Holt: Well, I grew up in Carmel, and our library was a wonderful, beautiful old Spanish-style building that’s still right there on the main street of town. And growing up in a small town like Carmel, the library really was sort of the central building where people gathered, where you went to do your homework after school, where you met your parents to pick you up if you needed a ride home. And one fun thing about the Carmel Library…it had a great big fireplace, and all winter long, they had a big roaring fire, probably no screen even over the fire, and big comfortable sofas around the fireplace. That was always in the adult room, and we children weren’t sort of allowed in there. But I always grew up thinking of a library as a really cozy, homey, hospitable place. So that was a wonderful early childhood library memory.
PR: I know you well enough to know that reading is a big part of your life now. In fact, you told me one time that you like to read a little every day. But how important was reading to you growing up?
RH: Reading was very important growing up. I had a wonderful aunt who always sent me an historical fiction book for Christmas. And very early on, I learned to love reading biographies or fictionalized history. I think that’s something I still love today, reading about real people. And I think it was really Aunt Elizabeth that instilled that kind of love of reading. My good friend and I loved to read all the Nancy Drew books and discuss that. Our family was just, I had two sisters, one older and one younger. So we all had books for different interests, and we passed our books around through our family. And then our parents read to us even as teenagers at night or if we went on a trip. Our father used to read to us at night, even when I was 19 years old. So we always did a lot of that out loud reading.
PR: Growing up in Carmel, what awareness did you have of Carmel being a close community?
RH: Well, I knew it was a close community because you knew everybody’s brothers and sisters and parents and grandparents. You knew where everyone lived. When I grew up in Carmel, it truly was a bohemian town. And it was full of artists. And the parents of the kids I knew were former ballerinas and ballerinas, dancers, painters, tons of writers, former movie stars, and you name it. We had, I’d say, probably even circus performers. So, and we all knew everybody. And, again, it was a very tight community like you don’t even see nowadays, I don’t think.
PR: Tell me about your education, where you did all of your schooling and what kind of degrees you have.
RH: Well, I went to, graduated from Carmel High School and went to Berkeley, UC Berkeley. And I graduated with a degree in history. Again, I think, because I like that historical picture.
PR: And Elizabeth.
RH: Yeah. And I liked about real people. Of course, it turned out a history major wasn’t that at all. It was mostly research with primary resources. But anyway, then years later, I went back to graduate school at JFK University to become a career counselor. And so that was a later in life degree. In between, of course, I’ve taken a million classes places, but that’s my formal education.
PR: Before career counseling, did you have any work experience?
RH: Yes, I did. After I graduated, I worked in San Francisco at a place called Architects and Engineers Service. That was a, gave me a really good dose of the business world and being down on Montgomery Street. And I had kind of always wanted to go back and have a career. I never really knew what direction it would take. And then becoming a career counselor, I found myself working back in the city full time for 18 years.
PR: And you still are. Is that right?
RH: I’m still working part time. But I loved working full time.
PR: Tell me a little bit about the organization that you’re with now.
RH: Now I’m with a small career center that I am proud to say I was one of the founders of called the Bay Area Career Center. We’re a collaborative of 13 career counselors. And we’re a center for working adults, working professionals is what we say. We don’t work with college kids. Really, we don’t even have many young people right out of college. Our average client is probably late 30s, early 40s, on up into their 70s. So we have all kinds of clients and we work with them on all kinds of career issues.
PR: As an adult, what were your early community experiences?
RH: Involvements, of course, for a long time things to do with our three children, with PTA and Parents’ Clubs and the sports teams, you know, being the team mother. I was a Cub Scout leader. I helped with Boy Scouts. That kind of involvement. One thing that I got when I thought I wasn’t going to be working so much, I got trained to be an adult literacy tutor. And I learned to teach adults how to read, which I always really wanted to do. And then I got a big business contract and I never did it. But I still think about maybe someday getting a learner to teach to read because I think reading is so, so, so important.
PR: Wouldn’t that be great to just have one person who learned to read under your watch?
RH: Yes, under your watch.
PR: Yeah.
