Cities Should Run Libraries

The fault with the Orange County library system lies with the Board of Supervisors and the professional management of the system.

The purpose of a county library system should not be to provide token library services for cities that practice false economies by denying their citizens the higher level of services afforded by city libraries.

A competently managed county system would exist to spur the growth of library services in developing rural and suburban areas including bookmobile and minimalist library branch services. As cities grow larger in land size, population and economic development, they should be encouraged to take over their library services. While it weakens the county system somewhat, it strengthens the city systems and their services to their public, and city systems like the Santiago library system afford city libraries improved services.

Cities like Irvine, Garden Grove, and Costa Mesa are sufficiently large to support city library systems. The county is wrong to threaten to take away their property tax revenue in order to protect its weakened system.

Yes, it is a cost-effective system, but it fails to supplant a city library system in terms of book selection, speed of acquisition, status of new book purchases, and the extent of its research and reference services.

I have been a professional librarian and library administrator. Counties that are fundamentally rural in nature have been dropping libraries completely. But the Orange County system is far more urban and developed, and is probably wealthy enough to pay for both city and county library services. The use of the new Newport city library facility by residents of Irvine and Costa Mesa serves to emphasize the need for improved library services in those cities.

KEN WHITE

Costa Mesa