Central Library to Reopen

I have just read Norman Pfeiffer’s column on the reopening of the Central Library (Commentary, April 29). While I applaud the rebuilding, I also wonder whether we will have learned from past mistakes that allowed fire to ravage this building and its treasures more than once. Pfeiffer notes that the library is the city’s most “democratic” institution in that “anyone who wants to may walk through its doors.” I hope not. Even the Bill of Rights has limitations. Occasionally I visit the temporary home of what’s left of the Central Library collection. The experience is not entirely elevating. Actually the scene often resembles something out of “Blade Runner”: filthy, crazy street people mill aimlessly through the stacks. The smell of urine permeates certain areas. I usually hope that I can get in, find what I need and get out without needing to use the DMZ of the men’s room.

Is this the kind of environment that will greet patrons as they attend “children’s puppet shows, music and lectures” in the rebuilt library? With the reopening should come new procedures that will ensure that the library serves its true purpose as a source of knowledge--not as a Skid Row shelter. We would do well to institute procedures enacted at what is arguably the finest public library in town: the Beverly Hills Library. Patrons there check in, the staff always knows who is there and the atmosphere is, well, like a library’s. People can take pleasure in using the collection.

In many ways the rebuilding of the downtown library demands that we rebuild more than just a building and its books. We need to rebuild our expectations of ourselves and of each other as well.

RICHARD STANLEY, Los Angeles