L.A. library transfers to cost a buck?

In the face of a citywide budget crisis, the Los Angeles Public Library is proposing a service charge for books circulated through inter-library loan. If approved, the $1-a-book fee will take effect July 1.

If this were a kind of luxury tax, it wouldn't seem all that bad. I mean, a dollar, right? But some people are concerned that it'll affect the smallest, least-funded branch libraries -- and their patrons -- the most. That's why they've launched this blog urging people to write to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and library leaders and to organize opposition to the fee before the May 1 City Council hearing on the library's budget.

There are about 70 branches of the L.A. Public Library serving the city's readers (a few branches are currently closed for repairs). Obviously, not all branches can have every book, but most are available within the library system -- via inter-library loans -- for free. Author Cecil Castellucci, who volunteers at a public school in Echo Park, told the no-fee campaign organizers:

As a read-aloud volunteer at Mayberry Elementary school, I use this service to get the perfect books to read to the students. For example, I used the inter-library loan service to get books on opera to read aloud to the kids in preparation for their field trip to the L.A. Opera. As a young adult author, I find it appalling to be charging $1 for an inter-library loan.

While the organizers are soliciting suggestions for how to support the library, I know of one sure way coming up April 30. It's the library's annual gala dinner, a fund-raiser for the library foundation that this year will honor author Larry McMurtry ("Lonesome Dove," "Terms of Endearment," "The Last Picture Show"). Tickets are $750 apiece. Sure, that's a lot of smackers; but it would also pay for a lot of books zooming around the city through inter-library loans.

Carolyn Kellogg

photo by Tom Martin via Flickr

Comments

[Laurie Schnebly Campbell]

I can see charging a fee if the book comes from some other library system, as we do in Phoenix, but not from within the L.A. library's OWN system.

[Melissa]

Until just recently, I lived on the Burbank/Glendale border. Burbank charged $0.50 to have a book transferred within the system. Glendale offered the service for free. In the 3 years I lived there, I checked 1 book out of the Burbank library and more than 150 from Glendale. I used the LAPL system all of the time when I lived in Los Feliz. Their recent implementation of a fee if you don't pick up your transferred book is fair. Why should the library absorb the transfer cost when you couldn't make it to the library to pick up what you ordered? A blanket fee, though, that's a bad idea.

[Sue Kamm]

While people are correctly up in arms over the prospect of a fee to borrow materials from within the system, a harsher reality is that the library has stopped buying new materials.

That's right - no new books, and magazine subscriptions have been cancelled.

The holes in the collections this practice leaves can't necessarily be made up. Books go out of print and periodical issues are unavailable.

"Oh," I can hear people saying, "everything's on the Internet, so who needs books and magazines?" There are problems with that ressponse:

First, "everything" is NOT on the Internet.

Second, much information is fee-based. Libraries pay licensing fees to allow their cardholders access to magazines, newspapers, and other sources of information. Click on "Access the Databases" on the LAPL homepage. Depending on the license, users can tap into resources from home, school, or office. However, many require the searcher to visit a branch or the Central Library.

Here are some difficulties with relying on search engines such as Google to perform online research:

* Google does not vouch for the accuracy or timeliness of the information it retrieves.

* In cataloging materials, librarians draw on standard subject headings and cross references. Using standard headings means the results are more likely to be on point.

The proposed fees will hinder rather than enhance LAPL branches in their ability to provide good service. The Board of Library Commissioners should look into other means of raising revenues without penalizing the people who need the library the most.

[Meg Taylor]

This is very sad . In a time when collection dollars do not always stretch as much as we in libraryland would wish -- - it seems healthy and forward-looking to me -- to look at better operational ways to cooperate, making collections available to a user in some way - wherever they live in a library system's service area.

"Shelf sitters" at one location may be popular at another location, moving items across town is certainly cheaper than trying to place the same title at each branch.

Have they looked at having some branches be "reserve pickup" branches, and some "browsing only" - you find it one the shelf and you can take it - there should be some middle ground here. This seems like it will have the greatest impact on low-income users who need the resources at the public library -- being unable to Border's for their reading matter or media..