The Ventura County Star last week picked up the story about "a proposal" to close Wright Library, which ironically is the best utilized of Ventura's three libraries.Where did the story come from? The County Library Director sent an email to her staff outlining her thinking on the upcoming County Library budget. A staff member at Wright Library talked to a volunteer patron. The volunteer talked to someone active in the San Buenaventura Friends of the Library. That Friend of the Library called the newspaper. A reporter then began calling around to find out whether Wright was slated for closing.
Prominently quoted in the story was Ventura City staff and Deputy Mayor Bill Fulton. Casual readers could (and did) draw the conclusion that the idea originated with the City in response to the City's budget challenges.
Wrong.
The County Library system is a partnership of the member cities, funded by property tax collected in those cities and the unincorporated areas of the rest of the County. The system runs on the principle that the library services in each city are funded by the property tax collected in that jurisdiction (and the immediately surrounding unincorporated areas not served by other County library branches.)
Ventura is the only city in the system with three libraries. We have a Downtown library that was rehabiliated some years ago. It's a fine building with a dated collection of materials that gets light usage beyond the free computer terminals. We have the Wright Library on the edge of the Ventura County campus which is in a leased building scheduled to revert to the College in five years. It has the highest circulation and usage. We have the small Ventura Avenue branch that is open just 25 hours a week and serves the families of Ventura's lowest income neighborhood.
The other members of the system have allowed the County Library budget to subsidize this higher level of service by using State library funding. Unfortunately, that source is drying up -- at a time when overall property tax has peaked and is expected to dive like housing prices have done.
So the County Library system will have to make cuts. The Library Director has identified Wright Library as the most logical place to cut. Why?
Here's the case. Wright is going away anyway. It is on the campus of a college that recently built a $40 million "learning center" -- a high tech library geared to its students, but open to the general public. Foster Library Downtown is underutilized. Avenue is a dinky Library and is funded largely by Federal funds earmarked for aiding low-income neighborhoods. So the long term answer could be to build a new "state of the art" library like the new Camarillo facility. Closing Wright saves the other libraries in the system from further shaving hours and makes the most efficient use of the existing staff.
Lousy argument if you live near Wright. Wright is your local library and you don't want to get in your car and drive Downtown. You'd say, close Foster or the Avenue libraries -- or better yet, come up with an answer that leaves the library alone and "finds" the money somewhere else. And of course there are lots of fanciful ideas for doing that (one of my favorite was to cut the City's funding of the San Buenaventura Mission, which would be hard because, of course, there isn't any.)
There are some ideas being explored to mitigate a potential loss of Wright Library, such as a childrens/family branch at the Pacific View Mall and/or an expanded collection geared to serving residents at the College's "learning center" which is just a stone's throw away.
So who decides? That's a little murky. Technically, the decision rests with the County Library Commission (which can only be overruled by a 4/5ths vote of the County Board of Supervisors.) But as a key member of the County Library system, we certainly have a voice. That's why we've asked the Library Director to present her budget proposal to the City Council on January 26th.
There will be much discussion of this, starting with a 10 AM meeting of the Friends of the Library on Thursday at the Wright Library.
10 comments:
I realize the mess we are in financially both at the City, County, and State level. However, I think this is case of priorities. How do we find the $50,000 to keep a drug offender in jail for a year but can't find money for public libraries?
I go to Wright regularly and it is well utilized. In fact, you have to wait in line till the five or six people in front of you check out their books. The computers have a long wait.
There is great diversity in the library patrons - young families, minorities, senior citizens, and high schoolers.
There are few institutions left that bind people together. Libraries are one of the last ones.
Whatever happens, don't close Wright!
Time to get behind a Ventura library tax and let the people decide! If they're like Pasadenans, it will be an overwhelming "yes" (as you well know!).
What ever happened to the roving library? It was a large motor home type van that contained many popular books and people could apply for certain books that would be available the next time around. It would go from area to area on a set schedule. I am sure it was a lot less expensive than a free standing 50,000 sq ft building.
The biggest problem with relying on the Ventura College library is the cost to park ($1) for the "free" service. The college library is fantastic but it is also well used already by the students. I'd hate to see students unable to use the VC computers for research because locals are checking their e-mail. I think Chuck Thomas had some viable options in his STAR comments today.
Don't close Wright.
I will accept closing 2days per week for Wright and 2 days per week for Foster.
Thats the same math for closing Wright.
This way every one wins.
I understand the rent for Wright is $1 per year. How does the County save money by closing Wright?
sad comment that when budgets get smaller we look to cut line items like libraries - because that is going to make our community stronger (that's sarcasm). I know tough decisions are being made, but this just seems ridiculous that closing the library is the best solution.
I quoted you, Rick, on my blog and wrote about this subject in my post:
http://artpredator.wordpress.com/2009/01/24/save-bike-able-walkable-local-libraries-no-matter-how-we-broke-we-think-we-are/
I understand the city & county are experiencing great financial difficulty in our present economy. So are the citizens, everyday more and more people are loosing their jobs in our changing labor market. So many of economists are saying most these worker will need to acquire new skills if they want to find employment. How much longer will this recession last, if our citizens are unable to find new employment?
Where can these individuals go and be welcomed to do research, learn about new skills, and gain knowledge that will help enable them to find new job/career. Our libraries have always provided these services and during our present economy our libraries are needed by our citizens more than ever. This is no time to close our libraries
Libraries are an important institution in any community. Many children do not have access to books unless they are able to check them out at a Public Library. The Library at Ventura College is not "Child Friendly" for younger children (who cannot always remember to stay quiet), so it does not really fill in at a basic level for the Wright Library.
Studies have shown that over 70% of the Prison Population consists of illiterate people. I don't understand how budget cuts for education and libraries are going to make our communities safer, as more and more people fall through the cracks and have to turn to crime in order to support themselves. I think that the money saved by eliminating these programs that lead to early advances in learning for children is going to be drained tenfold when the children who don't learn to read and drop out of school and turn to a life of crime are incarcerated at the costs of hundreds of thousands (or even millions) of dollars down the road.
what is the real story?
What about Brocke's comments?
http://www.vcreporter.com/cms/story/detail/more_to_the_bear_story/7436/
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