The Other Libraries : A bibliophile’s tour of the county takes in a dozen striking collections--in addition to the recently opened Ronald Reagan presidential repository.

One day early this month, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library admitted its 100,000th visitor, adding yet another milestone to its status as the county’s newest and most-visited library. But what about its competition?

More than a dozen libraries in this area are building and displaying book, tape and document collections, most of them larger than the Reagan library’s publicly accessible holdings.

The contents of those collections run from sayings of Krishnamurti to the treatment of tertiary syphilis. The patrons of these libraries are pilots, prisoners, priests-in-training and the general public. One was designed for blind readers; another needs its oil changed regularly; 16 more are branches of the county system headquartered on Main Street in Ventura. Take 12 of the most striking collections, throw in the Reagan library, leave out most of the county’s unspecialized branch libraries, and you have a bibliophile’s tour.

THOUSAND OAKS CITY LIBRARY

1401 Janss Road, Thousand Oaks

497-6282

Background: Building opened in January, 1982. A gift shop, opened late last year and patterned after art museum stores, sells books, posters, jewelry and handicrafts. The shop is operated by a private, nonprofit foundation that raises money for library acquisitions. The city maintains a library branch in Newbury Park.

Attendance: An estimated 300,000 patrons came through the library’s door in the six months ending Dec. 31.

Collection: 260,608 books, and a special collection of scripts and other materials on the history of broadcasting.

From the stacks: Letters and scripts from the Norman Corwin archives. Corwin has been called one of the foremost writer-director-producers in radio history, and also won an Oscar nomination with his screenplay for the Kirk Douglas film “Lust for Life.”

Hours: Monday through Thursday, 10 a.m.-9 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Sunday, 1-5 p.m. Closed Friday. The gift shop usually opens with the library and closes half an hour sooner. Both are open to the public.

Fee: For Thousand Oaks residents, none. For non-residents, library cards carry a $55 annual fee.

BRAILLE INSTITUTE, SANTA BARBARA CENTER, LIBRARY

2031 De La Vina St., Santa Barbara

682-6222

Background: The library, funded through the federal Library of Congress, opened in its current location in 1981. It serves residents of Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties who are blind or have impaired eyesight, dyslexia or other physical handicaps.

Attendance: An estimated 2,000 area residents, ages 18 to 100, use the center regularly. The most faithful patrons are the 130 students of the Braille Institute.

Collection: 200-300 books on tape in-house. Using an 800 phone number, cardholders can order mailings from a central Los Angeles collection with “18 miles of talking books.” Also, Braille encyclopedias and cookbooks and recorded music and magazines.

From the stacks: Recent arrivals include “Utah Blaine,” by Louis L’Amour (Utah Blaine, “a big man with a reputation for being fast with a gun,” confronts the greedy ranchers of Red Creek) and “Beverly Hills,” by Pat Booth, a novel with a label warning of “strong language and descriptions of sex.”

Hours: Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Open to cardholders and those seeking cards.

Fee: None.

KRISHNAMURTI LIBRARY

1130 McAndrew Road, Ojai

646-4948

Background: Teacher-philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti, who first visited Ojai in 1922 and died in 1986, left his Ojai lodgings as a place for study and reflection. The library, opened in 1984, holds books, shows videotapes and includes a computerized index of Krishnamurti’s public statements. The Krishnamurti Foundation of America, a private nonprofit organization, maintains the library along with the Oak Grove School in Ojai and an archive collection.

Attendance: 50 to 100 a week, by the estimate of librarian Mary Della Torre.

Collection: 1,000 audiotapes, hundreds of videotapes and hundreds more books, all by or about Krishnamurti.

From the stacks: “Happiness does not come into being when you seek it; it is a byproduct; it comes into being when there is goodness, when there is love, when there is no ambition, when the mind is quietly seeking out what is true,” asserts Krishnamurti in “Think on These Things.” That volume, one of more than 60 that bear his name, is his biggest seller, with estimated sales of more than 500,000.

Hours: Thursday through Sunday, 1-5 p.m.; Wednesday, 1-9 p.m. Open to the public.

Fee: None. The collection doesn’t circulate, but there are books and tapes for sale.

