|
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| Palo Alto City Newspaper Index |
| Biography Resource Center |
| Business & Company Resource Center |
| Curriculum Resource Center |
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| InfoTrac OneFile |
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For example, a single search for "arthritis" finds 49 books in the library on the topic, 46 mentions in the Health & Wellness Resource Center, 14,308 references to journal and newspaper articles in InfoTrac's OneFile, 55 items in the World Book Online encyclopedia, and even a reference to a 1991 Palo Alto Times Tribune article. You can further restrict your search by date and to only full-text and/or peer-reviewed articles. More information.
(updated 9/16/05) Two City Council members are urging that the full Council
discuss the $100,000 offer by the Friends of the Palo Alto Library towards a
modular building to provide more public space at the Main
and Downtown branches and for children's services and collection
while the Children's Library is closed for reconstruction.
The modular building makes some new opportunities possible for the library.
Without it, the library plans to shrink public space at the Downtown Library by
moving in technical services staff as depicted below:
About 2,000 square
feet at the Downtown branch will be lost, including the present reference room,
northwest wing, and former community room. The Downtown Library serves the
fastest-growing area of the city and has already twice lost public space.
Another problem is that the Children's Library is closing for two years of reconstruction and
expansion. The library's current plan is to put up to 2/3 of the branch's
collection into storage and establish only a small children's area within the
Main Library. That library is being remodeled to add new spaces freed up
by the proposed shift of technical services to Downtown.
One way a modular building could help is by housing the technical services staff, thereby preserving the public space at the Downtown branch and providing the branch about 800 more square feet that recently became available. The extra space at Downtown can also host the children's books and programs that won't fit into the Main Library.
Another possibility is to transfer all of the Children's Library collection and programs into a modular building for the next two years, providing a single large area that's large enough for all of those services.
The city has considered obtaining a modular building in sometime in the future, but
that would mean that staff would likely have to move twice:
first into the Downtown Library and then eventually into the modular building.
By offering $100,000 in funding now, we hope that the city can act quickly and
have the technical services staff relocate only once. This will
considerably reduce moving expenses and staff workload.
See:
Colleague's Letter to the Council -
Letter to the Palo Alto City
Council -
September 8 San Jose Mercury article -
March 16 article in the Palo Alto Weekly
- Past Downtown Library Literary
Events.
(9/7/05) Our August booksale brought in $19,600, the most we've ever earned in a single month. It was fantastic to see so many books fly out our doors. Still, more donations keep coming in, and every shelf, table, and box is overflowing with books this month.
(9/7/05) Neighbors of Palo Alto's College Terrace Library recently took a survey
to see who uses the branch and what the community wants from it. Virtually
all of the 90 respondents, who were interviewed one-on-one, reported that they
use the library every month, and almost two-thirds visit at least once a week.
62% were "very satisfied" with the collection, while 32% rated it only as
"good." The most popular reasons to come to the library, besides returning
items, were for the books in the permanent collection (76%), new books (70%),
and media items such as DVDs, video tapes, and CDs (64%). Other popular
uses included picking up items on hold (61%) and just reading or working (46%).
44% of respondents used the books in the children's section, and 16% attended a
children's story time event at the library.
Only 48% of those surveyed lived in the immediate College Terrace neighborhood,
with the rest coming from the Stanford campus, elsewhere in Palo Alto, or even
outside the city. Some visit during lunchtime from the nearby Stanford
Industrial Park. Only about half drove to the branch, with the others
mostly walking (37%) or biking (10%) over.
The survey asked people to
rate 20 possible improvements for the library. The top choice was to to
have the library buy books you recommend. The other top requests (in
order) were for book recommendations from the library staff, more new DVDs, more
new bestsellers, Sunday hours, and the
Link+ service, which would provide books for free from university libraries.
Members of the Friends of the Palo Alto Library assisted with the survey and we
hope to help provide the requested improvements. Just last month, as part
of our overall giving to the city's libraries, we donated about $12,000 for new
DVDs at College Terrace and almost $25,000 for more bestsellers to go there and
at other branches.
(9/7/05) 145 people volunteered for the Friends of the Palo Alto Library over the twelve months ending in June 2005, contributing a total of 22,928 hours. That's the equivalent of about 11 and a half people working full-time. No wonder it's so busy at our book room. Our thanks to Betsy Allyn and Barbara Silberling for assembling these statistics.
(9/7/05) The Children's Library is now expected to close in November for two years of reconstruction and expansion. The closure was originally going to begin in the spring or summer, but the date was delayed.
