City’s Main Library to Again Open 7 Days a Week

Starting in January, this city’s main library will again be among only a handful in Southern California that opens its doors every day of the week.

Indeed, Thousand Oaks’ two libraries will soon be stronger than ever after overcoming the budget cuts, natural disasters and mysterious mold outbreaks that have set them back in the past five years.

It is all but a done deal, but the City Council is scheduled Tuesday to formally consider spending $60,000 from general fund reserves to open Thousand Oaks’ main library on Fridays for the first time since 1991.

And on Nov. 25, the main Thousand Oaks library building on Janss Road--rocked by the 1994 Northridge earthquake and subsequently infested with potentially toxic mold spores--will reopen after a lengthy $4.5-million renovation.

“My mother was a librarian at a little school in Arizona,” said City Manager Grant Brimhall, “and although she passed away long ago, I’m sure she’s looking down at us somewhere, saying, ‘Way to go, Thousand Oaks!’ This City Council is strongly committed to having an outstanding library.”

Council members unanimously agreed in budget sessions earlier this year to open the library all week. But they decided to wait until the main library returned to its original site before pinpointing where the needed money would come from.

The main library had been temporarily situated on Willow Lane. Thousand Oaks also operates a sizable branch library in Newbury Park.

“I think our citizens deserve it,” Mayor Andy Fox said. “They expect a high level of municipal service, and next to police and fire protection, libraries are the most important service we provide. I think it’s time to stop talking about opening the [main library] and just do it.”

Council members Judy Lazar and Mike Markey said they too are eager to open the library on Fridays. But both said they want to make sure Thousand Oaks has enough money to pay for seven-day-a-week library service in future years.

The $60,000 the council is expected to approve Tuesday will only cover operations for the second half of this fiscal year, or until July. The annual cost of keeping the libraries open Fridays is about $114,000, according to a city report.

“My greater concern would be whether we have the money available to keep it open in forthcoming years,” Lazar said. “Nobody was happy when the library closed on Fridays, and everyone will be happy when it reopens. But we need to make sure we have the money to make it a permanent thing.”

When the 14-year-old main library reopens, its collection of books will total about 320,000, about 20,000 more than before the quake. Moreover, the facility will have a new CD-ROM collection purchased by the booster group Friends of the Thousand Oaks Library.

Brimhall said Library Services Director Marvin E. Smith and his staff have been working on how to implement the new schedule, which will increase total library hours from 55 to 63 per week.

Smith plans to provide daily library service the same way Thousand Oaks did prior to 1991: using temporary librarians, aides and pages to fill in on weekends. That would allow regular staff members to be available during heavier use times.

Of the more than 200 libraries in Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, only a few of the larger city library systems--such as some branches in Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Burbank and Glendale--are open every day of the week, according to a city report.