Libraries’ Identity Crisis

When the doors open at the Van Nuys branch of the public library, there’s such a mad rush for the reference desk that the staff has to implore patrons not to stampede through the main room. But it’s not reference books they’re racing to, it’s the sign-up sheet for the branch’s nine public computers.

Such is life these days in the Los Angeles Public Library system, which is embracing computers and the concept of the “virtual library” on a scale so far unmatched by other public systems around the country.

The downtown Central Library and 48 of the 67 branches are equipped with 500 public computers that can access the Internet and more than 100 electronic databases, as well as the system’s electronic card catalog. By the end of the year, an additional 200 computers will be online. And by the middle of next year, all the branches should be wired.

The library has its own Web site, offering everything from specially designed pages for teenagers and children to digitalized photographs from its collections. Library users can sign on at home and reserve a book anywhere in the system.

The computers have become one of the hottest attractions. They are in constant use and there is generally a wait to get on them. People who rarely set foot in a public library before have become habitues.

Library administrators proudly boast of bringing computers and the Internet to the poorest of neighborhoods and providing residents, regardless of where they live, with “equity of access to information.” They describe the installation of public computers as one of their most significant outreach efforts in years.

Yet however wonderful the concept of the virtual library, the reality has been more problematic.

Staff librarians worry that computerization has redefined their roles in ways they do not altogether like. They complain that terminals are frequently down. They say that the computers are primarily used by the public not to scour the rich resource of databases, but to check e-mail, play computer games, engage in chat room exchanges and view pornography.

“If [the computers] were only used for research, we would probably accept it a lot more,” said Patricia Clark, the chief rank-and-file steward of the library’s union local. “As it is, they are used for entertainment, and entertainment that is sometimes disgusting. So it’s hard to support.”

A hefty cut in this year’s Central Library budget for buying books and periodicals also has left some staff grumbling that City Librarian Susan Kent is emphasizing the virtual services at the expense of print and is effectively dumbing down the system--a charge she dismisses as unfounded.

“They’re robbing Peter to pay Paul,” said librarian Glen Creason, a longtime downtown library staff member who feels that the technology is assuming too high a priority. “There should be a balance and there’s not now.”

Vast Potential Is Often Ignored

Like many librarians, Creason is ambivalent about the computer stations that have become ubiquitous in his workplace. “I’m very much torn,” he said one day after teaching a small class of patrons how to search electronic databases in the humanities.

On the one hand, he recognizes the computer’s enormous potential as a research tool. He speaks of “all this great stuff” available online. But he also notes that the great stuff is frequently in less demand than the junk.

“When someone’s looking at a Web site of women having sex with horses--that’s not what the library is here for,” he said.

Even discounting the pornography viewing, Creason sees conflicts, such as when “a kid is playing virtual games on the computer instead of reading Judy Blume or literature.”

He believes his role as a professional has diminished. He used to feel almost like a professor as he helped people dig for information. Now he says he feels like he’s “giving change in an arcade.”

The issues raised by Creason and Clark are not easy ones.

Christine Lind Hage, president of the Public Library Assn., said that although some library systems have installed filters to block access to pornography sites or Web-based e-mail and chat rooms, most do not.

The reigning philosophy in library circles--including in the city system--is that if the Internet is offered, all of it should be offered, not just edifying pieces of it.

“We really do not have a right to tell you, as an adult, what to look at,” said Joan Bartel, director of information technologies and collections in the Los Angeles system.

Moreover, she and Kent say, the available filtering software is only partly effective. It misses some smut sites while blocking out perfectly innocent information.

For example, Kent said that when the staff checked out one filtering program, it blocked the “pussy willow” encyclopedia entry. However, when she was using the Internet at home to do some vacation research on Brittany, France, a porn site named “Brittany” popped up.

The only restrictions the library places on usage is time. Patrons can use the computers for 30 minutes at a stretch--for a maximum of two hours if no one is waiting.

The children’s page on the library Web site carries a warning that parents--and not the library--are responsible for monitoring children’s Web surfing. Privacy screens, which block side views of the computer monitor, are also being installed--although the staff says patrons have a tendency to remove them.

As for the complaint that the computers are used more for entertainment than education, Kent replied: “That makes me laugh. . . . Libraries are also recreational institutions.

“We would be an extremely elite organization and awfully off-putting and not helpful to the people of Los Angeles if we said we’re only here for serious researchers. That’s not our job. We’re not an academic library.”

Los Angeles is by no means alone in opening its doors to the information highway. Hage said about two-thirds of the country’s libraries are hooked up to the Internet.

Switch to Computers Began in 1993

Nonetheless, Los Angeles is wiring its branches at a much faster pace than other systems. Through its Web site and extensive list of databases, the city is providing more online than is typical. The databases, which cost $850,000 a year, cover everything from business information to biographies, government statistics and film indexes.

Cleveland-based technology consultant Diane Mayo, who works with libraries, said Los Angeles is taking its technology services “a lot further than the average public library by a longshot.”

The wiring began with the $14-million computerization of the system’s card catalog, circulation and patron records, which debuted with the 1993 reopening of the historic Central Library downtown. That library and one branch were equipped with terminals with Internet access in 1995 and other branches have since come online at a pace of more than one a month.

It costs about $50,000 to wire a branch, a bill that the city has picked up for 12 branches but has otherwise been covered by private money funneled through the Library Foundation.

Kent, who was named city librarian in 1995, has been a driving force in exporting the virtual library project to the branches. “There’s this wonderful opportunity to enable the people of Los Angeles to take advantage of the exploding information around them,” she said. “We need to put it where people can get it.”