(8/10/05) The Friends of the Palo Alto Library board voted today to give the library $112,314 for over 3,000 new books, 1,400 new DVDs, numerous events for children and teens, online encyclopedias, staff appreciation gifts, and more. The new books and DVDs will go to the College Terrace, Downtown, Main, and Mitchell Park branches, but not to the Children's Library, which is closing soon for two years of repairs and expansion. Over a two-year period, our organization's grants and allocations to Palo Alto libraries total more than $1,072,600, with about half going to the Children's Library project. We thank all of our wonderful customers, donors, and hard-working volunteers for making this possible.
(8/10/05) Not that our prices aren't already low, but there are often free books just inside the entrance and exit doors of the Main Room. This month, we are giving away copies of Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt, Eat More, Weigh Less by Dean Ornish, M.D., A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt, Enter the Zone by Barry Sears, Ph.D., and Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D. There are boxes of free three-ring binders at the entrance to the Main Room and dozens of free four-inch wide magazine boxes in the Bargain Room patio. All free items are in limited quantity and go to the first takers.
(8/10/05) Here's an advanced notice for the September sale, when members of the
Friends of the Palo Alto Library will be admitted early to the Main Room sale.
On Saturday, September 10, life members will get in at 9 am and can purchase up
to 50 books during that hour. At 10 am, the rest of our members will be
admitted and everyone can buy the usual 12 books at a time. At 11 am, the
public will be admitted. The 12 books at a time limit will expire at noon.
The tickets given out in September will be for the 10 am line, since most people
who come early are members of the Friends. Each member will get just one
ticket, although members at the $25 through $250 levels get to bring in their
families.
Regular membership in the Friends is only $15 ($10 for
students and seniors, $25 for families) and is tax-deductible. Members
also receive a discount coupon for the sale, discounts at local bookstores, and
eligibility for the Stanford Federal Credit Union. If you're not a member,
avoid delay at the September sale by joining
online
right now.
(8/10/05) On Monday, August 1, the Palo Alto City Council approved spending up
to $35,000 for a random survey of city residents about existing and potential
library services. The telephone survey will be conducted in the fall with
results reported to the Council in March 2006.
Council members raised the
concern that the survey might generate just a huge wish list of requests that
would then prove unaffordable. A $49.1 million library bond measure to
expand the Children's Library and build a new library/community center at
Mitchell Park failed in 2002, despite focus groups showing Palo Altans favored
such improvements. As a result, the council urged the Library Advisory
Commission and Library Director to include survey questions to help gauge
people's willingness to pay in general, although a separate poll will also be
taken before any actual measure is placed on the ballot. See the
Palo Alto Weekly article.
(8/10/05) You can now see online lists of the latest books and DVDs added by the library on the catalog's Bestsellers & Other Lists tab. For example, the library added 107 adult fiction and 342 adult non-fiction titles in July, plus 221 DVDs for both children and adults. This same tab also gives the San Francisco Chronicle bestselling fiction and non-fiction lists. In general, you can read reviews and even excerpts for all these books and instantly place a hold on items that aren't at your branch or are already checked out.
(8/10/05) Although the Palo Alto library offers back issues of over 10,000 different magazines online, you can now also check out back issues at the branches just like books and other items for the usual four weeks period. You can also renew these items online. See the library press release.
(7/31/05) Here's some hints on how to use Palo Alto's new library catalog.
(7/6/05) Thanks go to everyone for
making this a record year for the booksale! In our fiscal year which ended
June 30, we sold an incredible $194,000 of books, up 33% from the previous year
and 62% from just two years ago. One big change this past year was adding
Sunday hours, which attract lots of new customers and offer a more relaxed time
to browse and shop. We've also been handing out free tickets that reserve
spots in the main sale room line for over a year now, and it is working out very
well. |
(7/6/05) With the exception of DVDs, the library is now checking out items for four weeks at a time. DVDs are so popular that they still are due in just one week. The library hopes that the longer loan period will mean fewer items are checked out, but of course having an extra week to read a book might just encourage more people to use the library. Read the press release.
(7/6/05) Non-profit organizations
are now welcome to take books from our bargain room at no cost immediately after
the Sunday sale ends. A number of libraries, schools, literacy projects,
homeless shelters, prisons, and hospitals collect these books from us, ensuring
that virtually all unsold books go to benefit others.
The non-profit giveaway used to be on the Monday morning following each
month's booksale, but we've changed that to 4 to 6 pm on the Sunday of the sale,
right after the rooms close to the public. Interested non-profits should
contact Maggie Anderson, our volunteer who manages this project, at (650)
856-7741.
