OAKLAND FREE LIBRARY

Found this on the Free cart today. What a prize. A 1907 book on California Wildflowers, printed in San Francisco, bookplated, stamped and discarded from the Oakland Free Library. Sold once for 2 cents, once for 50 cents. Now entering my collection.

Perforated ownership marks, deterrents to thieves, grace the illustrations. OAKLAND FREE LIBRARY toothwort. OAKLAND FREE LIBRARY forget- me-not. Inside the book the date of acquisition is stamped in purple ink: Feb. 1908.



I looked up the history of the Oakland Free Library. It was founded in 1878, California's second public library (Eureka had the first). The first librarian, Ina Donna Coolbrith, was also California's first poet laureate. Browsing the Wild Flowers book what should I find but an Ina Coolbrith poem: O Land of the West! I know/ How the field-flowers bud and blow...