THOUSAND OAKS : New Gift Shop to Help Fund Library
Thousand Oaks officials who opened a new gift shop at a city library last week are hoping to get patrons to open their wallets as well as their books.
The gift shop in the Thousand Oaks Library on Janss Road was officially opened by city officials and representatives of the Thousand Oaks Library Foundation.
“It’s the only gift shop located in a library in the county,” said city library services director Marvin Smith. “This is a pioneering activity. It’s an experiment.”
The store will be run by the library foundation, which has been looking for a new way to subsidize the costs of running the city’s two municipal libraries. In October, Thousand Oaks began requiring non-residents to pay a $55 annual fee to check out books.
Smith said foundation officials do not know how much the store will generate for the library in the first year. But a consultant has estimated that a gift shop could bring in $30,000 to $40,000 a year. All the proceeds will go to the library.
Store manager Pam Pejsa, who used to run a museum store in San Diego, said she selected the store’s merchandise based on her experience in running shops housed in natural history museums. Many of the items encourage reading and learning.
“They wanted museum-quality merchandise, but things that relate to the library,” she said.
Shelves are stocked with T-shirts, jewelry, arts and crafts from Mexico, France and the Soviet Union, stationery and, of course, books.
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