Librarian Close to Her Roots

Lucille Cruz works in frontier territory as head of the county’s smallest public library, a storefront branch of the county library system just a few miles north of the “Pig Crossing” sign in rural Silverado Canyon.

Most library patrons--and some of their dogs--are on a first-name basis with Cruz, 41, who has managed the 1,100-square-foot branch for the last 17 years. Lacey, an affable canine who often stops by the branch, is one of her best customers.

“We attach a note to her collar so the owner will know when her book has come in,” Cruz said.

The Silverado Library is a lifeline to book-hungry residents of Silverado and neighboring Williams and Modjeska canyons, who often use the tiny branch to request books from the county’s 26 other branch libraries.

When the library was targeted for closure last year because of the county’s budget crisis, fiercely loyal patrons wrapped protest notes around beer and soft drink cans, sending hundreds of them through the mail to county supervisors.

The library was spared, but operations were cut to 28 hours a week. Cruz now splits her time between the Silverado and Villa Park libraries.

The value of preserving an accessible public library system is not lost on Cruz, whose childhood trips to the library in rural Arizona were an act of courage. Cruz was not welcome at the small-town library because she is part Latino and Native American.

“I know what it’s like not to have access to a public library,” Cruz said. “We were followed around and I remember some very nasty remarks. They didn’t want minority groups in their library.”

But Cruz and her younger brother grew up with a passion for books, nurtured by their father, a Linotype operator and writer for the weekly Winslow Mail newspaper in the 8,000-person town.

“Reading was a big thing in our lives when we were growing up. My father got his first TV set in the late ‘50s, and when it broke he said, ‘That’s it.’ So we read,” Cruz said.

“He always had a love of books. The family story was that they thought he was kind of touched in the head, because he read so much growing up as a kid. And so he passed his love of reading along to us. We would have discussions with him on every book we read.”

Cruz says she has returned to her rural roots in sleepy Silverado, a town born during the 1878 mining boom, when silver was first discovered in the canyon.

But she is troubled by the curtailing of library hours, remembering her own difficulty as a child in getting access to her local library.

“I came into the county library system at the beginning of the Proposition 13 era, when we had cutbacks and we were able to bounce back. There have been other cutbacks throughout the years, but this is totally different,” Cruz said. “Since the bankruptcy, people have been prioritizing, and maybe libraries aren’t up there at the top of the list.

“Everyone was upset when they thought this library was going to close. There’s been a library here since 1929, and it became a county branch in 1930. It was a combination post office and library and was in a little log cabin left over from the mining days.”

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Though some Orange County cities are considering privatizing local libraries in order to extend operating hours, Silverado Library users depend heavily on its connection to the countywide system in order to get the books and materials they want, said Cruz.

Books on septic tank plumbing are especially popular, she said, because canyon homes are not connected to a sewer system.

“If anyone knows what it means to be part of the county library system, it’s these isolated residents,” Cruz said. “Physically, we’re a small branch with a small collection, but they have access to all these wonderful materials from the other branches. If we don’t have something, it can be sent up here.”

As a librarian at one of the most fragile links in the county library chain, Cruz sees only uncertainty ahead for herself and her library.

“Every June, we find out whether we’re going to be here or not,” she said. “These are strange days; we just don’t know.

“Providing access to information is still a joy to me. It may get smaller and smaller as the budgets go, but the doors are open and people are still able to come in and ask questions. So we take it one day at a time and enjoy it while we still have it.”

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Profile: Lucille Cruz

Age: 41

Hometown: Winslow, Ariz.

Residence: Anaheim

Experience: Former retail merchandiser in Arizona; joined Orange County Public Library system in 1974 as part-time library clerk at La Palma Library; became head librarian of Silverado Library in 1978 and is also in charge of library operations at Villa Park Library

Family background: Father, Sam Branch, was a Linotype operator and writer for local newspaper who also served as part-time municipal judge in rural community of 8,000; younger brother, Raymond, is freelance writer and artisan who braids bull ropes for professional rodeo riders

About public libraries: “A public library is a place where children are free to think. It has to be a place where children can come in and grab a Mad magazine and no one will look down on them, because they’ve got that freedom to read through different things and think. We, as librarians, do not censor their ideas.”

Source: Lucille Cruz; Researched by RUSS LOAR / For The Times