July 15, 2004

San Jose library system lauded as one of best in the country

Partnership between university and city libraries earns national award

By Sheila Sanchez
Staff Writer

Editor’s Note: The following is the first article in an ongoing series about the city’s departments and its appointed officials. Next week: San Jose’s Office of Economic Development.

Library card? Story time with your children? Book collections in more than 50 languages? Homework help?
Visit the San Jose Library system.

Considered the largest public library system between San Francisco and Los Angeles, it serves a multi-ethnic and culturally diverse population with its new Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library at Fourth and San Fernando streets, its 17 branches, a 24-hour Internet service with links to a variety of Web sites and an operating budget of $24.5 million.

The two-million-inventory system employs 330 full-time employees, but has more than 500 people on its payroll because of part-time shelvers and pages at its locations.

Jane E. Light, the city’s library director since 1997, serves as co-manager of the King Library with Patricia Breivik, the dean of the San Jose State University (SJSU) Library. Together, they manage the King Library, the only one in the country that operates as the city’s main library and the university’s library serving more than 27,000 students, 1,153 faculty and nearly one million residents.

One of a kind
The successful and one-of-a kind endeavor, which took about six years of planning, earned both the city and SJSU the prestigious national title of Library of the Year in June. The library is the brainchild of former San Jose Mayor Susan Hammer and former SJSU President Robert Caret.

An article in the June issue of Library Journal about the venture, said, “What it triggered in cooperative planning between university and city, in risk taking and vision by local politicians, city officials, university administrators and library managers and staff was truly unique…They have invented a new model for academic/public library cooperation.”

Light explained the Gale/Library Journal 2004 Library of the Year Award came with a $10,000 check and was given after she and Breivik applied for the recognition.

“We were thrilled,” said Light about receiving the award, which she also won in 1992 on behalf of the Redwood City Library. “It’s been a real honor to have been the director of two libraries to receive this coveted award.” The 56-year-old Light, a mother of two, with a master’s degree in library science from the University of California-Berkeley, began working at the Redwood City Library in 1983.

Light was also involved in the design of the King Library, a breathtaking eight-story building boasting 3,600 reader seats, 400 public access computers and 500 laptop ports, four instructional labs, 39 study rooms, a Teen Center, a children’s services center and more.

“One of the most satisfying things about getting the award is that the library profession was somewhat skeptical of this idea because it was different. A year after we opened, to have this award, means that it’s a success,” Light noted.

Others will follow suit, she said, but they must have a downtown university like SJSU and will probably not work for most of the other university campuses of the California State University system. “Over time I predict we’ll see more of these collaborations, maybe a community college and a branch library.

Award to main library and its branches
“The award also recognized all of the great things that our libraries are doing,” Light added, sitting near a child-friendly table in the children’s section on the King Library’s main floor. Light was referring to the system’s ambitious branch building program funded by a $212 million library bond measure on the 2000 ballot—the largest ever passed in the country. The money is being used to rebuild every branch library.

Light said the city held more than 30 community meetings that led to the council placing the bond measure on the ballot. The money was necessary to build six new branches in city areas that had never had a library before, such as the new Vineland branch on Blossom Hill Road, which opened its doors Jan. 17 and has already become the busiest branch in the system.

Over a 10-year-period, 14 existing libraries are being torn down and expanded or remodeled. Libraries have been overlapping services, some being knocked down while new ones try to accommodate patrons affected by their local library’s closure.

“We’re completely rebuilding our library system for the 21st century. We’re tripling the amount of square footage that we have in our branches,” she said. “It’s wonderful to see these new libraries sprouting up across the city. This will really solve one of our biggest long term problems,” she said.

Larger branches
One of Light’s major concerns has been the need to improve what she calls “woefully inadequate” buildings housing the system’s branches, such as the 6,000-square-foot building that houses the Willow Glen Library on Minnesota Avenue. This branch serves a population of about 40,000 and should have a library plan like that one of a comparable population area like Cupertino, which is building a new 40,000-square-feet library.

“It’s a charming little library,” she says in reference to Willow Glen, “but it’s not adequate to really meet the needs” of that area, Light said. “I saw this in every part of town.”

In light of such inadequacies, Light and city councilmembers developed a branch facilities master plan. “So much of our activity takes place in branches, and the question was what we were going to do to solve this problem that had been building for 30 years when our community grew and changed and our buildings stayed the same.”

Light said she hoped taxpayers would again support the system financially when the San Jose City Council considers a parcel tax measure in the November ballot. In 1994, voters overwhelmingly supported a 10-year assessment, $25 per single-family parcel, to improve library funding. Called the “Benefit Assessment District,” the tax expires at the end of the year.

Revenue from the tax, she said, pays for three-fourths of the books and materials and 15 percent of library staff or the salary of one out of every eight-library employees.

Light explained the Library Commission would make a recommendation to the council at the Aug. 3 meeting.
Expenditure per resident

Another concern facing the city’s library department is the low expenditure per resident. The city spends about $30 per capita, compared to cities like San Francisco, which spend about $60, even though San Jose is substantially bigger.

“We’ve been redesigning ourselves to do this and have received national recognition,” Light added, explaining that in the past five years, system library usage has doubled, with the average resident checking out 15 books a year, more than double the Bay Area average of six a year. The average daily attendance in the new downtown library is more than 8,000.

“We’re proud of this but we think it has to do with having gone back and said service is great, but maybe we need to make it more user friendly,” Light said. “My job, besides worrying about the daily operations, is to worry about the future of the library.

“Libraries are the key to democracy and the coolest idea anybody ever came up with. At a library, an individual can pursue anything he or she is interested in. It allows people to ask themselves any question they might have and pursue it,” she said. “The idea of self-directed learning and people following their own interest is a magical part of life. It’s wonderful to be a part of that.”

For more information about the city’s library system, call 408-808-2000, or visit www.sjlibrary .org.