The Santa Monica Public Library (SMPL) is the public library serving residents of Santa Monica, California and surrounding areas. SMPL is directed by a City Librarian, who reports to the Santa Monica City Manager's Office and is overseen by a Library Board consisting of five members appointed by the Santa Monica City Council. Services The system consists of the Main Library, located at 601 Santa Monica Boulevard, and four branch libraries: the Fairview Branch (2101 Ocean Park Boulevard), the Montana Avenue Branch (1704 Montana Avenue), the Ocean Park Branch (2601 Main Street), and the Pico Branch (2201 Pico Boulevard). Library cards are available free of charge to California residents. Library cardholders may borrow books, magazines, compact discs, DVDs, audiobooks, ebooks and can use their cards to access research databases. Public access Internet computers are available at all locations and can be accessed by both California residents and visitors, and libraries also offer free Wi-Fi. The Main Library and Pico Branch Library have several small group study rooms available free of charge to library cardholders. Each library location has one or more community meeting rooms which can be rented for a fee. The library has an active schedule of public programs, including regular book discussion groups, computer training classes, music performances and frequent author appearances. The Santa Monica Reads program and Green Prize for Sustainable Literature are two of the Library's most prominent recurring programs. The Youth Services Department maintains a full roster of storytimes, special events, and a popular annual summer reading program. The Main Library's Santa Monica Collection Room contains publications relating to the Santa Monica Bay region. The website Imagine Santa Monica contains the library's collections of digitized historical assets, including thousands of scanned photographs, historic postcards, maps, early editions of the Santa Monica Outlook newspaper and a selective newspaper index of the Outlook'''s later years. The SMPL owns a complete run of the Outlook (1875–1998) on microfilm. History Origins Santa Monica officially became a town in 1875. In 1884, a room adjoining Dr. Fred C. McKinnie's drug store was established as a reading room. The reading room was turned over to the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) in 1888. At that time, the collection of books contained 400 items, plus popular magazines and newspapers. Despite some successful fundraising events, maintaining the reading room proved challenging for the WCTU. In November 1890, the WCTU proposed to turn the