Bond idea back on the table
at the cramped Saratoga Library

Publicity blitz planned to get the word out

Needs have been hidden

By Steve Enders

Saratoga Community Library officials are open and honest in saying that it's make-it or break-it time to ask Saratogans for money to help expand the overcrowded building. And this time they say they're going all the way--pass or fail.

A community forum with library commissioners began a rejuvenated effort to see that the library gets the $12 to $15
million it needs to expand the 20-year-old structure.

At a meeting April 12 in the library, officials took questions and made their first attempts to enlighten the public on the needs of the library this year. The quest for publicity will climax in June, when Friends of the Saratoga Libraries and the Saratoga Community Library Foundation host a "Raising the Roof" party outside the library.

It wasn't long ago--only five months--that the same groups got word through a city-wide survey that residents weren't ready to put up the money and that the library probably wouldn't get the broad support a bond measure requires.

"That was a little bit of a surprise," librarian Dolly Barnes said. "The disappointment was that people were just not ready. The good part was that we figured out that people just didn't know much about it."

Many of the problems the library is facing have been mostly hidden, Library Commission Chairwoman Marcia Manzo said She said that's because the staff was doing such a good job in putting up with what's there now, and that people haven't been aware of any negatives.

But that image is about to change, as the city's Library Commission and the Friends embark on a campaign that they hope will shed light on what's really going on at the library.

Over the last few years circulation has, almost literally, gone through the roof. Even for a short month like February, the numbers are staggering. In February 1998, according to Barnes, 72,167 items were checked out of the library. In February 1999, 75,448 items were checked out.

The Friends group claims some 1,000 members--an extraordinary number for a community this size, according to Library Commissioner Sally Towse.

But numbers aren't needed to know the library is crowded. Just walk inside. Books, magazines and reference materials are all on very tall stacks, out of reach to many. There's as much noise as there are books, which echoes into the designated "quiet" areas. Junior high school students who come after school are forced to sit in the children's section, at tables and in chairs that were made for toddlers.

Behind the scenes, a staff of 12 shares four desks; copy machines are crammed under stairwells, and a room previously filled only by circuit breakers has become another office space.

These situations provide a stark contrast to the way things were in the library just a few years ago, when there was plenty of elbow room and places to read.

The needs of the library have been spelled out since 1991, when a needs assessment report was completed and again last year when a consultant outlined a reconfiguration of existing space there, in hopes of maximizing the library's potential.

If a bond is passed, it could be well into the next century before any construction is finished and by then the library could really be bursting, Barnes said.

Much of the library's stacks have already been weeded, and in the coming months, she said, her staff will make a big swap in space occupied by magazines and large-type books. Compact discs and movies are going to be moved as well, to more efficient shelving near where they're now kept.

Still, the library needs more space.

"We don't hear anything negative," Library Commission chairwoman Marcia Manzo said about the bond. She said they're sure that this time, the groups are ready to get the long-needed improved library up to the demands of the community.

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