Menlo Park’s libraries are in trouble, hit hard by increasing employee costs and budget cutbacks that have combined to reduce service to levels not seen in many years.
The city’s Library Commission called the situation a crisis in a March memo to the City Council, and Library Director Susan Holmer acknowledged that she didn’t think the “… budget could get much lower without seeing detrimental effects.”
If the city is serious about halting what is clearly the backsliding of a core service, it must do better than approve the $1.8 million called for in the current budget. The council must address the need for a modest increase in employees, and additional funds must be found to purchase materials that will draw patrons to the library, which is one of the crown jewels that define the city.
A report in last week’s Almanac shows that the city’s library staff is spread way too thin as it struggles to operate the two branches, downtown and at Belle Haven elementary school. Library officials say the lack of staff sometimes requires them to cut hours, and that often workers do not have enough time to restock the bookshelves.
With the equivalent of only 15.75 full-time employees to keep the main branch open seven days a week and Belle Haven five days, library workers have time for little more than checking out materials and answering questions. The main library is now closed on Tuesday mornings, and Belle Haven operates only Monday through Friday until 5 p.m., giving up on its goal to attract more parents to Project Read, its literacy program, on the weekends or evenings.
But even as a survey shows that patron satisfaction has dropped, and despite the increased competition with online resources, the Menlo Park library is holding its own, with more than half a million items (577,170) circulated during 2002-03, the last year for which data is available.
This demand is a result of the library’s expanded “beyond books” material, which includes videotapes, DVDs, books on tape, CDs and e-books, as well as services such as online information databases and public Internet terminals.
Even in prior years, the city’s library has never been staffed at ultra high levels. The 17 full-time equivalents in 2002-03 is the highest on record, and while employee benefit costs have gone up, the city should consider bringing staff to at least that level for the next fiscal year.
The city should also ramp up its spending for new materials, which since 2001 has been reduced by $57,000, to about $430,000 — hardly enough when considering the library’s size and traffic.
As the City Council takes up the new budget, it is considering a range of options, including fee increases, staff cuts and a new tax. During this process, the council has turned over the city’s new swimming pools to a private contractor to save money, and has voted to seek proposals for a private contractor to operate the city’s child care program.
But the library is a different story. It has no income, and privatization is not an option. The council cannot continue to starve the library of personnel and resources any longer. Both branches are stretched to the limit, and need help. It is time for the city to renew its commitment to the libraries.
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