AGOURA HILLS : Librarians Seeking Donations of Books

As the holiday gift-giving season approaches, librarians in the Valley are asking their patrons to consider donating bestsellers and other books they receive after reading them, to help make up for budget cuts.

“I think people like the sense of sharing, but they don’t always realize they can share their books,” said Sue Renyer, reference librarian at the Los Angeles County Library’s Agoura Hills branch. “Instead of just shelving it or putting it in their garage, someone can give a book to us and it becomes part of our collection.”

Renyer said the need is especially great for current books at county libraries, which have no budget for new materials.

“Until someone donates these bestsellers, we don’t have them,” Renyer said. “And those are the books people most want to read.”

Although city libraries generally suffered fewer cuts than their counterparts in Los Angeles County, the need for donated books has grown at all branches because of lean budgets in the county system, said Jan Metzler, librarian of the Los Angeles Library’s Encino-Tarzana branch.

“We’re finding that people who would normally use a county library are coming more and more to our branches,” Metzler said. “So extra copies of the most popular books will help everybody.”

At the city’s Chatsworth branch, librarian Bruce Seidman urged donors to call their local branch before dropping off a load of books, to ask whether their donations are usable. Often, publications such as technical books and old computer magazines are not, he said.