RH: Yeah. I think it would be marvelous.
PR: What attracted you originally to Lafayette and how long have you lived here?
RH: Well, we’ve lived here 33 years and we moved here from Hawaii. My husband was a career Navy officer and he was transferred back to a ship, an aircraft carrier, the Enterprise in Alameda. And we were looking around for some place to live and a good school district and someone had told us about Lamorinda. So we looked here and found a house and it turned out we knew a lot of people from our college days or Carmel days and here we are.
PR: If we take the liberty of defining the goals of a community as a place of mutual support, shared values, and acceptance of differences, how do you see Lafayette meeting those goals? Mutual support, shared values, and acceptance of differences?
RH: Well, I think the library is a good example of being involved with building a wonderful new library. I have certainly seen those goals and ideals elaborated. You know, there’s much more diversity in this town than I’d realized, but now being involved with, you know, cross-generational people and newcomers to Lafayette and people who’ve been here forever, I’m beginning to see the diversity, and it’s really been charming. And I think when trying to get people involved with the library, we’ve had, you know, trying to reach people, find ways to involve them. What are people interested in? How can they contribute of their talents according to their means to our community? And I think this big, wonderful new community building is bringing together people to work together, to collaborate, to support one another, to share mutual dreams, and to help find ways for people to contribute as they’re able.
PR: What are your earliest memories of the Lafayette Library that we have right now?
RH: I think it started when we moved here in 75, going there with our children. And then through the years, just seeing that library get more and more crowded, and actually more and more grungy and dingy, and really it’s not a very appealing place to go these days. It’s falling apart, and it’s way too crowded, and it’s not, the materials aren’t easily accessible, and it’s not exciting or inspiring. And I find that I’d prefer to go to the Orinda Library for a lot of those reasons. It’s pretty, and you can look out windows, and, you know, there’s more to a library than just checking out books, and there’s certainly a lot more than libraries. One thing I’ve heard being involved with the new library is how many people think libraries are for children. And that wasn’t my feeling growing up. I always saw all those wonderful adults in Carmel checking out records or books or sitting by the fire just thinking. And so that’s where I think our library now doesn’t lead to that. It’s not a place of refuge where you’d sit comfortably and just curl up and think or meet a friend or read. And I think our new building will be.
PR: I don’t even remember. Robin, are we going to have a fireplace in the new library?
RH: No. Actually, they decided…we originally had one planned. But our new library is so green and environmentally correct, and, you know, Lafayette is really heading towards a green town that they had to eliminate the fireplace.
PR: You’ve talked about your participation in community events one way or another, but I think for a moment I’d just like to give a little nod to your husband, because yesterday I was at the beautiful thing that he puts on, the concert at the Res. How many years has he been doing that, Robin?
RH: The concert at the Res was 15 years old this year. And I think Dick originally, we live on the rim of the Reservoir. And he always used to run there. And one time he saw a little sign that said Amphitheater, and he went off the trail to explore. And he found an old, overgrown amphitheater there with just sort of logs in a semicircle. And he thought, oh, gosh, we need to clean this up and have music there. And then he found out that they said it wasn’t accessible for people with disabilities, and they didn’t want to use it again. He said, well, maybe we could have a new one and have concerts. And then he got the idea going, why didn’t we try to have some music concerts there, and maybe raise money to build a little amphitheater that would be accessible for people with disabilities. So this has been going on. The concert in the Res has been there for 15 years. It’s sponsored by his Lafayette Rotary Club. But his dream is, and the drawing was there yesterday at the concert, that they will ultimately build a little amphitheater there for all kinds of groups to use.
PR: That would be great. And I know now it’s Acalanes, Bentley School, and Stanley and Rossmoor.
RH: Rossmoor, yeah, four different groups.
PR: I think he also does a little driving for Meals on Wheels, doesn’t he?
RH: Yes. Now he does a different kind of driving people to doctor’s appointments and things.
PR: Well, I think this is what we call a volunteer husband and wife marriage. You’re both involved.
RH: Well, that feels good. I think at a certain age in your life, you know, when you’re not so busy with your children or your career, it’s nice to be involved in, we think, in your own community.
