Consultants Fault Libraries for Deficiencies

A consultant’s initial impression of Ventura County’s struggling library system reveals “woefully inadequate” collections--with books crammed into packed shelves and little access to the information superhighway.

Local libraries offer no CD-ROMs, no access to the World Wide Web, and hardly any research materials available online. And not only are their collections a mess, but they are also terribly outdated, said consultant Gloria Stockton, hired to assess the library system.

Nobody likes to hear that kind of criticism, but the county leaders assembled Thursday for a progress report from Providence Associates on the $48,300 study took it in stride.

“We all knew that,” said Supervisor Frank Schillo, pointing out that state budget cuts in recent years have slashed the library’s revenues from $10 million to about $4 million. “This is not a big surprise. We’ve been operating on half a budget for the last three years. We know how sad the condition of the library is in and it is because of lack of funding.”

The Denton, Texas-based consulting firm plans to deliver a final draft of its study to county officials Oct. 24, but Thursday’s meeting was designed to give them a sneak peek at the findings.

Establishing a technology plan for at least the next five years is high on the group’s list of preliminary recommendations. Continuing the self-evaluation process beyond the end of the study is also key, said consultant Keith Swigger.

“Perhaps you need to think about investing more in the evaluation process,” Swigger said. “You need to go out and talk to people who don’t use the library.”

So far, Providence Associates has visited all 16 of the county library system’s branches. Stockton said their findings have been very disparate.

“You have a system that is at both extremes,” Stockton said. “You have some very good facilities, but you also have some that are operating at the low end of the scale.”

Facilities with better services tend to have received them through private donations, she said. This creates a basic inequality among communities, Stockton said.

The consultant company’s final analysis of the system will show how Ventura County’s libraries stack up against libraries in eight similar-sized communities across the country. But already it is clear that resources are so depleted that children often have better access to high-tech equipment at school or home than at the public library, Stockton said. And the quick-moving information age has left the libraries behind.

“As technology advances, the library has not been able to keep up with it,” Stockton said. “And that is going to get harder to do.”

Stockton said her final report will include a price tag to fix the system. But she declined to discuss what that figure would be.

“It’s going to be very complex,” she said. “But it will not be a surprise.”

The quest for fresh funding for the library is already underway. In July, the county supervisors voted 3 to 2 to move forward with a special benefit assessment district, requiring homeowners to pay $33 a year to support the library. But if voters approve Proposition 218 in November, local governments will have to win two-thirds voter approval to impose the assessment.

Schillo said he thinks voters can be convinced. But he worries about all those people who have already given up on local libraries.

“The problem is the people who have gotten out of the habit of going to the libraries because there is nothing there for them,” he said.

Even though Thursday’s meeting was short on good news, officials said they remain hopeful that the library’s problems can be cured.

“It’s solvable,” Simi Valley Councilman Paul Miller said. “I feel confident that they are looking at the right things.”