PANORAMA CITY : Larger Library Will Stress Studying

A new branch public library to be built in Panorama City will be nearly twice the size of the current 1950s-era library, officials said.

The Los Angeles Planning Commission held a public hearing last month on the new, 12,500-square-foot library, which will be built at 14345 Roscoe Blvd. after the old 6,975-square-foot building there is demolished.

The commission is expected to give final approval to the project sometime this month and then open the bidding to contractors. Construction could begin in early September and would take about 18 months to complete, officials said.

The new one-story building will include a student homework center, a community meeting room, a reference and resource area for people learning English as a second language and a preschool storytelling area that will open onto an outdoor patio.

The new library will include an updated security system to prevent theft of books and resource materials, which is a perennial problem, said senior librarian Thea March.

“Our loss rate is one of the highest in the city,” March said. “We’re missing 90% of our civil service reference materials. Our reference books are gone all the time. With a new security system, we hope we can cut that down.”

March said that when the city Library Department began planning the building, she stressed the need for more work space for students.

“The new library will be twice the size of the old one, but what’s most important is, when we planned the interior, we emphasized more rooms for students to study,” March said. “Because of the population density in this area, we have very heavy after-school student use.”

When demolition of the old building begins, a limited selection of books will be moved to a bookmobile trailer, to be stationed in the parking lot of the old Robinson’s department store on Van Nuys Boulevard.