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Alexandra Marinshaw may need to find something else for her and her two sons to do on Thursday afternoons. Normally, she brings them to the Willow Glen Library on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but the city's recently released operating budget suggests that several of the branch libraries may need to reduce the days they are open from six to five. For the Willow Glen Library that would mean closing the library on Thursday in addition to its Sunday closure. And it would remain closed until the economy bounces back and budgets are no longer in the red.
"I think it's a step in the wrong direction," Marinshaw said. "I'm paying huge property taxes to live in Willow Glen, so it shouldn't be too expensive to keep the library operating" six days a week.
The San Jose city manager's office released the operating budget in May, and the city council is scheduled to hold public hearings about the budget in June.
But Willow Glen Library senior librarian Maurice Stevenson is anticipating a five-day work week, and he is taking the change in stride. He said the library has two open part-time positions that will simply be dropped so no current staff will be let go.
Also, he notes in his 30 years as a librarian, this isn't the worst situation the library system has been in.
"Actually, it got pretty bad around the time of Proposition 13," he said of the property tax initiative that voters approved in the 1970s, which affected funding for public services such as schools and libraries.
"A lot of good people were let go," he said, "and I would not want to repeat that experience."
During that time Stevenson just barely missed being let go due to seniority.
He said that if a day needed to be chosen for the library to close, it would most likely be Thursdays, because it's the least busy of all the days. Being closed on Saturday, he said, is "absolutely out of the question."
Just as the libraries have endured the consequences of Proposition 13, Stevenson anticipates the five-day service— excepted to begin in August—to last at least through the next fiscal year, and then it may return to a six-day schedule.
"No one's ever been happy when public services are cut," Stevenson said, "but library services are restored in time."
A six-day schedule may return in the near future, but James Cassarra, a 25-year Willow Glen resident, has difficulty accepting that hours will be cut simply because of a lack of funding.
"I don't understand how they juggle the money," said Cassarra, who visits the library a couple times a week. "Why close down this branch for one day when the city has enough money to open the new main library downtown? I think they ought to expand the hours of the Willow Glen branch."
The new Martin Luther King Library, the main library in the San Jose Public Library system of which the Willow Glen branch is a part, is scheduled to open in the fall. The new library, a joint venture between the city and San José State University, cost $177.5 million to build, with $70 million contributed by the city.
Patrons of the Willow Glen Library and other branches will get a taste of what life will be like without their library for a whole week beginning July 3, when the entire library system's computer network is overhauled.
The Willow Glen Library is located at 1157 Minnesota Ave. Current operating hours are Monday through Tuesday, noon to
9 p.m., and Wednesday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. For more information, call 408.998.2022.
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