The Library as Cultural Center : The arts: Library director Jose Aponte believes that concerts and music classes can be as much a part of the scene as books.

From a doorway marked La Sala, a standing-room-only crowd had formed a line reaching to the street. They had come to hear Peruvian guitarist Ciro Hurtado perform at the San Juan Capistrano Regional Library. Many were worried that they might not get a seat in the small, intimate auditorium.

“I’m glad to see this happening here,” said Cheryl Johnson, who drove from Los Angeles for the occasion. “People turn out because you certainly aren’t going to see him on MTV.”

“Don’t worry,” library director Jose Aponte told the group assembled for the 7:30 p.m. performance, repeating his message in English and Spanish. “If you don’t get a seat, there will be another performance at 9:30.”

Most libraries are locked up tight on Saturday night. But since Aponte took over as director of the San Juan Capistrano library about a year ago, it is not unusual to find music or dance groups performing there on weekends in La Sala (Spanish for living room), the library’s 180-seat community room.

“I don’t think a library should be just a warehouse for books,” said Aponte, who is 40. “Libraries should provide a smorgasbord of culture for the community. That means more than just books. It means music, theater and the visual arts too.”

“I want people to see firsthand that all cultures dance and sing and celebrate life in much the same way. I see the librarian’s role as a facilitator and a bridge builder, someone who nurtures local artists.”

Aponte, who is of Puerto Rican ancestry, grew up in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of the South Bronx in New York City. Instead of hanging out on the streets, he spent his after-school hours at the local library, where his mother was a librarian, he said. His first job, as teen-ager, was reading stories to children.

“For me, the library was essential to achieving self-esteem. I learned all about the great Latin American writers and artists,” he said.

Recently, Aponte was visited by Mexican author Carlos Fuentes, who selected Mission San Juan Capistrano for inclusion in “The Buried Mirror,” his forthcoming documentary for PBS on 500 years of Spanish influence in the Americas.

In essence, Aponte has created a cultural arts center. He has brought in an African storyteller, a Mexican fiber artist, an Irish folk group, a Latino and Persian guitar duo and a series of Latin American music and dance performances. For next year, he has already scheduled a Pacific Rim writers’ festival, and he plans to continue the popular concert series.

The concerts, funded by the Friends of the Library, are free, but donations are accepted at the door.

A portion of the money is used to pay for other projects such as Arte y Cultura, a Latin American arts journal to be published soon by expatriate Colombian writer Esteban Pinella, who now lives in Mission Viejo.

Pinella’s brother Hernan, and Manuel Yanez have teamed up for a program that teaches children from the neighborhood across the street from the library to play Andean folk music. Aponte helped the two musicians get a $5,400 California Arts Council grant for the project. The local Rotary Club also donated money for the project that Yanez recently used for a trip to the mountains of Bolivia buy the necessary handmade instruments.

“The music classes are open to all ages, but this is mostly a youth-outreach program. We wanted to do something to get the neighborhood kids involved, so we started an after-school arts program,” Aponte said as he pointed to a child’s drawing exhibited in a glass case. “This one was done by one of the neighborhood tough guys,” he said. “Isn’t it better to see his name here than in the newspaper later on for committing some crime?”

Aponte, a triathlete who maintains a rigorous training schedule, serves on numerous community service boards and considers his after-hours work as important as his job.

“The number of Latino leaders is minimal, so I feel an obligation to be a role model and to give something back,” he said.

Aponte coaches youth soccer and is a member of the San Juan Community Task Force. He also is an adviser to the Saddleback College minority student group and is active in Reforma, a nationwide organization of Latino librarians.

“Most of what we’ve been able to accomplish at the library comes from knowing how to utilize all the people and resources in the community,” Aponte said. “And you have to get out of your office to make those contacts. It’s something I learned in college.”

Aponte attended Bard College in Upstate New York, where he was a theater major. “It’s a small, experimental school with about 700 students,” he said. “They had us out in the community as a part of our course work. We worked in food co-ops and recycling centers.”

After he completed graduate work in library science at the University of Arizona, Aponte became a librarian in Tucson, where he met his wife, Cynthia, a muralist. After nine years there, he went to the Eastside Library in Santa Barbara to become its director of ethnic services, a job he held for three years. Rather than seek a job in a larger cultural center such as Los Angeles or San Francisco, he decided to take the San Juan Capistrano position because he liked the city and the people. “South County is also a great place for my athletic training, and I like working in this building,” he said of the $1.8-million structure designed by postmodernist architect Michael Graves. “It’s a very creative environment.”

Aponte repeatedly credits the success of his programs to his staff and to the library’s 375-member Friends group, which bought a sound system for La Sala and is now raising money to put in a stage. “It helps to have everyone behind you,” he said. “There are literally hundreds of people working to bring all of this off.”

According to longtime Friends member Molly Burke, Aponte came along at a time when the library was ready to move into a new phase of development. “Just a few years ago, the library was just a little storefront operation. . . . Jose is perfect to move it into its next phase. He’s assessing how it can best serve the local community.”

San Juan Elementary School Principal Michael Hoy said Aponte’s staff has made the library an inviting place for children to come after school. “We have a lot of latchkey kids who live in crowded conditions and need a quiet place to study. They’ve made them feel welcome there,” Hoy said.

Ron Rodriguez, a librarian at the Chicano Resource Center at Cal State Fullerton, said Aponte serves as a much-needed role model. “It’s hard to recruit Latino males into the library profession,” Rodriguez said. “Judging by the standing-room only crowds at the concerts, I’d say he’s hit a nerve. He’s opened up a whole new possibility for libraries and for people who wouldn’t ordinarily use them.”