BEVERLY HILLS : No Charge for Non-Resident Library Use

The City Council has taken the public relations advice of the city’s library director and decided not to charge non-residents to enter the city’s public library.

Library Director Michael Steinfeld had been asked by the council in July to explore the possibility of charging people who do not live in the city for an entry card as a way to offset the library’s $3.6-million annual operating budget. He estimated that nearly 70% of the 500,000 books and videos checked out last year were to people who did not live in the city.

Faced with a lingering recession and dwindling city revenues, the council also asked Steinfeld to evaluate the consequences of withdrawing the library’s membership in the Metropolitan Cooperative Library System, an association of libraries in Los Angeles County. Libraries such as Beverly Hills, Santa Monica and Los Angeles provide free library cards to non-residents who live in communities served by a member library.

The Beverly Hills library, which is open daily, has been used heavily by people from other cities partly because many libraries in the system have had to cut operating hours because of budget cuts, he said.

But Steinfeld urged the council to seek other remedies to the library’s problem because of the financial and social risks of issuing entry cards.

An entry card is “politically and socially fraught with difficulties,” Steinfeld said. He pointed out the experience of the Denver Public Library, which encountered a strong public backlash after it instituted a $10 daily pass fee in 1981 for people from other cities.

Councilman Allan L. Alexander also noted that fixed costs such as salaries, more than users, determine operating costs.

The two-story library, which opened in September, 1990, is run by a 110-member staff, including 30 full-time employees.