(7/6/05) Want to pick up some French, Japanese, or Hindi? You can learn or
brush up on these languages for free at home using the highly-regarded Rosetta
Stone online language classes offered through the Palo Alto library. Over
335 local library users have already started these lessons, saving themselves
$50 each by not purchasing the courses as individuals. The other languages
offered are Arabic, Chinese (Mandarin), Danish, Dutch, English (UK or US),
German, Greek, Hebrew, Indonesian, Italian, Korean, Latin, Pashto, Polish,
Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Spanish (Latin America or Spain), Swahili,
Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Vietnamese, and Welsh.
To start or just take a
look, just pull out your Palo Alto library card and go to the
registration page, where you'll create your own account and pasword.
This online resource is funded by a Cable Co-op Legacy Grant under the
Friends of the Palo Alto Library 9 Library Project.
(6/8/05) Palo Alto's libraries are
again in first place among California cities of our size for both circulation
and visits per capita. State statistics for 2003-2004 show that Palo
Altans checked out an average of 21.84 items each during the year, making ours
the busiest library among cities with 60,000 to 100,000 residents. Palo
Altans checked out more items per capita than Menlo Park, Mountain View, and
many other neighboring cities.
Palo Alto also again ranked first for a city of its size in annual visits to
the library, with 14.67 per resident. Congratulations to everyone: staff,
library users, and City Council for a great and successful library system.
Source: California
Library State Statistics 2003-2004.
(6/8/05) Several branches are
shifting hours beginning on July 5 to create more consistency across the city.
Each branch will still be open the same number of hours, but all libraries will
be closed Thursday mornings to allow for staff meetings. The new hours
will be:
| Branch |
Su
|
M
|
T
|
W
|
Th
|
F
|
Sa
|
| Main |
1-5
|
10-9
|
10-9 |
10-9
|
12-9
|
10-6
|
10-6
|
| Children's |
1-5
|
10-6
|
10-6
|
12-8
|
12-8
|
12-5
|
10-5
|
| Mitchell Park |
1-5
|
11-9
|
10-9
|
10-9
|
12-6
|
10-6
|
10-6
|
| College Terrace |
closed
|
11-6
|
11-6
|
11-6
|
closed
|
11-6
|
11-6
|
| Downtown |
closed
|
closed
|
11-6
|
11-6
|
12-7
|
11-6
|
11-6
|
(6/8/05) 195,000 new books and
editions were published in 2004 in the United States, breaking all previous
records. This represents a 14% jump from just 2003, reports Bowker, the
publisher of Books in Print.
Adult fiction rose an amazing 43% from the previous year to 25,184 new titles
and editions. This is also the largest category of books, followed by
21,516 new juvenile titles, 17,825 new sociology and economics books, and 13,177
new religious titles.
The Internet hasn't seemed to dampen book writing at all. 72% more new
books were released last year than nine years ago, when far fewer people had
access to the web. The average novel published by large trade houses has
also grown in length by 24 pages since 1995, reaching a hefty 359 pages.
Bowker reports that the average price of a new adult hardcover book in 2004 was
$27.52. Adult trade paperbacks averaged $15.76 while adult mass-market
paperbacks were $7.35 on average. Needless to say, our prices are a lot
lower than that!
More
information.
(6/8/05) The Palo Alto Little League recently received a donation of 200 copies of author Leonard Koppett's All About Baseball from the Friends. Palo Alto-based Koppett was the first writer inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame and died in 2003 at the age of 79. These books came to us from his estate, and the Little League is thrilled to have so many copies to distribute to their coaches and families.
(6/8/05) You can now access for free online illustrated car repair manuals and other information to help you understand and fix your car or truck. Just go to the EBSCO Auto Repair Reference Center with your Palo Alto library card. Modern vehicles are all covered, but the resource has older models too, going back as far as a 1945 Jeep. You can use this resource from home at any time, including for those early morning car emergencies. This online resource is funded by the Friends of the Palo Alto Library 9 Library Project and the Cable Co-op Legacy Grant.
(6/8/05) The library's summer reading program begins June 9 for kids and teens, and you can sign up online. If you read your targeted number of books, and you get prizes, including a coupon from the Friends of the Palo Alto Library. There's also a special program this year for teens called "Medieval Mondays."
