Librarian Shelves a Bookish Image

Just as you can’t always tell a book by its cover, don’t be fooled by the staid outward appearance of today’s library. Inside is a different story.

Gone are the drawers of index cards, the stacks of periodicals and reference guides. Even books are scarce at some branches. It’s all part of the “virtual library,” as it’s called in the trade, the latest trend in public information.

“For years, the library was slumbering, an unchanged institution,” says Cherie Magnus, a Los Angeles city librarian for nearly three decades. “All of that has been swept away electronically.”

Now, instead of teaching patrons how to use the card catalog, Magnus leads them to a computer terminal and demonstrates how to operate an electronic index. Can’t find a book at your location? No problem. With a few clicks, it will be delivered to your branch from the downtown Central Library or any of the city’s 67 branches. Electronic databases help patrons retrieve magazines and periodicals. And, of course, there’s the ubiquitous Internet.

For Magnus, a self-described Internet addict who writes travel articles for an online magazine, the transition has been relatively easy. Her specialty of working with young adults hasn’t hurt, either.

Youngsters who once shunned the studious library environment can be seen after school, shouldering backpacks and making a beeline for the 12 computer stations at the new branch in Echo Park where Magnus works. In place of the traditional hushed atmosphere, the softly lit, pastel-colored interior resounds with the din of children jockeying for computer time and electronic bleeps from interactive video games. Suddenly, the solemn institution that once faced cutbacks in hours and service has become the most popular kid on the block.

Technological advances blamed for eliminating jobs in some fields are doing the reverse in the archives business. Los Angeles is recruiting librarians for the $33,000-to-$41,000-a-year civil service job to accommodate increased patronage and extended hours, says Sylvia Galan-Garcia, Echo Park’s branch manager. About half the branches, including hers, have been “virtualized,” she says, and all are expected to be wired by 1998. Patrons can also reserve books and check library resources from home through the Web page (https://www.lapl.org), but that convenience is unlikely to curb library use.

Recent surveys by the Chicago-based American Library Assn. show that 36% of people without computers at home or in the office visit the public library to go online. Today 75% of the country’s public libraries serving more than 100,000 patrons offer direct Internet service.

“It’s like bait,” says Magnus, who began working for the library as a clerk in 1964 while majoring in dance at UCLA. (She later switched to English literature.) A love of books and working with the public kept her on. She couldn’t foresee that in 1997 she would spend large portions of her day mediating disputes over whose turn it is to use the computer, and making change for kids wanting to download cartoons.

As far as technology overtaking her job, Magnus isn’t worried. “A library will always need a librarian because people are overwhelmed,” she says. “They need a guide, an interpreter, whether it’s for print, books or navigating the Web.”