PR: Why did you want to participate particularly in the development of the new library?
RH: I went to an evening program, and I heard Steve Falk, our incredible city manager, who’s so eloquent, and talk about the library, and some other people did too, but Steve was so particularly enthusiastic about this wonderful new building. After hearing this presentation, someone came up to me afterwards and said, would you like to be involved? And I said, well, I would. And they said, well, how about being on the communications committee? So I guess that was about three years ago, and I’ve been meeting with this committee every couple of weeks ever since. And I’ve had a wonderful experience being involved. I’ve loved every minute of it.
PR: What does the communications committee do?
RH: We develop the message. We make up, we’ve sort of developed the brand and developed the brand strategy for the library. We actually picked the colors for the logo. We had the contest for the logo designs, and then we picked the logo. We liked the best. But the messaging and then all of the different letters, postcards, actual communication pieces that go out come through us. They’re written by people in our group. They’re vetted by people in our group. They are, there’s an amazing amount of talent in this town. And so everything you see or read or hear about the library, that all probably came from our committee.
PR: Weren’t you, wasn’t the committee at one time also giving presentations about the need for people donating money?
RH: Yes, actually a little offshoot was, but something I sort of co-chaired with Robin Fox, was the speaker’s bureau to go to house parties, of which you were one of the speakers who volunteered to do that and was to go around to different house parties people were having or different community groups to talk about the library and show the designs and explain what it was, how it was being funded, what it would look like, what it, especially this idea of it being with a learning center as well as a library, and the consortium partners. In fact, for a short time I was the liaison for all 12 consortium partners. But the speakers bureau was designed to do that. Now we’ve sort of gone beyond that. We don’t really need the speakers bureau anymore, but that’s what it was in its early stages, was to help inform our community of really what this was all about.
PR: What were you doing when you were that liaison that you talked about to the consortium?
RH: Well, there was a time, you know, for the library to have these 12 learning institutions partner with us. This is a unique concept. This is the first in the whole country. So, originally these 12 learning organizations were very excited to be involved, but as time went on we began to realize there was the initial enthusiasm and then there’s going to be the big enthusiasm at the end when the library is done. But in the meantime we wanted to keep connected to these organizations. And some like the Commonwealth Club that were doing programs through us in different buildings around Lafayette, they were fine, but we wanted to keep everyone else excited. The Oakland Museum and the Oakland Zoo and the Lindsay Wildlife Center. So, we were trying to think of ways to keep them involved. And one of the things we did, at least when I was the liaison, was I was sort of the organizer of a big luncheon last spring, where we had a representative from each organization there, and then we brainstormed how they would like to be involved once the library, before the library opened and once it opened. And we broke up into three groups and we had different small brainstorming, and then we came back as a larger group and everybody shared ideas of how they saw their involvement there. And one of the best things was the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies decided that they might do a joint program with the Chabot Space Center, because they had one of the men involved with their program had written the book on the first space exploration. And so it was fun getting the partners together to talk about maybe jointly doing programs. That was really one of the biggest outcomes of that luncheon meeting. Since then, we’ve had the partners participate in the different parties and organizations and fundraising events we have, but that was a big all-hands kind of brainstorming, serious brainstorming luncheon meeting that I think was a very good idea.
PR: That must have been incredibly fun to feel the enthusiasm and energy from everybody, I would think.
RH: It was, because I see now to keep a good idea going, you’ve got to nurture it along, and if there’s too much time in between it can just die out. And so I think it was very clever on someone’s part to say we need to have some kind of something just for these consortium partners that’s not a fundraiser and it doesn’t involve the public, but for them to come and sit down all together, we were all at a big U-shaped table, to really talk about ideas and how kind of a visioning day or visioning afternoon.
PR: Where was that held?
RH: It was actually held down at the Bentley School. They were very generous giving us their big multi-purpose room for the day.
PR: And I understand that you’re looking forward to another role also with the library being part of the Friends.
