Patricia Baum

Palapa Children’s Library (Biblioteca Infantil de la Palapa)

Director, Patricia Baum, Community and Children’s Bilingual Libraries
Email:BEP@palapasociety.org

Patricia “Paty” Baum was born in Lansing, Michigan, where her father taught literature at Michigan State University. In 1962, he accepted a teaching position at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon. Books were the central focus of the Baum household. She pursued a BA in film production at San Francisco State and an MEA from University of Guadalajara. In 1999, with 500 books from her father’s library, she founded what is now the Biblioteca Elena Poniatowska.

During her 26 years in Todos Santos and Pescadero, she co-founded and participated in many community-based projects including: spay and neuter clinics, making Playa Los Cerritos car-free, beach and arroyo clean-ups, the first community recycling program, three sea turtle groups, two libraries, a bi-lingual school, a ten-year stint with her Future Biologist’s field learning, ocean safety program in Pescadero, and several films with the Escuela de Cine Leonard Perel. Paty stepped in as Director in 2022 teeming with new ideas, with a focus on increasing outreach and accessibility to the local Spanish-speaking community.