Book Bind : Staffers Like Renovated Central Library but Haven’t Worked Out All the Bugs

Planning a visit to Los Angeles’ newly renovated Central Library? Staffers offer a bit of advice: Don’t expect miracles.

The building, which opened two weeks ago Sunday with a festival that drew an estimated 80,000 people, is undeniably pleasing to look at, the librarians say. But so far, it is a challenging place to use.

“It’s pretty. It’s inviting. . . . It’s going to be wonderful when it’s working,” Christine Bocek, a research librarian in the literature and fiction department, said with a tired smile. “But it isn’t working yet.”

Last week, it was easy to see what she meant. Wall clocks were five hours slow. Signs identifying each department were not hung until Friday. Markers that tell what books are on which shelves were not expected to be up for weeks.

The electronic conveyance system, designed to ferry reading material between departments on a miniature train track, had yet to deliver a single book. Most facsimile machines were not hooked up, telephones were in short supply and, until midweek, not all departments had a computerized card catalogue that worked.

Although most visitors have greeted the resulting delays with good humor, officials want to reassure the public that the glitches--and there are dozens of them--are just temporary. During the next six weeks, they say, they fully expect to work the kinks out of the thermostat (which now keeps some workrooms as frigid as a meat locker), the compact shelving system (which refuses to budge in some departments, blocking access to some materials) and many other problem areas.

“On the one hand, we don’t want to make a big thing about all the negatives,” said library public relations director Bob Reagan. “But on the other hand, I would hate for anybody to think this is our idea of good service. . . . We’re spread very thin.”

During the first week, the library issued 13,000 new cards, checked out more than 16,000 books, videos and other items and sold $45,000 worth of library goodies in its gift shop. The Library Foundation, the institution’s fund-raising arm, was swamped with donations. And the frenzy showed no sign of abating last week. Particularly during lunch and evening hours, said one librarian, “the place is jumping.”

No librarian would have it any other way. But they admit that the overwhelming public response has put their fledgling systems to the test--and sometimes found them lacking.

Bad timing is to blame for some of the snafus. Before the facility opened to the public Oct. 3, library staff had hoped to spend at least a month on fine-tuning: shelving the new materials that piled up while the library was closed, organizing the collections and generally getting to know the place.

Presumably, such a cushion of time would also have enabled technicians to finish testing the state-of-the-art electronic systems that keep the library safe from fire and thieves. Those systems are fully functional now, officials say, and the library is not in danger. But because final tests have not been completed, the building remains under 24-hour fire watch, with eight people patrolling the building at all times.

What was to have been a month of preparation time was whittled down to a few days. Construction delays and other factors kept library staffers from entering the building until Sept. 29, just three days before the place was to welcome its first guests.

For librarians, that day was an emotional one. Most had watched the library burn in 1986, when arsonists set two devastating fires. After seven years of working at other locations, it was glorious to finally come home.

“As soon as I crossed the threshold, I got down on all fours and kissed the ground--my supervisor is my witness,” said Glen Creason, a map librarian in the history and genealogy department. Despite the problems, he said, that euphoria has lasted. “I love this place. We (librarians) are on a high.”

But adrenaline can only carry a person so far. The new 540,000-square-foot library is twice the size of the original, but its staff has not grown by a single person, so each staffer has to cover a lot more ground. Lately, with so many of the support functions not yet up to speed, librarians say the job has become not only stressful, but physically exhausting.

Because signs are not up on the shelves, it is difficult to direct people to the books they seek--librarians must often accompany them. With the staffing crunch, these same librarians are often responsible for staffing the reference desks and answering phones. Lately, the need to be in two places at once has made for a lot of sprinting.

“We all expect to lose weight,” said Billie Connor, the science, technology and patents department’s principal librarian. “The staff is phenomenal. Like always, they’re coming through.”

Connor said she wishes Mayor Richard Riordan, who recently said he believes that library service can largely be maintained and expanded by additional volunteers, would get to know that staff. If he did, she predicts, he would see how essential they are--and how much the library could use a few more highly trained people.

“Volunteers are wonderful and we love them. But the mayor needs to learn what a major public library is to a city before he takes a philosophy that it can be run by volunteers,” she said.

With so much new space and so many new gadgets, staffers and visitors are still struggling to get their bearings. The folks up in literature and fiction, on Level 3, have received several misdirected inquiries about demonology and vampires (they direct these patrons to Lower Level 3, where the social science, philosophy and religion department resides).

And everyone seems locked in bitter combat with the telephones. The automated answering tape, which asks people who call the library’s main number to choose from a menu, has caused more than a few callers to fly into a rage.

“They say they can’t get out of the loop,” said Ken Feder, a reference librarian in the international languages department who has intercepted some of these irate callers. “They don’t want to be transferred away again because they think they may fall back into the loop. And, I guess, they may.”

Meanwhile, the library staff is striving to master a new, befuddling phone system that has transformed putting a caller on hold from a simple task into a lengthy ordeal. Exasperated, some librarians have affixed step-by-step instructions to their phones: 1. Push transfer key. 2. Dial a holding extension. 3. Push “Release Me” button. 4. Push “Hold 1” button. 5. Tell patron you have them on hold. 6. Push red “Hold” button.

Did the library open before it was ready? In the face of unrelenting activity, some librarians say yes.

“It’s like a dam broke. You can’t get the books re-shelved fast enough,” said one librarian who asked not to be named. “Where do you start to stem the tide?”

But others say the thrill of having the library back buffers the pain of an admittedly trying transition.

“We’re open--that’s what really matters,” said Sylva Manoogian, manager of the international languages department. The frustrations are real, she said. “But if everything were perfect on Day 1, there would be no reason for us to put our mark on (the place). I like being able to put my stamp on it.”