Things Are Looking Up for Libraries in the Valley : The Los Angeles City Council has earmarked $300,000 for more staff to reach into schools. It has also added $2.9 million to the mayor’s budget for two new facilities.

San Fernando Valley libraries are having a good year, after decades of budget starvation.

Before Proposition 13 passed in 1978, if Los Angeles needed more money for libraries, it raised property taxes. Since Proposition 13, the city has cut inflation-adjusted funding for libraries every year, according to Joyce Sloss, a city budget analyst. Libraries were also hurt by the 1990 city government hiring freeze. And the Northridge earthquake closed all 17 Valley libraries. Some opened in a few days; a few are still closed.

But things are looking up, at least somewhat. This year’s overall budget is again down in real dollars, but the Los Angeles City Council rejected Mayor Richard Riordan’s proposal for deep cuts. Sloss said the council earmarked $300,000 to pay for library staff to reach into schools at all levels, some of which don’t have their own librarians. The citywide program, designed to educate young people about books and libraries, involves librarians traveling to schools and students traveling to libraries. It has three more staff people in 1994 than a year earlier, because of the council action.

Librarian visits to schools should increase by at least 25%, according to Carmen Martinez, director of branch library services.

More significantly, the council also added $2.9 million to the mayor’s budget for increased library staff. Some will go to the recently enlarged Central Library Downtown. But the money is also for two new libraries opening in the West Valley, Sloss said. The Platt branch on Victory Boulevard in Woodland Hills will open this fall. The second, the Mid-Valley Regional branch on Nordhoff Street in North Hills, will open in the spring of 1995.

The libraries are benefiting from a “thawing” of employee positions frozen since April 1, 1990. Library services took a dive due to decreased staff, and the libraries’ hours of operation dwindled. Although the overall hiring freeze is still in effect, the City Council has granted a library request to be allowed to fill 80 positions. “The council wants to maintain six days of service at all facilities,” Sloss said.

Frank Navarro, senior librarian at the West Valley Regional Branch, who has worked in the library system for 18 years, said that with the opening of positions, opportunities for promotions now exist and gaps in smaller libraries can be filled.

Oddly enough, some city libraries have profited from the Northridge earthquake. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has funded about 90% of the earthquake-related repairs, according to Nina Wilson, the West Valley regional manager. The earthquake-relief money left many of the libraries with better facilities than they had before the quake.

The West Valley regional branch in Reseda--the largest of the West Valley libraries--had never had carpeting before the quake. Since its reopening on June 27, the library boasts carpeting, air conditioning, a new ceiling, built-in lighting and a new exterior and interior paint job, according to Navarro. “A lot of the other branches will also get improvements,” he said.

The Northridge branch, which reopened July 11, did not have carpeting before the earthquake either. It now not only has new carpeting, but new computer tables, a new reference desk, new interior paint and a new ceiling, according to its librarian, Margaret Foulks. The Chatsworth branch, which reopened on July 25, is enjoying similar aesthetic and seismic improvements.

The earthquake also helped accelerate automating the libraries. While the West Valley regional branch was closed, the staff had time to equip the books with bar codes. The library now plans to be fully automated by the end of the summer, Navarro said, while many of the city’s branch libraries will not be automated until the middle of next year.

The speeding up of automation is more than welcome to librarians. With computerization, library staff can have “more instant knowledge of what is going on,” said Pat Kiefer, department manager for general library services.

Librarians will be able to determine more quickly and easily if books are overdue or lost. Automation will also put the branch and Central Library collections on-line, eliminating the outdated card catalogues. With all this automation and library renovation and new staff and new libraries, we Valley residents won’t have to drive to Beverly Hills anymore just to go to the library.