The Last Chapter of a Good Read : Nearby Panorama City Schools Will Be in a Bind as Popular Library Is Razed and Rebuilt

A dozen or so times a month, groups of elementary school pupils line up and trek to a place of wondrous adventure and learning: the Panorama City Branch Library, particularly popular for its children’s services.

But by the end of the year, the children, as well as thousands of other users, will have to go elsewhere.

Officials plan to raze the cramped building, built in 1959, and replace it with a new facility twice the size. The project will be the last--and many say long overdue--library improvement authorized by voters in a 1989 bond measure.

But the construction also will leave students at about 10 local elementary schools, plus junior and senior high schools, without a nearby library for the next two years. The hardest hit will be Noble Avenue, Burton Street and Chase Street elementary schools--the closest to the library--which schedule class trips weekly.

“Closing the library will be a real loss for us,” said Norman G. Bernstein, principal at Burton Elementary, just a 10-minute walk away. He said regular trips to the library are designed to foster “a lifelong habit of reading.”

When the library closes, Bernstein said, the school will have to rely more heavily on its own library and resources.

Classes of children also regularly take the 30-minute walk from Noble Elementary, said Thelma Sullivan, assistant principal. She said the pending closure “will make a big difference” in the school’s program.

“We’re really stressing literacy. We want to have every child reading by the end of first grade. We send books home every night. We will miss the library and its services.”

As partial compensation, library officials said a bookmobile will be stationed during the construction period at Panorama Mall at Van Nuys and Roscoe boulevards. Although reading and research materials will be limited, library users can place orders at the mobile station.

Otherwise, most users will be forced to travel to other libraries. The nearest include the refurbished Van Nuys Branch Library, which reopened last month in the Van Nuys Civic Center, and the vast new Mid-Valley Regional Library, the second-largest and often busiest in the city, at 16244 Nordhoff St. in North Hills.

However, those branches are beyond walking distance for most youngsters currently using the Panorama City branch, school and library officials said. Getting to a library “is going to be a major problem for the kids,” said Michele Raeburn, children’s librarian at the Panorama City branch.

“Many children will have to have their parents take them, or older ones can ride the bus to Van Nuys.”

School administrators said they hope to arrange more visits to their campus by librarians during the construction period.

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City engineers estimate that replacing the Panorama City branch will cost $1.97 million. Construction bids submitted by 13 firms and opened last week range from $1.8 million to $2.75 million. The Los Angeles Board of Public Works is expected to award a contract by the end of the year, said Juliana Cheng, director of branch library construction projects.

Additional land was purchased several years ago adjacent to the Panorama City facility at 14345 Roscoe Blvd. to allow construction of a larger building and greater parking. Construction has been delayed several times in recent years because higher priority was assigned to repairing or replacing other branches, particularly those with the most damage from the 1971 Sylmar-San Fernando earthquake, Cheng said.

However, the Panorama City facility, located in a densely populated area and with a monthly distribution rate of 13,000 to 16,000 books and other items, is among the busiest of the city’s 66 branches, said Thea March, branch manager.

The Valley now has 20 city branch libraries, including new branches in West Hills and Porter Ranch in addition to the Mid-Valley facility.

Cheng said plans are underway to build a Lake View Terrace/Pacoima branch library within the next three to four years. Financing for that project, estimated to cost $3.1 million, will come from a combination of funds raised by Lopez Canyon landfill and federal Community Development Block Grants. The city also is seeking to acquire land for a proposed new branch in Studio City, Cheng said.