What you can find at the Southeast Austin Community Branch:
- Access to over 58,000 books, magazines, recorded books, DVDs, and music CDs
- Public Internet computers and wireless access
- Meeting room space for public use
- Connected Youth Center, Teen Learning Center
- English as a Second Language (ESL) classes
- Collection in Spanish
- Talk Time, English conversation program
- Adult Book Club
About the Southeast Austin Community Branch
Although the Southeast Austin Community Library officially opened its doors to the public on February 28, 1998, it truly got its start back in the early 1990s.
It was at this time that area residents began working together to revitalize their community, which had seen a decline in living quality since the mid-80s. A grassroots community organization called SCAN (Southeast Corner of Austin Neighborhoods) was formed in 1993 to lobby City Hall for a number of much-needed services, including a library.
These lobbying efforts, combined with steps taken by area activists, the Austin Public Library Commission, and the Austin Planning Commission, brought about the opening of a temporary library “room” in the Dove Springs Recreation Center in 1993. While this temporary Library quickly became a vital part of the Center’s activities, citizens continued to work toward their dream of a community library that they could call their own. That dream finally began to materialize on the drizzly (but momentous) morning of November 23, 1996, when ground was officially broken on the Southeast Community Branch Library!
“I am overwhelmed by what people with a purpose can do,” says Emma Hanna, one of the Library’s primary activists. “We stuck with it and saw it through. I look on that Library as a part of my legacy. Some day my daughter or granddaughter will look on the Library with pride that I helped get it.”
