Budget Cuts May Force Closings at Library Branches

The Los Angeles County Public Library, which only recently returned most of its 84 branches to full-time schedules, is facing a new round of budget cuts that could force officials to close 16 branches or once again reduce hours across the system.

With the Board of Supervisors scheduled this week to consider a spending plan that would cut $9.6 million from the library’s $80-million budget, library workers also expect to reduce their book buying by 33%, said the county librarian, Margaret Donnellan Todd.

“This is definitely not what I came here to do when I took this job a year ago,” Todd said. “Slowly but surely, we’ve done everything we can to make savings and we’ve just hit the wall this year. It’s really sad.”

Although the library’s budget has not yet been approved and money could be found to avoid some of the cuts, frustrated library workers are already working to put the cuts into effect.

Todd is preparing options to achieve the cuts. In one, 16 branches would close and the remaining branches would open four to six days a week. In the other, all branches would remain open, but for only three to six days a week.

To reduce money spent on supplies, library workers are searching storage rooms for old fliers to advertise events, hoping they can black out the old dates and write in the new.

All this, Todd said, is expected to irritate the 2.5 million residents who hold county cards and check out 14.7 million items a year.

News of the cutbacks saddened those attending a recent storytelling session for preschoolers at the branch in Montebello.

“Oh no, I wish they wouldn’t do that,” Stella Velasquez said as she held her 5-year-old daughter, Jessica, on her lap. “The library gets the children away from the TV and out of the house. It’s an escape, and that’s a big deal.”

Library officials have seen a cycle of decreased funding and then optimistic but temporary fixes. “We are kind of used to it,” Todd said. “Sadly, it’s not a huge shock.”

In 1993, the county library system was slashed from $62.4 million to $43.4 million. Ten branches were closed, hours were reduced by 21% and money for new books was reduced by half.

“In truth, we’ve never recovered from that money lost in the mid-’90s,” Todd said. But in the last year or two, the library has returned all of its branches to five-, six- and seven-day schedules.

Even as officials consider closing some libraries, county supervisors are expected to spend money for five new branches to take advantage of state grants. Todd said she supports the move.

“It’s one-time money, and although the county has to come up with 35% of the money for the new branches, we have to use the state grant or lose it,” said Nancy Mahr, a library spokeswoman.

At the Hawaiian Gardens branch, librarians said that residents eagerly anticipate shipments of new books, which come almost every day in bundles of 10 to 30 books. If the cuts are approved, new arrivals will be fewer.

Children crowd many libraries since researchers largely abandoned the system some time ago, reference librarians said. In 1993, when the book budget was trimmed by half, librarians concentrated their cuts on low-circulation reference books. As a result, the library system lacks research books to support many types of study.

Marta Reents, a reference librarian at the Norwalk branch, which is designated to house the system’s collection of business resources, said she tells most researchers they probably need to go somewhere else. The library’s best book on Mexican trade law, she said, was published before the North American Free Trade Agreement was enacted in 1993. “This used to be a fabulous collection,” she said, gesturing at the business books.