Improvements Expand Concept of a Public Library

Books are piled in almost every corner, wall and cart at Burbank’s Buena Vista Library, an 8,000-square-foot building that opened in 1948.

“This is a well-worn building,” said branch director John Coultas, whose desk is piled high with hardbacks from the library’s collection. “There just isn’t enough space here.”

The space crunch will be a thing of the past once a new 28,000-square-foot library is built across the street, Coultas said. Contractors began work earlier this month on the $17-million project, which includes a park with winding paths, shade trees and a toddler playground.

Scheduled to open in 2003, the library follows a trend across Southern California to upgrade existing facilities, build new ones and make libraries serve multiple needs.

“The idea that libraries are simply used to store books is changing,” City Manager Bud Ovrom said. “It’s different from your grandmother’s library.”

Plans call for the library to have state-of-the-art technology, including fiber-optic wiring and satellite conferencing capabilities. It will include a community room that can accommodate 200 people, study spaces and a story room for children’s activities.

At the current branch, only five public computers are available with Internet access, and the wait can be as long as two hours. The new building will have 30 public computers.

Though many cities have passed bond measures for new libraries, Burbank is financing the project with city funds accumulated over several years, Ovrom said.

The city manager said the last decade “has been very good, economically, for the city of Burbank,” home to numerous film and television production facilities.

In Los Angeles, the city library system is building or improving 28 branches with funds from a $178-million bond measure passed in 1998.

“All of the city’s 68 libraries have exhibition spaces, special reading rooms for children and teens,” said Los Angeles library spokesman Peter Persic. “The newer buildings will all have multipurpose rooms that can be used for computer classes or by community groups, even after library hours.”

Cities elsewhere are benefiting from a $350-million state bond measure approved in 2000 that set aside matching funds for library improvements.

Librarians and library users in Burbank said they are happy the city is finally doing something about the old building.

The Buena Vista branch, just down the street from Disney’s corporate headquarters, serves a community of 30,000 people in Burbank, in addition to patrons from nearby Studio City and North Hollywood, Coultas said.

Teenagers use the library to do homework or just to hang out. Younger children come by after school to wait for their parents or to take part in the educational programs the library offers.

High school student Megan Buena visits the branch three or four times a month.

“I know a lot of people come here to meet up with their friends,” said the 17-year-old, who was using the library as a quiet space to write a college application essay. “I usually come here to do homework or use the computers.”

Zeny Insigne, 50, has visited the library twice a week since she moved to Burbank in the early 1980s.

“I’m always here looking at the different [community] fliers they put out for programs and classes,” she said, leaning over copies of Time magazine and the Wall Street Journal. “But, of course, I come here to borrow books and read.”

Of the new library, she said: “This is something that’s definitely needed.”