Library Staff Cuts

Re “Library Advisors in Ventura Back Effort to Cut 15 Jobs Countywide,” (Jan. 29).

Elected officials should be careful about making the public think that the drastic staff cuts will improve service.

Interim Director Richard Rowe has been clear that the cuts are needed in order to pay for longer hours within the existing budget. What the new library management has done is simply to bite the bullet and do what they can with deplorable library funding.

This is probably necessary because no one has come up with more money for libraries. (Even the county did not continue its contribution from the general fund this year.) They’ve simply redistributed the paltry amount of tax base left for libraries after half the library budget was wiped out by state pullbacks of local property taxes and special district funds.

Larger cities have received more tax money in this redistribution and also have the option of providing city general funds to improve their own libraries. Smaller cities, cities with a low sales tax base and unincorporated areas have no options to add to their services other than a new tax for libraries.

The cuts in staffing will affect public service. With the much-vaunted emphasis on having staff on the front lines (i.e. helping the public at reference and checkout desks), there still will be only four full-time staff, two of them librarians, at each of the largest libraries in the system. With the longer hours, this means that there may be times when there is no librarian at the reference desk to help the public find information, or the desk may be staffed with part-time, less experienced staff. In the smaller libraries, there are only two regular half-time people.

Behind-the-scenes cuts will be less obvious to the public, but the lack of strong, experienced backup to the public services staff will further erode the quality of the collections and the information service. The reorganization has also done little to increase the amount of money available to spend on collections and information resources.

We are glad that the cities have managed to stay together to work on the library problem, and I know the library management had to do something if libraries are to keep the new, extended hours. But please, public officials, don’t fool the public with statements that our libraries are now better. Although the librarians that are left will work as hard as they can, there’s no substitute for adequate public funding to provide good collections and service.

CATHERINE J. PENPRASE

Port Hueneme