Balboa

The Balboa branch library is located just off of Balboa Avenue in the Clairemont neighborhood. According to the San Diego Save Our Heritage Organization (SOHO), Clairemont as it stands today was developed in the mid 1950s and fulfilled its design to be one of the biggest postwar planned communities in the United States. The region's suburban sprawl greatly extended the reach of San Diego's boundaries, and with the development of new homes and communities came the building of public facilities such as schools and libraries. The neighborhood is expansive and contains three different SDPL libraries. The Balboa branch, opened in 1971, is the newest of the three.

The library is named for a major road in the vicinity; it's located right off of Balboa avenue, busy road connecting the 5 and 15 freeways with miles of restaurants and large shopping centers. However, the library and its location are surprisingly quiet considering the level of traffic that always seems to surge on Balboa avenue, and it is set in a largely residential area in the eastern section of Clairemont.

The Balboa branch is among the smaller branches of the system, sizing up at around 5,000 square feet. It has the typical layout of an older community branch: a building of one main room comprising of the front desk/reception area, computers, tables, stacks, and children's section. A unique aspect of the layout of the library is the seating built into the windowsills behind the nonfiction stacks, which provides little nooks for reading away from the in and out traffic of the entrance but also in an area full of natural light. Considering its age, the library is also very clean and well organized.