With nearly 90% of the system’s circulation in the branches, Kent believes they haven’t gotten the attention they deserved in the past. “We had to re-look at how you allocate resources. We’ve added branches and expanded branches and see a tremendous demand in the neighborhoods.”

But in the stately halls of the Central Library, some complain that Kent is pursuing the politically popular.

“This looks good. Little kids sell. The word ‘virtual’ library sells whether or not it works,” said one librarian who complained that computer terminals and programs fail on a daily basis.

“She doesn’t care about Central Library as a research place,” Clark said. “It’s a beautiful place for people to come on Sunday and look around. That’s all she cares about.”

A recent 20% cut in the Central Library’s budget for buying materials--books, periodicals, serials and the like--has been particularly painful for the staff.

“It’s a very difficult situation for us,” said Billie Connor, manager of the business and science departments. “We’ve had to cut a lot of things that will be very much missed. . . . We would not like to see this city weaken its Central Library and become just mediocre library services throughout. We’re concerned that could happen.”

The budget whacking was prompted by the end of two funding sources: a federal grant program and Save-the-Books donations raised to restock the Central Library’s shelves after its devastating 1986 fire. Money from the books fund has been used throughout the decade to supplement the Central Library’s materials budget and now it is gone. An additional 6% in city money was added to the materials kitty this fiscal year, along with some private donations, but that hardly made up for the loss of nearly $900,000 from the two exhausted sources.

The bottom line is that while the system added five branches this decade and the overall systemwide city budget has grown by $20.7 million since 1990--to $76.7 million--Central Library’s materials budget has dropped from $2.8 million to about $1.7 million during that same period.

Pitfalls in Solely Relying on Computers

Although the Central Library no longer has to buy some expensive print materials because the information is available in electronic databases, staff members say they are being forced to drop subscriptions to numerous periodicals and information sources that are either not online or are available electronically only in partial text.

Even before the budget chopping, Christine Bocek, a librarian in the downtown literature and fiction section, said there was a push to cut spending on microfilm and paper information sources because it is available electronically. “But all of us who work with the public know it’s not all in the computer,” she said.

Even when a magazine or journal is online, licensing and copyright agreements can change, so that something will be available full-text one month and then only in summary the next. “It’s not consistent. Things can disappear,” Bocek said.

The Central Library’s materials budget may be smaller, Kent acknowledged, but it still dwarfs that of the individual branches. “I’m proud of the Central Library. I don’t think you dumb down anything when you have the budget that is the size of the Central budget.”

A $178-million bond issue on November’s city ballot would not relieve the materials squeeze because it is scheduled for branch renovation and construction.

As the library wrestles with spending priorities and its changing role, one thing can be counted upon. The computers are here to stay. Bartel says there would be a “hue and cry” if they disappeared and she’s no doubt right.

The challenge is learning how to live with them. As Van Nuys Senior Librarian Lupe Canales said: “They’re a necessity--if we don’t go nuts with them.”

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Checking Out Online Services

The Central Library and 48 Los Angeles city library branches have been wired into the system’s virtual library program. They are equipped with public computers offering access to the Internet and more than 100 electronic databases:

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Central Library, 630 W. 5th St.

Angeles Mesa, 2700 W. 52nd St.

Arroyo Seco, 6145 N. Figueroa St.

Ascot, 256 W. 70th St.

Benjamin Franklin, 2200 E. 1st

Brentwood, 11820 San Vicente Blvd.

Cahuenga, 4591 Santa Monica Blvd.

Canoga Park, 7260 Owensmouth Ave.

Chatsworth, 21052 Devonshire St.

Chinatown, 536 W. College St.

Eagle Rock, 5027 Caspar Ave.

Echo Park, 1410 W. Temple St.

El Sereno, 4990 Hutington Dr.

Encino-Tarzana, 18231 Ventura Blvd.

Exposition Park, 3665 S. Vermont Ave.

Fairfax, 161 S. Gardner St.

Felipe de Neve, 2820 W. 6th St.

Granada Hills, 10640 Petit Ave.

Goldwyn / Hollywood, 1623 N. Ivar Ave.

Harbor Gateway, 1555 W. Sepulveda Blvd.

John Muir, 1005 W. 64th St.

Lincoln Heights, 2530 Workman St.

Malabar, 2801 Wabash Ave.

Mar Vista, 12006 Venice Blvd.

Mark Twain, 9621 S. Figueroa St.

Memorial, 4625 W. Olympic Blvd.

Mid-Valley, 16244 Nordhoff St.

North Hollywood, 5211 Tujunga Ave.

Northridge, 9051 Darby Ave.

Pacomia, 13605 Van Nuys Blvd.

Palms-Rancho Park, 2920 Overland Ave.

Pio Pico Koreatown, 695 S. Serrano Ave.

Platt, 23600 Victory Blvd.

Porter Ranch, 11371 Tampa Ave.

Robertson, 1719 S. Robertson Blvd.

San Pedro, 931 S. Gaffey St.

Sherman Oaks, 14245 Moorpark St.

Studio City, 4400 Babcock Ave.

Sun Valley, 7935 Vineland Ave.

Sunland-tujunga, 7771 Foothill Blvd.

Sylmar, 13059 Glenoaks Blvd.

Van Nuys, 6250 Sylmar Ave.

Venice, 501 S. Venice Blvd.

Vermont Square, 1201 W. 48th St.

Vernon, 4504 S. Central Ave.

Watts / Alma R. Woods, 10205 Compton

West Valley, 19036 Vanowen St.

Westchester, 8946 Sepulveda Eastway

Woodland Hills, 22200 Ventura Blvd.

The library’s Website can be accessed at https://www.lapl.org

Source: Los Angeles Public Library