On a weekday afternoon last fall — it might have been a Wednesday in November — five San Diego city officials visited the venerable little library in Ocean Beach. What the heck was up with that, you might be wondering? I’ll tell you.

The folks from downtown were met by a group of locals including library staff, several Friends of the OB Library and representatives of the Ocean Beach MainStreet Association, Woman’s Club, Community Foundation, Community Development Corp. and Historical Society. We all sat in a circle around the rug in the children’s section on those little chairs to hear a heartwarming rendition of “Go Dog Go!”

OK, I made up that last part, but it was almost that exciting.

The good news was being revealed to the Ocean Beach community that the OB Library expansion project was finally being fully funded. The long-languishing project is a go, and if that isn’t a good excuse for a crazy dog party, I don’t know what is.

But shhh, keep it down, OK? Four months later, we are sitting in the same children’s section, trying to channel some of the library’s special ambience. If these walls could talk, as the saying goes.

But the Ocean Beach Library did not get its start on this busy corner of Sunset Cliffs Boulevard and Santa Monica Avenue. The library began way back in March 1916 in a small space in the Sutliffe Building on Abbott Street. The little place was one room between a chop suey joint and the jail — true story — and right across the street from OB’s merry-go-round, the Hippodrome.

Calliope music blared from the merry-go-round almost continuously during the little library’s business hours, so it was not the quietest of reading rooms. But the cacophony was no impediment to the beach library’s popularity or its circulation. And that issue lasted for only a dozen years.

According to longtime Ocean Beach librarian Margaret Rankin, the genesis of the library occurred “through community efforts sponsored by Miss Kate Spani, principal of Ocean Beach Elementary School, and members of the library committee. A fund of $200 was raised at a mass meeting. The rent for the store building was donated by the owner, except for $5 per month.”

Spani observed, “So far away from the city and with no school library then, how the children did enjoy those books!”

“It was friendship that created that library,” Laura Dennison of Friends of the OB Library told me. “The same women who would become the OB Woman’s Club came up with the five bucks a month to rent that space. They got their husbands to build the bookcases and tables that went into that room. It was a concerted effort by a group of friends.”

By 1919, the independent Ocean Beach Library became part of the San Diego Public Library, Rankin began her long tenure as the beach town’s librarian, and the people of OB transferred the furniture and fixtures of the room to the trustees of the public library.

Early librarian Julia McGarvey wrote down some of her experiences in those first few years of the OB Library’s operation.

“Every Saturday of the summer,” she recalled, “it has been as much as two attendants could do to wait upon the stream of library patrons.”

McGarvey recorded that on Sept. 1, 1916, the branch shelved over a thousand books and had over 400 borrowers. By the same date four years later, in 1920, the little library housed over 1,700 books and had over 1,500 borrowers.

Forty-eight new borrowers applied for library cards in July that year, and attendance at story hours always counted between 30 and 50 children, which McGarvey said was “as large a group as story hour at the main library.”

“The librarian and her patrons hope that larger and more quiet quarters may soon be found for the branch library,” she wrote, “which is undoubtedly a vital factor in the community education and enjoyment.”

McGarvey didn’t get her wish immediately, but in February 1928, The Beach News reported that the library board had purchased a wonderful piece of property, right in the center of the community across the street from Ocean Beach School, for a reported $2,700. Construction was to commence the following month.

Soon — on Sunday morning, Oct. 28, in fact — the San Diego Union reported “Ocean Beach opens $15,000 library featuring many new building ideas.”

“Harmonizing with the architectural style of Ocean Beach, this pleasing branch library has just been completed in the seashore home district of the city,” the Union declared.

The award-winning design of the library building, described as “Spanish-Monterey style,” was the work of architect Robert Snyder, a student of William Templeton Johnson. But what about those “new ideas”? you ask. An excellent question.

“In addition to the adult and juvenile reading rooms, a new idea in library equipment has been added, a kitchenette with gas plate, ice box and running water, providing everything for the convenience of the librarians who wish to lunch in the building.”

Not quite the Jetsons, but hey, running water.

“The two urns in front, illuminated to throw a floodlight across the entrance of the building, form another attractive feature,” the Union continued.

What a fantastic place, and we will soon return to the urns.

