City May Set Up Interim Library : Thousand Oaks: Council will discuss a plan to transfer collection from damaged main facility to temporary site in order to speed repairs.

Eager to restore the city’s battered main library as quickly as possible, Thousand Oaks council members tonight will consider shifting the huge collection to a vacant office building for a year, while earthquake repairs are completed.

The council will discuss the feasibility of setting up an interim library in the former city hall at 2400 Willow Lane--a building that biotechnology corporation Amgen Inc. is leasing but not using.

Moving the 290,000 books, videos and magazines to Willow Lane would allow construction crews to work more quickly to repair the main library on Janss Road, city officials said. Nearly a year after the Northridge earthquake, the library still needs a new ceiling, a fresh carpet and new lighting fixtures.

For crews to tackle the job most efficiently, the library must be empty. Otherwise, workers might be forced to step around librarians, and patrons could be forced to study in a noisy, dust-choked room.

“Moving (to Willow Lane) has two big pluses,” Councilman Andy Fox said. “City workers in the library will not be subjected to the health and safety risks of construction. And if they’re not there, they’re not in the way, so the workers can do the job quicker and easier.”

Council members said they expect federal disaster funds to pay for the move and cover at least one year’s rent at the Willow Lane building.

Terms of the lease were not available. But Amgen spokeswoman Lynne Connell said a preliminary agreement calls for the city to take out a one-year lease, with the option to extend the deal for an additional six months.

If approved by the City Council, the lease would become effective March 1, Connell said.

The move would mark the final stage in the Thousand Oaks Library’s long, expensive and frustrating recovery from last January’s earthquake.

Immediately after the quake hit--knocking down ceiling tiles and busting a water main--building inspectors tacked a red “Do Not Enter” warning on the sliding glass doors. With an estimated $2.5 million in damage, the library remained closed through April.

And even though the library is now open, it looks more like a cold construction site than a comfy reading room.

Patrons walk on a bare concrete floor, and the rat-a-tat-tat of hammers sometimes disturbs the quiet. Even worse, the roof leaks when it rains--a pre-quake problem that has not been resolved despite extensive effort.

Transferring the collection to Willow Lane could cut repair time in half. With an empty library, crews could finish the work within nine months, project manager Ed Johnduff has said.

The promise of a speedy fix-up convinced some frequent library patrons that a cross-town move would be worth the hassle.

“I’m really anxious for them to do whatever they need to do to get the library back to normal,” said Barbara Wilson, who runs regular used-book sales for the Friends of the Thousand Oaks Library.

Hoping that the revamped library will be even better than before, Councilwoman Elois Zeanah on Tuesday will ask staff to ferret out funding sources that could be tapped to expand hours.

“We fund our library with sales-tax money, and we have had increases in those revenues . . . even during this recession,” Zeanah said. “There’s no reason we can’t use some additional tax dollars for the library.”

Thousand Oaks’ library is open 55 hours a week--far more than any branch in the county--but is closed on Fridays. City leaders have repeatedly called for restoration of seven-day-a-week service. They have talked of boosting the library’s budget to add professional staff or training more volunteers to provide basic services.

“If we set it as a goal, it can be done,” Mayor Jaime Zukowski said.

But Fox cautioned that more library hours should not come at the cost of more police officers.

Opening the library on Fridays “is not the No. 1 thing in my mind,” Fox said. “Certainly it’s in the top four. But it needs some analysis.”