KROTONA INSTITUTE OF THEOSOPHY LIBRARY

Krotona Hill, Ojai

646-2653

Background: Founded in 1912, the library specializes in theosophy, meditation, healing and related topics.

Attendance: About 300 patrons monthly.

Collection: 6,000 books.

From the stacks: “The Personal Aura,” by Dora Kunz, 214 pages.

Hours: Monday through Friday, 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, 1-4 p.m. Open to the public. Books circulate to Ventura and Santa Barbara county residents.

Fee: A library card costs $8 for Ojai Valley residents, $15 for other Ventura County residents.

NAVAL AIR STATION LIBRARY

U.S. Naval Air Station, Point Mugu

989-7771

Background: Founded in 1946 to serve the base population, the library is parent to the tiny branch used by the roughly 400 personnel on Navy-owned San Nicolas Island.

Attendance: The Point Mugu library checks out 3,000 books and other circulating materials monthly.

Collection: 25,000 books, with special emphasis on military history.

From the stacks: “The Life and Art of the North American Indian,” by John Warner, 168 pages.

Hours: Monday through Thursday, 9:30 a.m.-9 p.m.. Friday and Saturday, 9:30 a.m.-5 p.m.; and Sunday, 1-5 p.m. Open to active duty and retired military personnel, their families and civilian base employees.

Fee: None.

VENTURA COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY LIBRARY

100 E. Main St., upstairs, Ventura

653-0323

Background: Founded in 1913 to collect and preserve materials concerning the history of Ventura County. Located in the Ventura County Museum of History and Art.

Attendance: Librarian Charles Johnson counted 2,500 research projects completed at the library in 1991.

Collection: 5,000 books, 20,000 photographs, 40,000 negatives, 400 maps, more than 500 sets of architectural plans.

From the stacks: Port Hueneme wharf record book covering 1874-79, detailing all incoming and outgoing shipments and prices paid. The book was acquired in November, 1991, after a donor in Washington state found it in her garage.

Hours: Tuesday through Friday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Open to the public, but the collection doesn’t circulate.

Fee: None

VENTURA COUNTY LIBRARY SERVICES AGENCY BOOKMOBILE

4274 Telegraph Road, Ventura

652-6295

Background: Founded about 70 years ago, the program is billed as the first of its kind in California. The current bookmobile dates back to 1970, has more than 100,000 miles on its odometer, and because of repairs was unable to make its rounds for more than a month of last year. The library staff plans to ask the County Board of Supervisors to buy a new vehicle in the coming year (estimated cost: $250,000).

Attendance: From July 1, 1990, to June 30, 1991, the bookmobile checked out 29,530 books, magazines, tapes and other materials.

Collection: About 4,000 volumes in a rotating collection, 3,000 of which fit in the van at one time.

From the stacks: “Las Telaranas de Carlota,” a Spanish translation of E.B. White’s “Charlotte’s Web.”

Hours: Monday, 1:30-5:30 p.m., Saticoy Park; Tuesday, 1-5 p.m., Ventura at Ralston Street and Swift Avenue; Wednesday, 1-5 p.m. at Cabrillo Village; Thursday, 1:30-5:30 p.m., Saticoy Park; Friday, 2-4:30 p.m., Silver Strand at Channel Islands Harbor Park and Murre Way.

Fee: None.

VENTURA COUNTY LAW LIBRARY

800 S. Victoria Ave., in the county

Judicial Building, Ventura

654-2695

Background: Founded in 1891 to offer legal background to attorneys and others.

Attendance: In 1991, the library logged 28,223 daytime visitors (usually attorneys) and 5,232 evening visitors (usually students).

Collection: 65,136 books

From the stacks: “Handling Federal Tort Claims, Personal Injury,” a two-volume set.

Hours: Monday through Thursday, 8 a.m.-8 p.m.; Friday, 8 a.m.-6 p.m.; Saturday, 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Closed Sunday. Open to the public.

Fee: To check out a book if you’re not an attorney, there’s a refundable deposit of $200.

LILLIAN SMOLT MEMORIAL LIBRARY

Ventura County Medical Center

3291 Loma Vista Road, Ventura

652-6030

Background: Primarily serves as a resource for county physicians and other medical personnel.

