COLUMN ONE : Cuts Put Libraries in a Real Bind : In an era of bare-bones budgets, the state’s public libraries are taking it on the chin. To cope, librarians are setting out buckets for spare change and pushing for new taxes.

If California’s beleaguered public libraries were the backdrop for a novel, the setting would likely be panned as a figment of an overwrought author’s imagination.

Consider:

Buckets for spare change have been set out on reference desks by Fresno County librarians seeking donations to buy new books.

In nearby San Benito County, there are not even paid librarians anymore--director Jo Wahdan keeps the library open with the help of volunteers. What’s more, a ballot measure to raise funds is opposed by farmers unwilling to pay a fee of less than a nickel a parcel on grazing land. “Cows don’t read,” explained a spokesman for the county Farm Bureau.

Meanwhile, in Gargantuan Los Angeles County, which has an annual budget larger than those of all but a dozen states, an inveterate reader surviving on her disability benefits is one library’s source for such essential periodicals as the New Yorker and the Wall Street Journal.

Once a week, Norwalk regional branch library staffers--forced to cut subscriptions to more than 250 publications--drive to the home of wheelchair-bound Margaret Neal, 59, to pick up copies of magazines and newspapers she donates to help stock the library’s shelves.

“It’s criminal if they’d have to be without them,” explained Neal, a retired computer graphics magazine editor. “At first I thought I couldn’t let (the periodicals) go. Then I thought, ‘Anything you give to the library, you own forever--you can go there and visit them.’ ”

The city of Santa Ana’s library, already ranked 111th among 158 California public library systems, is preparing to close one of its three branches to trim $500,000 from its $4.5-million budget, despite increasing use of the facilities by residents.

“We’ve trimmed and trimmed and trimmed just about everywhere we can trim,” said Anaheim City Library Director Bill Griffith. “We’re not at a level where we can sustain the operation indefinitely.

“I grew up in the Depression years,” he said. “It’s as bleak as anything since that time.”

Cursed by dwindling funds to compete against public safety and health service agencies in a time of recession-induced budget woes, California’s public libraries are taking it on the chin as never before. To cope, libraries are resorting to unusual and sometimes drastic measures.

In the last year, the Los Angeles County Library has closed eight branches; statewide, libraries have cut hours an average of 6%.

Book and periodical purchasing budgets have declined 16% across California--nearly 30% in the 22 county systems, which, lacking specifically targeted property tax income, must compete against other county agencies for dollars.

In Hemet last month, city officials decided that they could not afford to accept a $7.2-million state grant to help construct a library. Without quick relief, residents of San Benito and Shasta counties could soon find themselves without any public library whatsoever.

“People wait for 30 minutes at times to check out a book,” said Carolyn Chambers, library director in Shasta County, where voters this month soundly rejected a temporary 1-cent sales tax hike to fund the Redding-based library. “I’ll prepare a budget for next year, but I don’t know if the revenues will be there to sustain it.”

Anaheim’s Griffith, a librarian for 40 years, sees an ominous trend.

“The libraries are becoming an endangered species,” Griffith said. “The libraries are in jeopardy, and unless we rally round and do something about it we are likely to lose a very important resource.”

Unlike previous crises after the imposition of Proposition 13 and other cuts, there is little light at the end of the tunnel this time, said State Librarian Gary E. Strong.

Instead, the suffering could more than double if Gov. Pete Wilson’s 1993-94 budget proposal to shift $2.6 billion in property tax funds from local governments to the schools is enacted, Strong said.

“I think we’re in greater jeopardy than we’ve ever been in,” Strong added. “What we’ve looked at after Proposition 13 was a shift of funding sources. What we’re looking at now is the elimination of the funding sources.”

The consequences could prove dire. In Pasadena, all eight branch libraries could close, officials say. And in the Los Angeles County system, dozens of the remaining 85 branches are endangered.

These days, even such traditional small-time fund-raising efforts as cake and used book sales sponsored by Friends of the Library groups are not enough to bridge the funding gap.

Rather, librarians are being forced to decimate their staffs, operating hours and book-buying budgets. For example, the city of Pasadena and the counties of Los Angeles, Kern, Shasta, Lake, Butte and Tehama have reduced purchases by more than 50% in the last year.

Such drastic cuts cause permanent damage to collections, Strong said. “Publications are in print a short period of time. You can’t replace a book or a periodical later on. It just isn’t there anymore.”

Even in Orange County, where spending for book purchases increased by 43% in this fiscal year, the future looks bleak. “The problem we’ve had is attempting to keep up with the rapidly increasing population,” said County Library Director John Adams. “This year’s spending allowed us to substantially improve the collection. But now we’re completely out of bullets, our bag of tricks is empty and we’re extremely concerned.”

To save what remains of their collections and accessibility at a time when increasing numbers of out-of-work Californians are relying on libraries for job search information and recreational reading needs, librarians are developing strategies ranging from Adopt-a-Book programs to tax measures.

At the Los Angeles Central Library--due to reopen this fall, seven years after a pair of arson fires destroyed 375,000 volumes--major donors are being attracted with the lure of having entire collections named after them.

On a less grand scale, those people purchasing magazine subscriptions for certain Los Angeles County Library branches will have their names placed on stickers in each issue.

At the West Hollywood branch, donors are being asked to subscribe to any of 57 journals ranging from Life ($35 a year) to Down Beat ($26) and have them mailed directly to the library.

In Neal’s case, Los Angeles County librarians pick up her periodicals after she has had a chance to peruse them. Because the materials are destined for library shelves, Neal said that instead of clipping newspapers and magazines to the point where they look like “paper dolls,” she has decided to keep her scissors at bay.

