LAKEWOOD RANCH, Fla. — The new state-of-the-art Lakewood Ranch library is set to open on Friday.
The library is located at 16410 Rangeland Pkwy. near the Premier Sports Campus.
Ahead of the grand opening ceremony, 10 Tampa Bay got a sneak peek inside the building.
The 25,00 square feet modern design building comes with a drive-through for drop-off and pick-up and several cutting-edge amenities. It also includes three meeting rooms, a teen's room and an ample lounging area for leisure reading, learning and community engagement.
The long-anticipated addition to the Lakewood Ranch community will house nearly 45,000 books and comes with hi-tech features like radio-frequency ID tags replacing barcodes.
According to county officials, this would be the first library capital project built in the 21st century. The facility cost the county about $17.6 million.
The new library is opening just as Manatee County commissioners voted to cut ties with the American Library Association.
In a 6-0 vote Tuesday, members of the Manatee County Commission decided to end the county's membership to the ALA. The action, according to the commissioners, was taken over a 2022 online post made by the nonprofit's president in which she affirmed her identity as a lesbian and a Marxist when celebrating her appointment to the position.
Among other statements, Emily Drabinski, in a now-deleted April 2022 tweet after her election, wrote, "I just cannot believe that a Marxist lesbian who believes that collective power is possible to build and can be wielded for a better world is the president-elect of @ALALibrary. I am so excited for what we will do together. Solidarity!"
The statement drew the ire of conservatives who scrutinized the organization's library bill of rights which does not support age restrictions on children accessing books. The issue spurred some local governments to cut ties with the organization.
"The county doesn't agree with some of the things that the leader of our association was saying," said Ray Turner, a Manatee County commissioner.
Manatee County now joins Sarasota County and several other Florida counties like Collier, Lee and Charlotte to part ways with ALA, which is the country's oldest library association having been founded 150 years ago.
Commissioners cited "woke ideology" and indoctrination as the chief reasons to cut ties.
"She's made very clear that she's a Marxist and believes that libraries are the place to push that political ideology and here in Manatee County, we believe that taxpayer dollars really should not be spent to push those kinds of ideologies," said Amanda Ballard, a Manatee County commissioner.
"We don't want an indoctrination of a certain thought process but I don't think we can assume that everybody is that susceptible," Turner said.
However, local advocates argued that the ALA and local libraries are targets of a systematic attempt to discredit and dismantle long-standing institutions across the country.
"That is fear-mongering and I think it is turning it into an us versus them and it doesn't need to be," said Shannon Keever, who works with Women's Voices of SWFL. "There's no evidence to support that claim that indoctrination is going on with these highly educated professionals."
For library professionals and staff membership to the ALA provides training, product discounts and networking for career advancements.
The ALA membership, which costs the county just around $2,500, will expire in May and not be renewed.
"If you want to learn about Marxism, the library is the place for you," said Tiffany Mautino, the branch supervisor of Lakewood Ranch Library. "If you want to learn about any other types of thought culture religion, the library is the place for that."
Librarians say it's their job to make cataloged books publicly accessible when requested.
"We are not here to judge information," Mautino said. "We're not here to judge anyone for whatever they are asking for. We are simply here to help them find what they're looking for."
There are no indications yet that this move would have any direct impact on the library goers. Manatee County has a library board that oversees and makes recommendations related to the libraries. The supervisor of the county's libraries had recommended putting the matter to the library board before a decision would be made.
In the absence of an ALA membership, library officials say they will continue working with the Florida Library Association and the resources they provide.