[3] Construction on the current Main Library began on March 15, 1993, financed by a US$109.5 million bond measure.

[5] In October 1996 author Nicholson Baker wrote a critical article in The New Yorker about the weeding of books from the library as it moved to the new building.

[6] Due to this negative publicity, the library released an official response to Nicholson's New Yorker article, criticizing his claims.

[5] There has also been criticism in the local press that the atrium significantly and deliberately reduced the amount of floor space available for shelving the library's collection which resulted in the destruction of over 200,000 books which were then buried in a landfill, gutting the research collections of one of the most important research facilities on the West Coast,[7][8] all of which occurred away from public sight or review.

Later, under intense pressure that included then Mayor Willie Brown, City Librarian Ken Dowlin whose policy it was to weed and subsequently destroy the books, was forced to resign in January 1997.