Attendance: About 100 patrons per week.

Collection: 1,200 books, most of which don’t circulate.

From the stacks: “Principles of Internal Medicine,” 2,208 pages.

Hours: Monday through Friday, 9 a.m.-3 p.m. For use of medical personnel only.

Fee: Amounts vary.

CALIFORNIA YOUTH AUTHORITY, VENTURA SCHOOL LIBRARY

3100 Wright Road, Camarillo

Background: Founded in 1962 to serve the facility’s population of 850 male and female prisoners, aged 15 to 25.

Attendance: about 200 a week, usually prisoners but sometimes staff.

Collection: 9,808 books.

From the stacks: “Lately, we’ve been checking out a lot of Stephen King, Jackie Collins and Dean R. Koontz. Sidney Sheldon is very popular, and Judith Krantz is too,” said acting librarian Linda Droman. (Donations of works by popular authors are greatly appreciated, she said.)

Hours: Monday through Friday, 8 a.m.-2:30 p.m.

Fee: None.

EDWARD LAURENCE DOHENY MEMORIAL LIBRARY

St. John’s Seminary

5012 Seminary Road, Camarillo

482-2755

Background: The Edward Laurence Doheny library serves St. John’s graduate students. (The seminary’s nearby Carrie Estelle Doheny Memorial Library, which holds another 67,000 volumes, serves the seminary’s roughly 120 undergraduates and is not open to the public.)

Attendance: Regular use from 140 graduate students, 20 faculty members and occasional outside patrons.

Collection: 63,546 books.

From the stacks: “Classics of Western Spirituality,” a multivolume series often assigned as course reading. Also available: a computer program for searches of the New and Old testaments using Boolean logic.

Hours: Open to the public Monday through Friday, 8 a.m.-noon and 1-4:30 p.m. Additional hours for students: Monday through Friday, 7:30-10:30 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m.-noon and 1-4:30 p.m.; Sunday, 1-4:30 p.m.

Fee: Non-students pay $10 for a library card.

E.P. FOSTER LIBRARY

651 E. Main St., Ventura

648-2715

Background: Foster is the central facility of the Ventura County Library Services Agency. The 17-branch county system’s origins date back to June 23, 1873, when Mr. L.C. McKeeby convened a meeting at his South California Street home to propose formation of a Ventura Reading Club. The current Foster building went up in 1959.

Attendance: More than 17,000 books, magazines and other circulating materials were checked out in December, 1991, a below-par month.

Collection: 113,500 books. (As a whole, the county system counts 717,400 volumes.)

From the stacks: “Mines, Murders and Grizzlies, Tales of California’s Ventura Back Country,” by Charles F. Outland, 151 pages.

Hours: Monday through Thursday, 10 a.m.-9p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Sunday, 1-4 p.m. Open to the public.

Fee: None.

And then, of course, there’s the . . .

RONALD REAGAN PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY

40 Presidential Drive, Simi Valley

522-8444

Background: Completed last year at an estimated cost of $60 million, the library will serve as official archive of information about the Reagan Administration. Though funds for the project were raised by the private, nonprofit Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation, the facility is run by National Archives staff members.

Attendance: In the two months from its opening on Nov. 6 to Jan. 6, the library counted 99,530 visitors.

Collection: 6.3 million documents available for research (if collected into 300-page volumes, the publicly accessible papers would amount to 21,000 books), plus a handful of books in the library bookshop, including signed Reagan autobiographies that sell for $50 each. Another 47 million pages of presidential papers lie under lock and key in the basement. Some will be released at six-month intervals, but the lion’s share will remain unavailable to researchers into the 21st Century.

From the stacks: A 1985 letter to Reagan from Manchester, N.H., newspaper publisher Nackey Loeb, complaining about compulsory seat-belt laws. Attached is a handwritten response in which the President sympathizes, saying that “as you can see, ‘big brother’ is watching and he ain’t us.”

Hours: Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Sunday, noon-5 p.m. Open to the public.

Fee: $2 admission for adults, $1 for seniors, free for children 15 or under.