(6/8/05) Our thanks to Tom Haydon of Wessex Books in Menlo Park for donating 700 books to our sale. Wessex Books, which recently closed after 30 years of operation, had a fine reputation for high-quality used literature books. The books we received are advanced copies of fiction works and are in fine condition. You'll find them all at this weekend's sale in our fiction section.
(5/11/05) You won't have to wait so long to get on a computer at the Main and Mitchell Park branches anymore, thanks to the Cable Co-op Legacy Grant to the Friends of the Palo Alto Library. Since neither building had room for more tables to put computers on, we instead provided seven laptop computers at each branch, which you can use anywhere within the libraries. You can even take the computers outside into the patios when it's not raining. The IBM laptops connect to the Internet via high-speed wireless, so you can browse and use the web as fast as ever. The laptops also provide some other features, including:
| Microsoft Word 2003 |
| Microsoft Excel 2003 |
| Microsoft PowerPoint 2003 |
| Microsoft Publisher 2003 |
| Microsoft Access 2003 |
| CD burner |
| DVD viewing |
| 15" screen |
| USB ports, so you can use flash drives to save files |
| Optional mouse (ask at desk) |
| Audio headphones (ask at desk) |
| External floppy disk drive (ask at desk) |
(5/11/05) The City of Palo Alto faces a $5.2 million shortfall for the fiscal year starting July 1. At preliminary budget discussions held on Tuesday, May 10, the city proposed to make no service cuts to the libraries, so hours, staffing, and funding for collections will remain the same. However, the library will lose one open librarian position that had not been filled due to the current hiring freeze and will not purchase some research materials that are available online anyway. Other City departments are expected to undergo more severe cuts. See the proposed library budget and the overall city budget.
(5/11/05) Although the city of
Salinas recently managed to raise enough money to avert complete library
closures (see
news article), the agricultural community of 151,000 is still struggling to
finance its libraries. The funds raised so far will keep the city's
libraries open only one day a week.
Several members of the Friends of the Palo Alto Library have asked how they can
help out. We recommend that you make contributions to the Rally Salinas
Fund of the Community Foundation for Monterey County, the same fund supported by
actor Bill Murray and many others. If you
donate online, be sure to
specify in the appropriate box that your contribution is for the Rally Salinas
Fund. You can also mail a check to the Rally Salinas Fund at the Community
Foundation for Monterey County, 945 South Main, Suite 205, Salinas, CA 93901.
Contributions to Rally Salinas are tax-deductible.
(5/11/05) Here's what our book group will be reading for the next year, as chosen at their April meeting. The group meets at 7:30 pm on the second Thursday of every month at the Lucie Stern Community Center Fireside Room at 1305 Middlefield Road. Click on any title to read some reviews:
| Date | Title and Author | |
| May 12 | The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini | |
| June 9 | The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell | |
| July 14 | Under the Banner of Heaven by John Krakauer | |
| August 11 | The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester | |
Dates to be chosen at the May 12 meeting |
||
| The Bird Man and the Lap Dancer by Eric Hansen | ||
| Collapse by Jared Diamond | ||
| The Trouble With Islam by Irshad Manji | ||
| The Dubliners by James Joyce | ||
| Embers by Sandor Marai | ||
| Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf | ||
| Drop City by T. Coraghessan Boyle |
(5/11/05) Long-time volunteers Tom
and Ellen Wyman are being honored for their commitment to the Palo Alto
community on Sunday, May 22 by the Avenidas Senior Center. Ellen Wyman is
our previous president and Tom served on the Library Advisory Commission for six
years. Together, they ran the Friends' booksale for seven years, during
which time it grew eight-fold.
Along with six others, the Wymans will be
feted at the Lifetimes of Achievement 2005 ceremony from 2 to 4 pm at 450
Kingsley Avenue. Tickets are $65 each and may be purchased by calling
Avenidas at 326-5362.
(5/11/05) The architects for the Children's Library project have worked out how to add even more space to the 65-year old building. Originally, the project hoped to enlarge the library by 2,250 square feet by adding wings on both ends. The architect's plans, now 65% complete, show that the new wings will actually add about 2,660 square feet, 410 more than originally projected. This means the library will be expanding overall by about 73%, a welcome improvement for the cramped branch.
(4/6/05) 2005 is off to a great start for our book sale. For the first three months of the year, our sales totaled $48,500. Even though our Cubberley sale is open just one weekend each month, we sell and donate about 275,000 books a year, more than the average Palo Alto Library branch checks out. Thank you all for helping make our sales so successful.
