Library Expansion Defies Recent Trend

Arms sagging under books, a line of readers waited at the Moorpark Library counter Wednesday as Mary Goldberg, the library’s acting head, took a break.

Earlier in the day, about 80 children jammed a storytelling session in the library, which recently reopened after renovations to expand the cramped building. By midafternoon, kids were still browsing--sometimes rampaging--through the new magazine room or rifling through the stacks of children’s books.

At a time when Ventura County’s libraries are struggling to find funding, Moorpark has seen the size of its library expand by 50%. City leaders and library supporters will toast the renovations at a ceremony Saturday.

But while the expanded Moorpark Library is often crammed with customers, it still does not have the money to fill its new rooms with new books, Goldberg said.

“We’ve got a reading room that could have shelving,” she said. “We need to build up our Spanish section. We need to build up our reference section.”

City and county officials, as well as Moorpark residents, were able to scrape together the $377,000 needed for the renovations. But funding the library’s day-to-day operations is another matter.

Alan Langville with the county’s Library Services Agency said there is no money in the agency’s budget to keep the Moorpark branch open for more than its current 24 hours each week.

As for new books, the county agency will spend just $62,000 on additional books during the current fiscal year, Langville said. And that amount--down from $400,000 last year--must cover all 16 of the agency’s branches, he said.

“It is virtually nothing compared to what they had in the past,” Langville said.

Moorpark was able to expand its library in large part because the county set aside money for the renovations before the funding crisis began.

Plans for the expansion began in 1991, when county supervisors dedicated $260,000 to the project. Two years later, the state cut by half the amount of property tax money given to libraries, Langville said. But since the renovation money had already been earmarked for Moorpark, it remained untouched by the library system’s financial woes.

The city of Moorpark was able to contribute $65,000 toward the effort. A cable-TV telethon, sponsored by the city with the help of library supporters, raised $34,000.

The results of the fund-raising--2,700 extra square feet--have won praises from Moorpark residents.

“It’s really nice to have the space; it was just so crowded before,” said Kitty Lewis of Moorpark, who came to the library Wednesday with her two sons to browse for books.

In a small city like Moorpark, the library is one of the few places to take kids during the summer, Lewis said.

“The first time we came down here after summer school started, we must have run into six people we knew,” she said.

Mary Crockford, president of the Moorpark Friends of the Library, said she hopes library patrons such as Lewis understand the library’s financial plight. Now that the renovations are complete, Crockford’s fund-raising organization will push for a stable revenue source for the county’s library system.

That could mean supporting a plan, endorsed by a majority of county supervisors, to create a benefit assessment district to finance the libraries.

Such a move could add $30 to $35 to property tax bills in cities and parts of the county served by the library system.

“At this point we’re ready to support anybody who’s ready to support the libraries, and the supervisors’ plan would be the easiest way to do it,” Crockford said.

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FYI

The newly expanded Moorpark Library will hold a reopening celebration starting at 10:30 a.m. Saturday. The public is invited for refreshments and chamber music in the library at 699 Moorpark Ave., next to City Hall. For information, call 529-0440.