Library officials redesigned branches in Fairfax, where residents wanted a Spanish design instead of an Art Deco one, and in Pico-Union, where residents rejected a modern design in favor of a classic one.
In Lakeview Terrace, the library added hitching posts to a new branch to accommodate patrons on horseback.
In Echo Park, where the new Edendale branch covered a mural on an adjacent building, the library found the muralist who painted it and commissioned him to paint a mural inside the library depicting the neighborhood's past.
Today, as the building program winds down, there are 16 renovated branches and 47 new ones either completed or in development, including five new ones funded with money saved during construction.
When the last new library opens, Los Angeles will have 72 branches, nine more than the city had when the building began.
To be sure, some grumble that the new libraries have lost their focus as books become just one reason for patrons to visit.
But the renewed popularity of the branch libraries has astounded even librarians. Since 1995, when library circulation dipped below where it had been a decade earlier, circulation has shot up about four times faster than the national rate.
"It has served as a model of how a community can come together and reinvigorate its library system, neighborhood by neighborhood," said Clara Bohrer, immediate past president of the national Public Library Assn.
In Los Angeles, the new branch libraries are also doing something more profound, reinvigorating a sense of community often lost or obscured by the chaos of the city.
That is particularly important for a place like Los Angeles, said Robert Putnam, a Harvard University sociologist whose 2000 book "Bowling Alone" chronicled how the decline of civic institutions, including bowling leagues, has eroded the safety and health of many communities.
"The central challenge for America in general is to develop structures and institutions in which all of us feel connected," Putnam said. "Los Angeles is one of the cities facing the biggest challenges."
Putnam said the diversity of Los Angeles on top of its long commutes and suburban sprawl make the immensity of the challenge unlike almost any other city's.
But there are signs in the city's archipelago of neighborhoods that the branch libraries are helping to stitch together communities stressed by immigration, gentrification and other forces.
