Hours Added at City’s Smallest Library

The City Council voted Monday night to take one hour away from each of Ventura’s two larger libraries in order to provide six extra hours at the city’s smallest library on the Avenue.

The new schedule will begin Sept. 22.

The added service will boost the Avenue Library’s hours from 19 to 25 a week.

One of the new hours will be added to the Thursday schedule, keeping the library open until 7 p.m.; the other five hours will be used to keep the library open from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday.

The decision delighted westside residents, who have felt the effect of cuts in library service in recent years.

“I’m so excited that we might have five or six more hours,” Avenue Librarian Alberta Word said Monday afternoon. “We have over a 3,000 circulation in June. We’re just pushing the wall right now, trying to get everyone in and out and everything done in the 19 hours a week we’ve been open.”

As part of the county’s interim schedule and reorganization, the Ventura County Library Services Agency increased the hours from 27 hours a week to 55 at E.P. Foster Library and from 26 to 40 hours a week at H.P. Wright. The Avenue Library, however, received no extra hours, even though it has the highest circulation of any small library in the county.

Agency officials calculated that one hour of service at either Wright or Foster costs the same as about three hours of service at the Avenue Library. Based on that, the Library Advisory Committee recommended cutting hours at the larger libraries to increase service on the Avenue.

Mary Lou Schill, Ventura community services supervisor, said the council’s unanimous decision carries out the will of the people as expressed at meetings last year.

“There seemed to be broad-based support of the Avenue Library,” Schill said. “It’s a small reduction in Foster and Wright hours to have the additional hours on the Avenue.”

The Library Advisory Committee will meet at 5 p.m. Wednesday to tour possible sites for the Avenue Library, including the existing location at 807 N. Ventura Ave., the Sycamore Village building site at 2323 N. Ventura Ave. and the Casa de Anza at 606 N. Ventura Ave.

On Thursday at 6 p.m. in the same meeting room, the committee will meet to formally endorse one of the three sites.