Oak Lawn Library Friends cut the ribbon this morning (Friday, Sept. 18) on the new murals recently completed at the Oak Lawn Branch of the Dallas Public Library.
The mural, painted across the building’s exterior pillars facing the parking lot on the side and back of the building, highlight support for the Oak Lawn branch which houses one of the country’s largest special collections of LGBTQ+ materials. It is also one of the library’s most heavily utilized branches but, nevertheless, has been on the chopping block and in danger of being closed due to the city’s predicted budget shortfalls.
City officials, however, recently confirmed that the Oak Lawn Branch Library will remain open.
City library officials previously proposed closing the Oak Lawn Branch Library inn addition to the Renner Frankford, Arcadia Park and Skyline branches as part of a regional service model. But — after intense pushback from the community — in a vote on Wednesday night, Sept. 16, the council voted to restore $3.1 million to the budget, tapping into an information technology fund to prevent neighborhood branch closures.
The mural is part of a donor-funded project that includes painting the library’s front entrance steps in in the colors of the rainbow. The steps were painted in June.
(Photos by Chad Mantooth/Dallas Voice)
— Tammye Nash