Library Nuts, Bolts Operating Just Fine

* Most of the staff of the Ventura County Library Services Agency have been listening quietly while some community members and elected officials cast animadversions on our ability to successfully and cost-effectively operate this library system.

There is too much “fat,” we hear. Other agencies, i.e. Thousand Oaks and Oxnard, can process and buy books better and cheaper than we can.

I’m sorry, but that’s not the reality. We in the Central Services Division would like to inform the public of a few facts. Our Acquisitions Division haggles with vendors and gets us at least a 25%-75% discount on all items. Our Library Materials Division is processing books for under $7 per item, which happens to be under the national average.

Now it seems to me that if the already-trained and experienced Central/Technical Services staff is performing this cost-effectively under fire with only half the staff we had five years ago, it would be stupid to lay off/fire them and farm out all of the necessary jobs to other agencies that would have to hire and train new and additional staff. What benefit is there in that? In fact, since both Thousand Oaks and Oxnard pay their library staff members considerably more than we county employees are getting, how would there be any money saved there?

Supervisor Frank Schillo has been invited three times to tour Central/Technical Services and talk to the staff there. Though he has made one visit to the administrative offices, he has declined or canceled visits to Central/Technical Services all three times. Before our processing division is condemned by the Board of Supervisors and the public, I believe it behooves them to educate themselves better on the nuts and bolts or our operation as compared to others.

The point in “reinventing” this particular wheel seems to be a face-saving effort on the part of the Board of Supervisors, after so much bad press in their avowed determination to dump their responsibilities in maintaining a viable library system. However, removing the wheels from a wagon will not make it roll any better.

JULIE ALBRIGHT

Ventura

Julie Albright is a Library Tech III in the Children’s Services Division of the Ventura County Library Services Agency.