O.C. Library’s Card Catalogs Hook Into the Modem Age

The good news for local library patrons is that at last the county’s largest library system--the 27-branch, 2-million-volume Orange County Public Library--has joined the personal computer age.

The county-run library system, following virtually every other library system in the region, has opened its catalog to the spiraling numbers of people with home and office computers.

Now your computer can dial up the county library, locate the book or magazine article you want, find out whether it’s already checked out, reserve it and renew materials you already have.

The bad news is that, while similar services are free at other local libraries, the county library charges 50 cents for every minute you’re connected to its computer. The charge will go on your telephone bill via a 900 number.

“We would like not to charge for this,” says county librarian John Adams. “It is somewhat counter to the mission of the public library.”

But we are talking about Orange County, the county that brought municipal bankruptcy to new heights. Even though the new service is costing the county library virtually nothing to operate, it is charging a fee in hopes of recouping revenue lost in the county’s investment debacle and from cuts in state-mandated funding.

The county library’s budget has shrunk from $27 million in 1993 to an anticipated $19.5 million next year. The fund for new books has been cut in half. Staff has shrunk from 403 to 320, making reference librarians sometimes hard to find. Nowadays about a third of the branches are opening later and closing earlier.

The new moneymaking system has gotten off to a slow start. In September, its first month, it netted the county library a $50 profit. That rose to $500 in February, raising Adams’ hopes that the idea will catch on. “If it keeps increasing at this rate, in two years we’ll be billionaires,” Adams cracked. But the best that Adams seriously hopes for is a county library budget that no longer shrinks every year. “We are hopeful in the not-too-distant future [that] the funding crisis will stabilize and we will be able to reduce or eliminate the dial-in charge.”

In the meantime, library browsers have personal computer access to virtually every other municipal and college library system in the county. The exceptions are Buena Park and Santa Ana city libraries and Saddleback and Irvine Valley colleges, all of which intend to begin dial-in services in the near future. Chapman University has dial-in service but limits it to students, faculty and staff.

Many of these libraries offer free library cards to nonresidents. Most colleges offer library cards to nonstudents at a price ranging for $5 for six months at Fullerton College to $60 for one year at UC Irvine.