Earthquake: The Road To Recovery : Reading Between the Lines : Libraries: Crowds pack the only four city branches that remain open in the Valley in the wake of last month’s quake.

The competition is tough in San Fernando Valley libraries these days. Just ask third-grader Vanessa Foster.

On Wednesday, she went to the Encino-Tarzana branch--one of only four city libraries open in the Valley in the wake of the earthquake--to get a book on Abraham Lincoln for a report. Vanessa felt a special tie to Honest Abe because they share the same birthday.

But the only presidential biography not already checked out was on Warren G. Harding.

“I don’t want to write about this President,” said Vanessa, 9, looking dejectedly at the book about a President best known for the Teapot Dome scandal.

Vanessa had gotten caught in the post-earthquake, library book crunch. With a dozen Los Angeles Public Library branches in the Valley still closed, the open libraries are straining under increased patronage.

“It’s crazy here,” said Sherrill Van Sickle, a librarian at Encino-Tarzana, the only city branch open in the West Valley.

Although the branch had extended hours and had more than doubled its staff, library visitors had to wait in long lines.

“We have 15 people waiting to check out books, others filling out applications for new library cards and six or seven people waiting to return books,” Van Sickle said. “It’s crowded to the point of reaching mayhem.”

The modest-sized library, with 42,000 books, had so many visitors Wednesday, she said, that some users parked their cars across the street in a paint store’s parking lot. Before the earthquake, it was the other way around.

The three other open branches in the Valley--Studio City, Panorama City and Sun Valley--reported similar strains on their resources.

Repair work has begun on five of the closed branches--Canoga Park, Chatsworth, Granada Hills, Northridge and Woodland Hills.

The work will be completed at the Canoga Park branch in about two weeks, according to a status report issued by Robert Reagan, a spokesman for the city library system. Then librarians there will have to spend about two more weeks unpacking and re-stacking books before the branch can reopen, library official Fontayne Holmes said.

It will be two or three months before the Chatsworth, Granada Hills and Northridge branches reopen. The Woodland Hills branch, which sustained the most damage of any in the city library system, will remain closed for about eight months.

But at least these branches are now undergoing restoration. Work has not begun on the seven remaining Valley branches.

Holmes said these branches would eventually also be repaired and reopened.

In the meantime, many Valley residents have been forced to commute to the nearest open branch. Among those is John Lee, a junior at Granada Hills High School. Lee, 17, used to drive less than five minutes to the Granada Hills branch three times a weeks to do his work, but he now has a half-hour drive to the Encino-Tarzana branch.

When he does get there, he has to battle to find a chair. “There’s way too many people,” Lee said. “All the seats are filled.”

All but two of the closed branches in the city system are in the Valley. The restoration cost for the entire system is estimated to be $2.6 million, according to the city’s Department of General Services.

Four of the buildings, the report said, sustained severe structural damage.

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The Woodland Hills branch tops the repair cost list at an estimated $800,000. Next is Granada Hills, the busiest of the city’s 64 library branches, at $600,000.

The repair estimates do not include costs of returning fallen books to shelves and anchoring shelves against future tremors.

All of the branches in the county library system have reopened, with the exception of Valencia, where the damage to the building and collection has been estimated at $1.2 million. Many of the books received water damage from a burst pipe, said library official Margaret Wong, who added that the branch would reopen this summer.

County officials said 39 of its 87 branches were damaged in the earthquake. Total restoration costs will be about $2.3 million.

In the meanwhile, Vanessa’s older sister had some advice for her disappointed sibling. She could still do the report on Lincoln, as long as she did her research in the library.

“You can use the encyclopedia,” said Vanessa’s sister, pulling out the volume on the 16th President.