MENDOCINO CO., 8/12/26 — Just two years after it was named the best small library in America, the Round Valley library is asking its neighbors for help keeping the lights on.
The solar inverter that runs the Library Commons — the downtown building that houses Covelo’s public library — has failed, and the Friends of the Round Valley Public Library are trying to raise $6,000 to replace it. The group made the appeal on Facebook and is collecting donations at the library, at the weekly farmers market, and this weekend at the Blackberry Festival.
“The expense to keep the place cool and comfortable in these hot summer days has been in the past offset with our solar panels on the roof,” Lew Chichester, the Friends’ vice president, wrote in the appeal. “A few months ago a key component broke down, we need another one, it costs over $6000, and we are asking for your help.”
The repair falls to the Friends, not the county. The Friends of the Round Valley Public Library, a local nonprofit, bought and renovated the historic downtown building that’s now the Library Commons, and the Mendocino County Library’s Round Valley branch operates inside it. The Friends maintain the building — and they’re the ones asking the public to cover the fix.
The library inside the Commons, at 23925 Howard St., is the one Library Journal named the Best Small Library in America in 2024, an award sponsored by Ingram Library Services. The magazine cast the Round Valley branch as a community anchor — and that’s the role the Friends are trying to keep powered.
The Commons does more than lend books. The Friends use it to anchor the Blackberry Festival, the farmers market, a seed library, a documentary film series and the community radio station KYBU 96.9 FM, which is licensed to the group. All of it leans on a building that, for now, is drawing power it used to make itself.
The Friends are pairing the repair drive with a membership push. A membership costs $20 a year, and the group is signing up new “Friends” at the same booths where it’s collecting donations.
The 43rd annual Blackberry Festival runs Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 15 and 16, at the Walnut Grove on Howard Street — the Library Commons’ own address. Donations can also be made through the Friends’ website, frvpl.org, or by contacting the group at 707-456-0908.