(4/06/05) Over 130 volunteers helped run our booksales and other activities during 2004, contributing an amazing 19,189 hours of their time. That's the equivalent of almost ten fulltime people. You've probably met many of the volunteers who cashier and assist customers at the sales, but many others sort, shelve, price, organize, and help promote the sale. Volunteers also handle our accounting, membership, events, news, and advocacy activities. We're all united by a love of libraries and a strong belief in helping our community. If you are interested in volunteering at the booksale or in other ways, please contact us at volunteer@friendspaloaltolib.org or (650) 213-8755.
(3/9/05) The College Terrace branch will reopen on Tuesdays, beginning on March 22. That closure began on October 15 of last year.
(3/9/05) When you sign up for life membership in the Friends, you receive a special gold-colored Palo Alto library card. The gold cards issued in the past will not work with the new self-check machines, so we've paid for new gold cards in the correct format. If you have one of the older cards, you can get one in the new format by visiting any library branch.
(3/9/05) Since July of last year, our books sales have averaged over $15,600 a month. That's up more than 50% from just two years ago, when we were so proud to earn about $10,000 a month. Thanks go to all the thousands of donors and customers who keep helping out, as well as our hard-working crew of volunteers.
(see more recent
article) (updated 3/30/05) On Monday, March
7, the City Council allocated about $352,000 to rearrange the Main and Downtown
libraries in ways that could have significant long-term impacts on library
users. However, no plans for these changes have been released to the public, the
Library Advisory Commission has not reviewed the project, and many important
questions remain unanswered. In response, the Board of the Friends of the Palo
Alto Library will formally request that the City first provide for adequate
public review and input.
The most controversial change is likely to be closing off almost all of the west
side of the Downtown Library from the public and moving in administrative staff
from the Main Library. More public space will be lost at the Downtown
Library than regained at Main, so the city library's total public space will
decrease by 1,100 square feet or more.
The white areas below show those parts of the Downtown Library that will be still be public. The darker gray areas will be newly lost, plus the left (west) patio will be largely inaccessible. The office and meeting & study rooms in the main area of the library also used to be public space, but previous encroachments have taken them away too. Ironically, the city staff who currently occupy the meeting & study room are leaving, so that space could be returned to the public instead of other staff.
REAR PARKING AREA |
Other changes are likely to
be less controversial, such as creating temporary space at the Main Library to
house part of the staff, books, and programs from the Children's Library, which
itself will be undergoing a two year renovation and expansion. The funds will
also reconfigure the circulation desks at the Main and Downtown libraries to
improve efficiencies and adjust the teen service area at Main.
None of the changes will occur for at least several months, which should leave
time to post and distribute plans and hold public hearings. Please check
this website for updates.
Previous coverage.
(3/9/05) Placing holds on popular
library materials via the Internet is so widespread that the library has decided
to make some adjustments. Normally, you have eight days to pick up an item
that's on hold for you. Because DVDs are in such high demand, the library
now requires you to pick up DVDs on hold within just five days. You can
also place holds on just three DVDs and check out only two at a time.
Meanwhile, the maximum number of holds you can place on all items combined has
risen to fifteen.
More information.
(2/14/05) Departing Library
Advisory Commissioner Tom Wyman was presented a resolution of appreciation
tonight by Palo Alto's City Council. In response, Tom said the following
words:
|
Thank you for this Resolution. |
(2/14/05) You can now download electronic books into your laptop, home computer, or even some audio players (but not iPods) from the library. 616 ebooks and 366 audio books are available. The collection includes mysteries, science fiction, thrillers, health, business, and computer titles. Click here to begin. You can check out up to five items, each for three weeks, but not from library computers, and you'll need a Palo Alto library card. More information in Word format. You can also use more than 4,466 online ebooks via the San Mateo County library system if you have their card, which you can get for free at the East Palo Alto or Menlo Park branches.
(2/11/05) A proposal to rework the
Main and Downtown libraries is being considered to coincide with the Children's
Library construction project this summer. The plan would put more teen
activity at the Main Library, near the area where newspapers and magazines
presently are, while shrinking the public service areas at the Downtown Library
and possibly its seating and number of books as well.
Other proposed changes at the Main Library include replacing the present
circulation desk with a smaller one elsewhere, making the self-check stations
more prominent, and relocating the return area to make it more efficient and
cause fewer worker injury complaints.
Not all the specifics of the proposal are clear yet. Cost, permanence, and
impact on library usage are not covered in the
two-page
report. A more complete proposal may be presented to the City Council
on March 14.
