Video Library : Collection: The Escondido Public Library’s selection draws fans in droves. It’s bigger than either San Diego’s or Los Angeles’.

George Pryor meandered past the Hungarian movies, the Fat Albert cartoons and the complete works of Shakespeare on video. Spurning selections on teddy bear-making, duck identification and how to get accepted to Stanford University, he chose “The Battle of the Bulge” starring Henry Fonda and tucked it under his arm.

“I’m here everyday,” Pryor said, standing in the Escondido Public Library’s video collection. “They’re doing a hell of a good job. It’s so much faster than reading a book.”

Like Pryor, thousands of library-goers have discovered Escondido’s enormous video collection, sandwiched inside its bastion of books.

Although only about 20% of the library’s 12,000 videos are popular Hollywood films, patrons are coming in droves in search of educational and sometimes offbeat videos they can’t find anywhere else. Like the 60 titles on bass and trout fishing and the 135 operas. Or the 400 videos in Spanish and the series on calculus.

“In the field, people used to contend the public would not check out anything other than movies, but in our case that didn’t turn out to be the case,” said senior librarian James Bray, the collection’s creator. “We haven’t sought publicity because the popularity of the collection has taken care of itself.”

The video library started in 1983 with 53 videos and registered 10,109 checkouts. The library’s popularity quickly soared, and in 1991 people checked out videos 182,732 times. Librarians expect the total to hit 200,000 this year.

“A lot of times people come in for a book and they’re very amazed and surprised at the video collection,” city librarian Laura Mitchell said. “There’s more and more information available on video now. It’s more an information medium, not just an entertainment medium.”

The collection, which Bray says is worth $1 million, is divided into 10 subject areas, among them a 1,600-video children’s section, 3,800 feature films, 1,500 arts and entertainment selections and 350 videos about travel.

Although Escondido already offers more titles than the main branches of the San Diego and Los Angeles public libraries, Bray said he plans to add 2,500 to 3,000 videos next year. Aiming to please, he even ordered “Terminator 2: Judgment Day.”

“People asked for it,” he said.

For 50 cents, library patrons can keep a video for four days. Bray boasts that at 12 1/2 cents a day, that’s a real bargain, compared to the $1 to $3 fee charged at video rental stores.

Although the fee is generating $100,000 a year--money that paid for expansion of the library and two part-time employees--some librarians strongly object to public libraries charging for services.

Bray said he recently submitted an article about his video library to the New York-based Library Journal magazine and that it was rejected because it discussed charging patrons for borrowing materials.

“Any charging of fees in public libraries is controversial,” said Susan Simpson, collection development librarian for the Carlsbad Public Library, which has an 11,000-title video collection. “There are people who feel that libraries are funded by taxes and should be free to everybody. But others feel that extraordinary services should be supported by a fee to cover the extra cost.”

So far, the library and local video stores say they’re coexisting peacefully.

Bray says he has no plans to compete with the stores. Even though his collection far outpaces them in size and diversity, there will always be a huge market for the many new Hollywood releases that the library doesn’t buy, he said.

“They’re really a specialty place,” said Jim Barton, purchasing agent for Video Depot in Escondido, a large commercial video store that offers about 5,600 titles. “I refer people to the public library every day because of their vast selection of unknown titles. That’s what the library’s for--deep, special-interest kinds of stuff.”

Nor have patrons complained that the library is transforming them from readers into Dorito-eating screen-watchers.

“A whole revolution’s going on. A library is more of a center of information,” Bray said. “You come in looking for information, regardless of the format.”

“Let’s face it, the libraries still see their major mission as reading,” said Gail McGovern, an official with the California State Library in Sacramento who helps libraries statewide develop video collections. “But libraries are also trying to provide information and recreational services to people. Sometimes people are getting information from a video that they wouldn’t be getting otherwise.”