Friends has started a new campaign called Voices Unite, to share and celebrate our unique community of librarians, library workers and patrons. In all of our content, including our new Library Friends podcast, we are posting interviews with these changemakers in our community. These intimate conversations give you a chance to learn more about the extraordinary people you used to pass by at the Library before the shelter-in-place order.

In May 2020, we interviewed Librarian turned Disaster Service Worker, Alan Wong. We also spoke with Daniel Matsumoto, an eResources Librarian at SFPL, about how the Library’s online services are adapting to the influx of traffic. Another can’t-miss conversation is an interview with historian and advocate Peter Booth Wiley on how the Library’s past can help us understand this turbulent new present, and how we can prepare for the future.

The Coronavirus pandemic has been hard on everyone, but from quarantine, librarians have taken the opportunity to innovate and engage with the public in free and accessible ways. These library workers are continuing the Library’s mission of free access to all, and Friends is here to provide additional financial support for technology, equipment and services to help tell this important story of public service.

Subscribe to the Library Friends Podcast and hear these stories: ​

• How Librarians are keeping in contact with their regular patrons
• How Librarians are documenting history in real-time
• How library workers are keeping the Library branches safe, clean and ready for patrons once shelter-in-place is lifted
• How authors and journalists are utilizing the Library’s online services
• How Librarians are helping to feed the community
• How Librarians are on the front lines of the City’s contact tracing efforts To subscribe to the Library Friends Podcast and listen to the Voices Unite interviews, go 

I wanted to share with you the SFPL's official statement on the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, as well as the devastating impact of COVID-19 on people of color, especially African Americans. This statement was crafted by the SFPL Racial Equity Committee and Commission President Dr. Mary Wardell Ghirarduzzi, and makes clear that the Library stands with the Black Lives Matter movement and supports all efforts to end the systemic racism and inequality in our communities. 

Friends of the San Francisco Public Library stands with the Library in its response and by our work for equitable access to resources and opportunity without racial and economic barriers. The library is the only institution that provides all of its resources - material, virtual, and human – free for everyone. It is the foundation of our democracy and embodies the call from communities around the world to embrace, nurture, and empower those who have the least and those who suffer the most from discrimination. Your dedicated support keeps our Library strong as a vital institution of justice and fairness.  


Marie Ciepiela,
Executive Director