RH: Oh yes, well the Friends of the Lafayette Library are really the brains and the heart and soul behind building a new library. The Friends have, for years, I’m not sure exactly when they were founded, but all the books that are donated at the Lafayette Library that the library can’t use were given to the Friends and they had a little dingy room down at the Lafayette Community Center where they go down and volunteers for years have been down there sorting and pricing these books and then every other Saturday they have a book sale. And they sell the books for a quarter, fifty cents, a dollar. Sometimes they have special sales where you get to fill a whole grocery bag full of books for a dollar. By selling books for a quarter, a dollar at a time, they have donated to date a little over a million dollars to this library. They gave the first angel gift of $750,000 to this new library effort. And then now they’ve just given more than $250,000 to help go towards expanding the library hours. So the Friends of the Lafayette Library are not an insignificant part of this. And I think it was their idea in the very beginning that we needed years ago to be planning and thinking and saving for a new expanded library.
PR: Well, of all your involvement so far with the new library, can you pick one moment or one particular role that was the most fun for you? Was it being the leader with the consortium group or was it something else?
RH: Well, that was pretty exciting with the consortium partners because that is what’s so unique about this group. That was exciting. It was exciting last summer when we applied for a grant to send….they were going to send me and one other librarian to a training back east somewhere to learn to talk about libraries around the country. We never got the grant, but it was fun writing the grant proposal and thinking about it. And just learning about libraries around the country and really beginning to understand how absolutely unique our library and learning center is going to be. So there have been all kinds of exciting things. I mean, seeing the ground broken that day was just thrilling. Just recently the architects were here and had an event going over the plans. And to hear them talk about it and show you again what kind of fabric is going to be on the chairs and the kind of tops of the tables. All of those things that make it real for you just kind of continue to build excitement for me at least. And then I think actually thinking about being newly involved with the friends going forward, that’s going to be fun because I think the friends have a big role to play once the library is open.
PR: How many, approximately how many people belong to the Friends group now, would you say?
RH: Probably about a hundred.
PR: Oh, that many. I didn’t realize that.
RH: Paid friends, people in Lafayette. I mean, for years I sent in my little donation, but I never went to a meeting or did anything with them. So I think there’s probably 25 hardcore workers, but probably maybe even several hundred. And maybe, actually, I don’t know, maybe there are way more than that. But actively, really, really active people, probably 25 or more.
PR: With all the work that you’ve been involved in, have there been any obstacles along the way?
RH: I think when the cost of the building went up due to energy prices and the delays and things, you know, you bid, you get bids, and then nothing is going to happen for a year. By then, oh, whoops, the price is higher, and then to have to go back to the community and explain the library is going to cost more than we thought. Kind of dealing with some segments of our community’s resistance to our library makes me sad because I love it so much. How could you not love your town’s library? And even if you never go inside, there’s going to be a coffee shop there. There’s going to be a little small outside theater area and outside seating. There’s going to be sculpture gardens and, you know, public art. And there are going to be buildings you could just rent for your garden club or your book club. So you never even have to go into the library to still take advantage of this wonderful building that’s going to be right in the heart of Lafayette. So it’s hard for me to understand how anybody could be resistant. But it’s funny, there are still people who think, oh, who needs this?
PR: Okay, Robin, what I’d like to know now is as you think about all these people you’ve met working with the library, are there any particular personalities that stand out that you think made exceptional contributions?
RH: Well, I know Anne Grodin, who’s been our Mayor and done so much for the whole Contra Costa community, has had a lot to do with getting this all going and contributes of her time and her treasure to make this happen. And it’s been fun to get to work with her. I’ve loved getting to know Linda Peterson, who’s the head of the Communications Committee.I mean, that woman is an incredible wordsmith, but a wonderful writer and brainstormer, but so funny and so much fun. She makes our meetings a delight. And Ruth Bailey is just, again, a wordsmith, is putting it lightly. She can make a pun or a joke or a funny turn of phrase. On the day of groundbreaking, we didn’t know what to call that day, and I think she’s the one that came up with called Dig It. And then we just had a big bulldozer on the invitation to come to the groundbreaking. And Ann Meredith, who’s the, I forget what she’s called, but she works for the City, and really this project falls under her, is an incredible artist. And so for all our postcards and invitations, she will draw half of the invitations. You think they’re done by a professional artist, but she has drawn them, and it’s just incredible. So it’s just on and on, these people we call the czarinas, anyone who takes, who’s in charge of any one of these fundraising events, more just keep popping up every time. I mean, this town is just loaded, loaded with talent, and that is really part of the fun of being involved.