“The only thing I have clipped recently from the Wall Street Journal is the subscription renewal form,” Neal said. “If I want to clip a story, I say: ‘Make a photocopy.’ ”

The task of stretching purchasing dollars has been made more difficult by soaring book prices and heightened demand for costly videos, CDs, computer-access services and other non-traditional materials. Making the job even more complex is the increasing diversity of California communities.

“We have many patrons with multiple language needs,” said Los Angeles County Library Collection Coordinator Phyllis Young. “We have a substantial Spanish-speaking clientele and Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese. Then we have smatterings of Hindi, Tagalog, Samoan and other languages. Frequently, recent immigrants come into a library for information in their language as they acclimate to American life.”

Foreign language publications can prove extremely expensive. Subscriptions to three Japanese-language newspapers received by the Little Tokyo branch of the Los Angeles City Library average $800 each a year. Fortunately, the three publications are purchased with contributions from the local community, library officials said.

In the last year, California libraries have raised fines and fees by 15%. But such funds amount to only 2% of operating budgets. Many libraries have also dramatically reduced the number of copies of popular books purchased.

Rob Richard, Santa Ana’s library director, said that even sources designed to help underfunded libraries have fallen victim to budget cuts. Under a state fund created in 1980 to ensure a basic level of library financing by partially matching local operating expenses, Santa Ana would have been eligible for $450,000 this year, Richard said. But the fund is so underfinanced by the Legislature that only $93,000 was available for Santa Ana, he said.

“The state’s been retrenching on that for a number of years,” he said.

Some libraries, including a Hollywood-area branch of the Los Angeles City Library, have taken to renting out supplementary copies of hot novels to patrons eager to read them before they are turned into movies.

“In the past, I may have bought four copies of a popular bestseller,” said Los Feliz branch librarian Thea March. “Now I’d buy one out of my own budget and three or four to rent out of the bestseller rental fund provided by our Friends of the Library group.

“The 10 cents a day goes directly back into that fund. This is good, especially for junky books I don’t want to buy much. I feel better if I have to buy fewer Danielle Steele books.”

In Ventura County, where some local branches are closed five days a week, library officials have asked Friends of the Library groups to consider hiring a telemarketing firm to solicit funds. The scheme has met with criticism from library boosters distressed at the percentage of contributions that would go to the private firm.

In Palm Springs, the downtown branch of the city’s public library has gone private. Slated to close last year, the Welwood Murray Memorial Library is now operated by a group of local bluebloods who formed a nonprofit organization to keep the doors open. The privatized library continues to check out bestsellers to the public--for ID, a driver’s license will do instead of a public library card--but volunteer clerks handle more tourist questions than reference requests.

Then there are Fresno’s “Save Our Library” spare-change buckets. Library-goers donated $2,964 at 32 locations in three months. “It’s been fairly successful in a small way,” said Associate County Librarian Karen Bosch-Cobb. “Patrons would comment they really wanted to support the library but felt they couldn’t give a large amount. This way, every time they came in they could put in a dollar.”

Santa Ana’s Friends of the Library helped underwrite renovation projects by fund raising, Librarian Richard said.

“We have some support from the Friends of the Library, but Santa Ana is basically a blue-collar community,” he said. “It’s not really a community that’s going to be able to dig deeply into its pockets for philanthropic causes.”

For example, Richard said, the Santa Ana Friends of the Library raised $17,000 toward 1991’s renovation compared to an amount in seven figures raised by a similar group for Pasadena library renovation.

In comparison with other states, California’s public libraries ranked 18th in the nation in spending per resident, according to a 1990 federal report. When the recent cutbacks are taken into account, California’s libraries would rank 38th in librarians per resident and 47th in public service hours, according to a California State Library report.

California’s school libraries, meanwhile, have been cited as “the worst of the worst” by the American Library Assn. With more than half of the state’s school libraries having closed in the last decade, “it is said that a child in a correctional institution has better access to a school library than a public school student,” according to the ALA.

Great disparities also exist between communities: Newport Beach ranks first among Orange County’s 10 public library systems, spending $44.86 per capita, compared to Santa Ana’s $14.64, the county’s lowest.

“I’m not pessimistic in the long run,” said Anaheim’s Griffith. “I think tough times challenge us to do our best. This is what makes for creativity. . . . I’m hopeful for the future that we will come out of it in better shape than we came in.”

Yet efforts to raise government spending to keep libraries open rarely meet with success.

In Shasta County, which spends $4.26 per capita and already saw its library closed temporarily in 1988 because of empty coffers, the recent tax initiative mustered support from less than half of voters in the conservative county. It needed a “yes” vote from two-thirds of those casting ballots.

Hemet, meanwhile, became the first city in California to win but then reject a state library construction grant from a voter-approved 1988 bond issue. At a contentious City Council hearing last month, speakers argued that the $120,000 in annual operating costs would be better spent on improved law enforcement and fire protection.

Pasadena library officials are pinning their hopes on a proposed ballot initiative that would require a two-thirds affirmative vote. The measure would restore services through a property tax assessment of just under $100 per household.

At the state level, a bill allowing local governments to set up special real estate assessment districts for funding libraries was introduced this month.

State Librarian Strong said the bill, sponsored by state Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Van Nuys), looks like the best alternative, given the high failure rate for local ballot measures requiring a two-thirds majority. But the future of the Roberti bill is itself problematic, observers say, because it needs a two-thirds vote for passage.

The next public vote on libraries is scheduled for mid-April in San Benito County. There, strong rural opposition has emerged against an advisory measure calling for the County Board to raise $400,000. Under the plan, properties with a house would be charged $25 and properties used solely for cattle grazing would be assessed less than a nickel each.

Times staff writer Mark Landsbaum contributed to this story.