One for the Books : The New Head of L.A.’s Library System Focuses On Multiethnic Communities : GARRY ABRAMS

Pretend that it’s 300 or 400 years in the future. Faster than a Medfly in search of an orange grove, Earthlings in super-duper spaceships are zipping around the universe, discovering and exploring new worlds.

This is fine with Elizabeth Martinez Smith. Up to a point.

But, she often wonders, where are the Latinos, where are the Vietnamese, where are all the thousand tribes of humankind in many of these popular science fiction scenarios?

“Didn’t we make it (to the future)?” the librarian asks rhetorically and with a chuckle, noting that minorities often are in short supply on the imaginary paths between the stars.

Martinez Smith’s joking observation, made offhandedly at the end of an interview, offers a glimpse into the serious professional concerns of the woman who soon will head Los Angeles’ library system, which sprawls like the city it serves--63 branches and an annual budget of $35 million. As the first Latino to lead the system, Martinez Smith says she will bring to the job a concern for delivering library services to all of the city’s multiethnic communities--an interest that has characterized her career since its beginning in the mid-1960s.

And Martinez Smith, currently chief librarian of Orange County’s 27-branch system, is definitely not joking when she asserts that the library is the neutral turf of the modern city, a sanctuary for the mind that is also common ground for everyone no matter what the differences.

“We have to understand each other and libraries are a very good, non-threatening general institution that can do that,” she explains. “In fact we’re the only public institution that works with all ages, all people, and can tackle all issues, all points of view, all subjects.”

Martinez Smith’s appointment was announced by Mayor Tom Bradley and Library Commission President Martha Katsufrakis last week. The announcement brought a string of flower deliveries from well-wishers to Martinez Smith’s office in the city of Orange.

But while the appointment left Martinez Smith basking in congratulations, across the country in Westchester County, N.Y., it left Maurice J. Freedman stunned.

Freedman, head of that county’s library system, contends that he was offered the job on March 29 after a lengthy interview process and that, in a telephone conversation with Katsufrakis on April 2, he accepted the position.

In a chronology drafted by Freedman and furnished to The Times, he writes that the next day he was called by a city personnel officer and told “that the appointment was no longer definite.” On April 13, Freedman said he was informed that the Library Commission had made another choice.

“I was offered that job . . . and I was first choice,” Freedman said Tuesday in a telephone interview.

Katsufrakis disagreed, saying that Freedman was among six finalists interviewed for the post but had never been formally offered the position.

“We had discussions (with Freedman) but we determined we would hire someone else,” Katsufrakis said. “Oh, I think he had hopes and he was just disappointed.”

Meanwhile, Freedman said he has taken his side of the matter to the Library Journal, a trade publication for librarians, as well as The Times and the union representing library employees.

Whatever the outcome of the dispute, both Freedman and Martinez Smith independently singled out upgrading of branch libraries as a need for the city’s system.

It turns out that a RAND Corp. study of a few years ago discovered that libraries do occupy a societal niche.

The study, she says, “found that libraries have a positive image and that people want them and support them even if they don’t use them. They think they’re part of a civilized, democratic society. They represent learning and knowledge. And I add cultural understanding to that.”

A library, Martinez Smith says, is a “sort of gateway” to other institutions and communities. By working not only with traditional clients such as schools but inviting ethnic dance groups to perform for children, a library can promote tolerance and understanding, she believes. Moreover, a head librarian has the power to quicken the tempo of these interchanges.

“Those things happen through the direction of a head librarian,” she says. “If the institution is looking for those kind of relationships and services then they happen. Libraries aren’t isolated anymore.”

About a year ago, she says, the Orange County system set aside meeting rooms in some of its branches for children of working parents who were spending after-school hours in the libraries. A staffer is on hand to supervise and help with homework.

“Kids can come in and they can study, they can talk, they don’t have to be real quiet,” she explains. “We’re always saying we wanted kids to come to the library. Well, here they are.”

Studies have shown, Martinez Smith says, that people learn about library services mainly through word-of-mouth. Therefore, it’s especially important to establish ties with community leaders who have the ears of many.

In Orange County, Smith says, multiethnic efforts include training of key staff members in multicultural issues, publicizing library events in a variety of languages and maintaining a list of foreign language fluency among the library’s employees so that few potential card holders are turned away because of a language barrier.

Martinez Smith, who grew up in Pomona and lives in Upland with her husband and two teen-agers, says the library has become the meeting ground for her personal and professional goals.

“I have a personal goal of furthering understanding among people,” she says. “If we don’t understand each other we’re going to have problems and it can range from chaos to worse. And libraries can play a role in that. Libraries after all are information about ourselves. What we’ve done in the past, and what we do now and what we can do in the future.”

Clearly there is some room for improvement in public library use in Los Angeles where only about 20% of the population holds library cards. In contrast, 58% of the population served by Orange County’s system holds library cards.

On the other hand, the Los Angeles public library is embarking on an era of major expansion and improvement. A recently passed $53.4-million bond issue will pay for three new branches in the San Fernando Valley and expansion, renovation or relocation of more than 20 other branches, according to a library spokesman. That doesn’t include the $187-million expansion and renovation of the Central Library in downtown Los Angeles, gutted by arson in 1986.

Martinez Smith’s career spans what she says has been a time of slow change in the role of public libraries that traditionally “served white, middle-class, (or) upper-income people.”

Noting that she was the first Mexican-American librarian in California, Martinez Smith says she expects in the next five years to see dramatic increases in the numbers of minorities working in public libraries.

“It’s not an easy subject to talk about, racism or prejudice in the profession, but it’s there and you have to address it to make sure we keep going forward,” she says.

Martinez Smith, who began her career in the Los Angeles County library system, believes that public buildings make a statement to the people they serve.

“I spent many years working in East L.A. and South Central many years ago,” she says. “I believe that public facilities should reflect not just the community but the government also. One of my pet fetishes I guess is that facilities have to be clean and air-conditioned and properly maintained and all of that. Otherwise it’s as if we’re saying the community doesn’t deserve it. Or sorry we don’t have enough money to give you carpet. Those should be standard. I know it’s a drain on resources but its a basic necessity. We’ve maintained it here and I expect to do it there (in Los Angeles) too.”

In a less serious vein, Martinez Smith says that she recently has learned to lighten up her own reading habits. She has developed a liking for mystery novels, she says, particularly those of Agatha Christie and has read 32 of the English writer’s books over the last year.

But though she reads widely, Martinez Smith says she has yet to encounter the female character of her dreams. “I want to read this novel about this beautiful, intelligent, wealthy Mexican woman who dazzles the world and controls it with money and influence,” she says. “We don’t have those roles in books.”