Library Tries Caffeine Fix

Decaf and Dickens. Kona and Kerouac. Cappuccino and Christie.

Strong coffee and good literature--it’s a well-tested combination. And a profitable one, the Oxnard Public Library is betting.

Taking a coffee cue from successful bookstore giants Borders and Barnes & Noble, the Oxnard library this week sported an espresso cart for a day outside its arched brick walls.

The bustling once-a-week cart is a library experiment that puts this blue-collar seaside town on the cusp of a burgeoning national trend motivated by customer demand, the bottom line and a desire to recapture library expatriates lured away by the sociable and caffeinated atmosphere of bookstore cafes.

“The stereotype of the library has been a cold, unwelcoming place where people say ‘shush’ and [where] you can’t smoke, eat or drink,” said Dan Golden, the library’s community outreach program leader. While powerless over the smoking ban, Golden added, “We are trying to break out of that model, that paradigm, and create a new image of a more dynamic, more proactive library.”

If selling outdoor iced mochas, biscotti and fruit smoothies proves profitable, coffee vendor Espresso Yourself in November or December will rent space full time--for an estimated $500 to $1,000 monthly fee--within the library’s periodicals section.

That $6,000 to $12,000 annually could be a significant boost to the city-run Oxnard Public Library, which has seen its budget slashed 35% to $2.1 million since the early 1990s.

And Oxnard isn’t the only public library with javamania.

Although there is no specific plan on the table, the impoverished Ventura County Library Services Agency also is considering coffee as a way to boost revenues. The county’s cash-strapped 15 branches have cut hours and staff since the library agency’s $10-million budget was halved in 1993.

Unable to keep their doors open and their collections current, county library officials have considered a number of measures to fatten their depleted coffers--including used-book sales and, yes, coffee, said Dixie Adeniran, director of the Library Services Agency.

“It is so interesting, the proliferation of bookstores that offer these kinds of services,” she said. “Book lovers must be java lovers. I know lots of them drink tea, but the others must drink coffee.”

The notion is getting more and more attention all over California. The city of San Leandro runs a 3-year-old coffee bar and catering service out of its public library. Glendora, in the San Gabriel Valley, also is considering a coffee bar as part of its public library strategic plan.

Trend-savvy Los Angeles is behind Oxnard on this curve, though. While the main library of the city of Los Angeles has a separate food court with fast-food Chinese, yogurt and croissants, it has no cappuccino in the stacks.

Farther afield, even coffee-conscious Seattle has yet to tap into the craze, though the Chicago Public Library has had a profitable coffee concession for two years.

The trend does have an ironic underpinning: The donation jars of free-lending libraries have cobwebs, while the cash registers of chain bookstores overflow. Libraries are compelled to compete for customers and dollars.

“The bookstores and libraries do indeed attract an overlapping clientele,” Adeniran said. “But bookstores are in the business of making money, and libraries are in the business of loaning materials and providing customized information as individually requested by members of the public who come in.”

While not unsympathetic to the plight of libraries, Oxnard’s coffee cart visitors on Wednesday preferred to focus on the peaked froth of an iced mocha.

“Very good, very tasty,” said Susan Shrope, who works at the library’s information desk.

Others in the crowd, which was heavy with city employees, suggested that the cart would be more successful if it remained outside in the Oxnard Civic Center instead of moving into the library.

“This is a great place to relax and get out from the inside,” said city building inspector Don DiDomizio. “I don’t know how it would be inside the library.”

Cart owner Carl Thomsen, who had sold about 60 or 75 drinks for about $2 each by late afternoon the first day, said he is inclined to bring the business inside the library, which boasted 400,000 visitors last year.

It only makes sense, he said with a chuckle. “I, for one, need coffee to stay awake when I read. And if you want to compete with the bookstores, you’ve got to have the product.”

And if the espresso cart winds up in Oxnard’s periodicals section, will there be latte dribbled on the pages of Life? Nah, said the library’s Golden. Coffee drinkers are adults, after all.

“That’s why we’re not selling bubble gum or beer,” Golden joked. “That would be a mess.”