By the end of summer the Bookmobile, which trucks books out to residents at various locations throughout the city, will be gone. The Bookmobile collection includes children's books, adult fiction and nonfiction, large-print books and books in many languages.

Administrative librarian Susan Denniston says the cost of maintaining the Bookmobile is too high. The cost to lend a book in the main library is 42 cents per book, whereas the cost to lend a book through the Bookmobile is $7 per book. Cutting the Bookmobile will save the library about $99,000 a year.

One program that will remain in place is Special Outreach Services, designed to provide library materials to readers who are homebound because of age or physical disability. Volunteers work with homebound residents to discuss their special needs, reading preferences and interests and also bring books to their homes.

According to Denniston, the library will cut back on some instructional and multicultural programs but not by too much. A main draw for many residents to the library are free programs that would be too expensive to attend elsewhere—like featured singers from Opera San José, read-along Shakespeare nights, a teen yoga class and computer classes.

Many of these programs will remain, Denniston says, because much of the funding for them comes from the Friends of the Library, a group of residents who volunteer at the library, raise funds and promote the library in the community.

Sometime in the next two years, the library will begin to charge $1.50 for feature videos and DVD rentals, which is the same route other Bay Area libraries have taken.

"This is one of the things libraries don't like to change at all. Some learn more by reading and some by watching movies or documentaries," Denniston says. But she says the change came about because it was a matter of continuing the service so that the movie section could sustain itself instead of being slated for cuts.

During budget discussions at various city council meetings, council member Fred Fowler expressed concern over this matter. "The very concept of libraries means providing free access to public information," said Fowler at one of the meetings.

Providing access to public information is key during rough economic times because library use goes up during those times, says Denniston. For instance, the Sunnyvale Public Library had 1.7 million items checked out last year. That number has risen to 2 million this past fiscal year.

"It gets very crowded, especially on weekends. But every day is busy now," Denniston says.

Jyoti Jacob, who has lived in Sunnyvale for three years, says she comes to the library every week—mostly to keep busy after losing her job as a computer analyst more than a year ago.

"I do come here to look for jobs, but these days I come to keep myself stimulated," Jacob says. She uses many of the library's services, renting movies, reading books, accessing the Internet and attending some of the children's programs with her daughter. The movie fee is disappointing, Jacob says, but she still plans to use the library more than ever.

"Our main goal was to save our materials budget and not cut the library's open hours," says Denniston.

While the library's changes will be phased in over the next couple of years, the job situation for library staff remains uncertain. There are some vacant positions that will help minimize layoffs, but Denniston says there may be some job loss despite the attrition.

"I can't say that there won't be job loss here. Someone with seniority in another city department could come to work here and bump a library staff person with less seniority," Denniston says.

Things are definitely not going to be the same, but the library staff hopes that the impact to residents will be minimal.