The Union reported that Rankin “expressed her keen delight in the new building … and thanked the Woman’s Club, the local Chamber of Commerce, the Kiwanis and the PTA, the teachers of the Ocean Beach School, the builder Thomas Thornton and all the others whose keen interest and gracious gifts made the occasion a success.”

The new library was just what the community needed. Rankin recorded that circulation for August 1928, just before the move, was slightly over 2,000 volumes. In August 1931, circulation at the new branch had more than quadrupled to 9,648.

Annual circulation exceeded 100,000 volumes for the first time in 1937, and by 1958, that figure had nearly doubled.

Rankin recalled that “we had our first children’s librarian in 1942, Mrs. Jean Briskey,” and “in the early days, before the war, many Canadians came down to San Diego and especially to Ocean Beach for the winter. In the summer, the people from Arizona and Imperial Valley came to cool off at the beach. Both of these groups enjoyed the privilege of the library since they had a great deal of leisure time.”

The librarian recalled that following World War II, borrowers became more interested in topics such as home improvements, landscaping, gardening and interior decorating.

“Since times are improved, many of our patrons are traveling to faraway places, so we have built up a very interesting travel section,” she said.

Writing on the occasion of her retirement in November 1959 after 40 years as OB’s librarian, Rankin observed that “the branch has grown to such an extent that it became necessary to divide the load to better serve the community.”

On Oct. 26, 1959, the new Point Loma branch was dedicated, just 31 years and one day after the Ocean Beach branch.

“Notice the inflation!” Rankin continued. “The new Point Loma building cost $95,000 and the Ocean Beach branch was $15,000. I think the $15,000 included the furnishings as well.”

What would Rankin have thought of the current expansion sticker price of nearly $13 million?

The tiny library was expanded once previously. What is referred to as the children’s addition — to the Santa Monica side of the L-shaped building — happened way back in 1961, which is why most of us don’t remember the library being even smaller than it is now.

In June 1993, the Ocean Beach branch celebrated its 65th anniversary at the current location, with the replacement and rededication of the 1928 urns that stand on either side of the library entrance. These are not your grandfather’s urns, however. The original urns, which had been damaged, were replaced by similar but larger vessels containing time capsules.

If you like the big beautiful urns, you can thank Ocean Beach Merchants Association member and local real estate broker Mike Akey. He found the inspiration for the urns in the work of early 20th-century American painter and illustrator Maxfield Parrish.

“The original urns were from 1928,” he told me. “And I thought these beautiful urns by Parrish were period-appropriate.”

Akey also is responsible for the time capsules. At the time, he considered it a “wonderful opportunity for the whole community to be part of history.”

Then-Ocean Beach branch librarian Heather Reed told The Daily Aztec , “We’re trying to include things that would reflect how life is in 1993 in Ocean Beach.”

The time capsules in the urns won’t be opened until 2044.

In 2002, the OB Library was designated by the city of San Diego as a historic landmark.

In 2005, in anticipation of a potential library expansion, the little office building between the library and the post office, known as the Gee Building, was purchased for approximately $2 million using funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for “cultural and/or educational purposes benefiting the community.” Perfect.

But this acquisition and the obvious need did not stop city fathers from moving to close the OB Library in 2007. The community rallied in support of the Ocean Beach icon and the library was saved and stayed open.

In 2012, the library’s 50-year-old carpet and leaky roof were both replaced.

The current expansion plan calls for “an expanded book collection area, a community meeting room, study room, office space, makers space for computers/arts and crafts and a teen room, storage rooms, outdoor gathering area and two restrooms.”

Ocean Beach branch manager Christy Rickey Meister told me the library staff is “very excited about the pending expansion.”

“As far as we know, we are on track to start construction next year, summer 2026,” she said. “Of course, we are really looking forward to having more space.”

Project time frame estimates range between 18 months and two years. Meister said the library will try to stay open as long as possible while the Gee Building is being torn down, for example. Library staff and Friends are on the lookout for some kind of space in OB where they could continue at least partial library services during construction, so now you are on the lookout, too.

I am sorry to report that “And to Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street” is no longer available at the Ocean Beach branch. We need more shelf space. If you were looking for “Hop on Pop,” on the other hand, you’re good. Two copies are available in OB as of this writing.

As you might imagine, “Go Dog Go!” is a trickier proposition. Not carried at OB currently. There is a copy at the Point Loma branch, but it was checked out as of this writing. So it looks like you might be in for a road trip to Tierrasanta.