Saratoga News Library officials plan to launch a campaign to educate public Public will be told of plans to make best use of space Community Room will stay By Sarah Lombardo The Saratoga Library Commission and the Friends of the Saratoga Libraries are on a mission: They are out to let residents know everything they can about every inch of the Saratoga Community Library. The groups announced last week they are launching a campaign to fill Saratogans in on how the library is filling up. The campaign coincides with the completion of a draft report by analyst Robert Rohlf, hired earlier this year by the Santa Clara County Library to provide an assessment of the use of space in the community library. Officials from the Saratoga Library appealed to the county to bring in a space consultant after a survey completed last November showed a proposed bond measure to expand the library would most likely not garner the support needed to pass. With books overflowing shelves, seating areas reduced, staff areas shrinking and expansion plans shelved, library staffers said they had no option but to take a more critical look at how space in the 20-year-old building was already being used. And, according to Rohlf's report, it was being used very well. Rohlf's report commends the staff for its use of space, but makes one chilling recommendation: the Saratoga Community Library's community room should go."He told us we had no business having a community room with the number of people we serve and the limited space we have," Library Commission chairwoman Marcia Manzo said. "He said we've already got eight quarts of stuff in a four-quart container." When the Saratoga Library, located at the corner of Saratoga and Fruitvale avenues, was built, it was designed to hold 80,000 items. According to Friends second vice president Janet McLaughlin, circulation at the library has risen 170 percent in the last 10 years. And as of 1997's inventory, the 18,000-square-foot library holds more than 170,000 items. Expansion plans, the second in a decade to be put on hold for lack of support or county budget cuts, proposed more than doubling the size of the library to some 44,000 square feet. With the campaign, the Friends and the commission want to inform library visitors and Saratoga residents of the library's crunch for space and its efforts to utilize every possible inch within the building. Every inch but the community room, that is, according to Manzo. "We had decided that we will not take away the community room," she said, admitting the decision makes the reorganization of the library that much harder. The campaign won't officially kick off until October. The groups are working on a resolution to present to the Saratoga City Council declaring the week of Oct. 19-24 Saratoga Library Awareness Week. And library officials plan to host a public meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 20 in the Saratoga Adult Care Center on Allendale Avenue at which Rohlf will present his findings and recommendations for how to make the best use of the library's limited space. [ Back to Contents Page | Saratoga News Home Page | Archives ] This article appeared in the Saratoga News, September 23, 1998. ©1998 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.