Library Open? Test the Door

Patrons of the Villa Park Library have a bit of a mystery on their hands: the library’s hours. It’s open at noon on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Or is it noon on Mondays and Wednesdays and 1 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays?

“I can never remember,” said Ron Accornero, president of the Friends of the Villa Park Library. “I’ll have to check my key chain,” he said, rattling in his pocket for one of the trinkets the group handed out last year to remind patrons when the library is open.

For the record, the library’s hours are 1 to 8 p.m. Mondays and Wednesdays and noon to 6 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays. It’s also open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturdays, but closed Fridays and Sundays.

“Not confusing at all,” Accornero said, rolling his eyes.

Since budget cutbacks in 1993, the Villa Park Library has had irregular hours. At one point, the library, which shares a building with City Hall on Santiago Boulevard, was open only two days a week.

All the shifting of hours has left many residents unsure when the library is open. It’s not an uncommon sight to see a patron yanking on the library’s locked door in frustration.

But now patrons and city leaders are talking with county officials to make the library’s hours more uniform. The city has even offered to waive the $450 monthly rent on the building in exchange for more regular hours. County and Villa Park officials say they expect the plan to be approved by early summer.

“Hopefully, it will all work out and we’ll get the hours stable, so once they get in your mind, they stay there,” Councilman Robert E. McGowan said.

The library, tucked in a back corner of the city’s only strip mall, is a source of pride for the residents of Villa Park, the smallest city in Orange County. When hours were being cut back in the mid-1990s, the Friends of the Villa Park Library held monthly fund-raisers to help keep the branch open. The group still has more than $75,000 for “another rainy day,” Accornero said.

Yet despite the group’s efforts to promote the library’s schedule by handing out key chains and holding events, patrons still struggle to remember when it’s open.

“In the afternoon,” a man returning some books said after a lengthy pause.

“Lunch-ish?” one patron guessed.

“I just come and pull on the door. If it’s open, I go in. If it’s not, I go away,” said another.

County officials find such talk mildly irritating. Libraries in several other small cities, including Stanton and Seal Beach, are also open just five days a week. They note too that the library’s schedule is posted on the door. “I’ve never had anyone complain to me about the hours,” said Villa Park librarian Joyce Hensley.

They also point out the Villa Park branch is among the most active libraries in the county system, particularly considering its size. The library, with its estimated 40,000 to 50,000 volumes, loaned more than 33,000 items in the 1999-2000 budget year. While that number is dwarfed by larger libraries in Irvine, “it’s pretty good, considering,” said John Adams, county librarian.

Some patrons even embrace the quirky hours and take it as a symbol of life in Villa Park. Wendy Leberman takes her two small children to the library once a week; the librarians greet her by name and coo over her children.

“It’s very consistent with the Villa Park feel: homey and friendly. Like Mayberry,” Leberman said.

But for others, the hours can still turn a trip to the library into a whodunit. Trisha Frazier has used the library for almost six years and says she came to the library in the midmorning several times, knocking on the door and peering in, before figuring out the schedule.

“You’d think a library would have regular hours,” she said. “Hopefully, they’ll get everything worked out and it’ll be open at obvious times.”