PR: I think we can probably guess the answer to this, but what values did this contribution on your part touch for you that you hold dear? What are the particular values that came into play?
RH: Well, I think it’s important to give back to your community if you pick a place to live that you think is wonderful. What makes it wonderful? It’s the people, and the people who share and give time to it. I think that’s really important, and I think something my mother said to all of us when we were young, I mean, we need to do something nice for other people every day, and I think being involved with a big community project helps you feel that you’re doing something towards that end of giving back and, you know, I mean, and then of course selfishly I’m going to enjoy it myself, I and my family and all of that, I think giving is actually just so much more wonderful than the receiving part. You just get so much out of giving anything you can give. And, you know, there’s many a meeting I just sit there and nod or kind of say, uh-huh. So it’s not that I’ve made personally such a contribution, but being there, being a part of it, being part of the enthusiasm and all of that just feels wonderful.
PR: Is there anything beyond that that you would add when you hear the question why do you think the citizens of Lafayette have responded so enthusiastically to this new project?
RH: Well, I think people, this is a pretty enlightened community, and I think people like things that are cutting edge and new and wonderful and intellectual, and not just intellectual, intellectually challenging, and the fact that there’s going to be this learning center with the library, what can go on there, I think it’s just unlimited. I haven’t begun to think about the kinds of things that can go on there, the science classes. I mean, I’m fully expecting to go down and take a class on dissecting a frog myself. I loved that in high school, and I’d love to dissect one more frog in my life. And, you know, it’s unlimited the kinds of opportunities and wonderful things that will go on there. And I think that’s something that this community has embraced that concept of, wow, we are at the beginning of something incredibly wonderful that who knows where it will take us. And this is a building and a library and a learning center for the future. It’s not one that’s going to be outmoded a few years after it’s built.
PR: If you could wave a magic wand, what outcome do you hope most for the new library?
RH: I hope it’s finished on time so we can all get down there and celebrate its opening and start using it. And I hope that all kinds of other people that weren’t involved in the beginning begin to see the joy of it and come use it or sit in the sun and have their coffee there or walk by and just look in the glass window at Old Betsy, the fire truck, or whatever. But just begin to embrace it as really the heart of Lafayette and the most important public private joint project in our City’s history.
PR: You know, it’s been said that the internet would kill the printed word and libraries would become obsolete. How do you, and I think you’ve touched on this already, but how do you think that our new library will avoid such a fate?
RH: That is just such a, the printed book is only going to be a tiny bit of this library. But I think statistics and studies have shown that the internet hasn’t done away with the printed book. There are more book clubs than ever. Bookstores are doing well. Maybe the little independent ones struggle against the great big ones, but people are buying books like never before. You know, they’re all the books that are fun to just look at. Look at the pictures, look at the pages, look at the binding. All of that is wonderful. So I don’t think children love to come in and just, I know when my grandchildren are visiting, we come and check out 25 books every week. And, you know, that’s, you can’t be buying those every week, and we take them back and get the next batch. I think books will always be loved and used, at least in the foreseeable future. But again, what’s incredible about this library is all the other things they’ll have there, all the technology, all the fancy stuff. It’ll all be wired for everything you can imagine, and even the things you can’t imagine.
PR: So do you see then that this library is going to better serve and enhance our sense of community?
RH: Absolutely. I think in closing, I’d like to say that that is what this is about. This library and learning center will appeal to all ages, all kinds of people, from every background, any kind of interest. It will be a wonderful place to read, to think, to learn, to daydream. It will be something for everybody, and I just can’t imagine that it won’t be just phenomenally successful.
PR: Well, thank you, Robin, for the interview, and thank you also for your magnificent contribution to this new project of ours.
RH: Thank you.
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