(2/9/05) February is Library Lovers month! In all of the Palo Alto library branches, you'll find free valentines to sign to thank the library staff and volunteers. Please let them know how much you appreciate their help and our libraries.
(2/9/05) In honor of Library Lovers month, please also help the library's collection of books and other material by your donation to the Library Lovers Fund. Since it began in 1992, almost $200,000 has been raised for the collection through this fund. Your tax-deductible contribution of $35 will purchase a new item for the library with a bookplate that gives your name or the name of whomever you wish to honor or memorialize. Contribute online right now or by using one of the lime green coupon booklets in the libraries.
(2/9/05) This month's sale will be the final time you can buy bargain room books for $5 a month on Saturdays. Beginning in March, you'll be able to buy a bag of bargain books for $5 only on Sundays, when the bargain room is open from 1 to 4 pm. We're making this change to help reduce the crowding that occurs on Saturday afternoons in that room. Bargain room books will still be sold for half-price beginning at 12:30 pm on Saturdays and at all times on Sundays.
(2/9/05) On January 24, the City Council appointed incumbents Sandra Hirsch, Lenore Jones, and Paula Skokowski and newcomer Valerie Stinger to three-year terms on the Library Advisory Commission. However, Tom Wyman was not reappointed. Tom and Lenore were the only two members who began serving six years ago when the commission was formed to advise the Council. According to a recent Palo Alto Weekly article, Tom may have lost his seat due to his "strong advocacy" for branch libraries. We want to thank all of the Commission members for their service and hope to see Tom helping the libraries in other ways soon.
(2/9/05) Non-profit organizations and schools will now be able to receive unsold books from our booksale on the Tuesday evening following the sale from 5:30 to 7:30. This is in addition to the traditional 10 am to noon time on the Monday after the sale. If you are associated with a non-profit organization or school that would like to receive books from us for free, please contact Maggie Anderson in advance by e-mail or at (650) 856-7741. Several dozen organizations benefit from the monthly giveaways, including schools, hospitals, prisons, foreign literacy efforts, tribal libraries, and low-income support agencies.
(2/9/05) February is the time for the annual Santa Clara County-wide reading program, where everyone is encouraged to read and discuss a specific book. This year's book is David Mas Masumoto's Epitaph for a Peach: Four Seasons on My Family Farm, which chronicles a year in the author's quest to save the Sun Crest peaches grown on his family's farm. However, this son of Japanese Americans interned during World War II is also working to preserve a way of life. Interweaving his family's story through the four seasons, Matsumoto demonstrates the faith, patience, and determination required to run a family farm amid a world of large agricultural businesses. The book won the San Francisco Review of Books Critics' Choice Award in 1995-1996. There are many events around Santa Clara County in February about the book, including ones where you can meet the author. Share comments about the book as well on the project website.
(2/3/05) 81% of Palo Altans rate
our overall libraries as good or excellent, according to the 2004 City of Palo
Alto Citizen Survey, while 74% feel the variety of library materials is good or
excellent and 76% rated our neighborhood branch libraries as good or excellent
too. These statistics come from a study administered by the City Auditor's
office, and are approximately the same as in 2003.
77% of survey participants used the library at least once in the last year,
although fewer than half of those visited more than once a month. By
comparison, 85% of Palo Altans use the Internet at least twice a month.
Just 6% of those surveyed rated the neighborhood branch libraries as poor and
only 4% said the overall libraries were poor. However, other cities in the
United States that use the same survey also found generally high praise for
libraries. As a result, Palo Alto's libraries high marks ranked only in
the 40th percentile overall and in the 38th percentile for library materials,
despite our very high library usage.
The City Auditor also compared our libraries to how they operated in years past.
For example, the libraries are open 17% fewer hours over the last five years,
despite the fact that the library budget has grown 11% faster than inflation
over that period and staffing has increased slightly as well. Circulation
has increased by 42% (partly due to a shorter lending period) and library visits
by 26% over that same five year period. For more information, see the
Auditor's Report and the
Survey Details.
(2/3/05) The library's brand new electronic catalog is now in place, featuring book covers, reviews, and tables of contents for many items in the collection. You can use it from any branch of the library or over the Internet. Try it right now from here to see the new look. Just type in any book title or author.
(1/27/05) The Downtown Library will reopen for Saturday use beginning on February 12, less than one month after the City Council unanimously gave final approval for an extra allocation of city funds for this purpose. Saturday hours will be from 11 am to 6 pm, the same as the four weekdays that the branch is open. The Downtown Library lost its Saturday hours more than 19 months ago. See earlier stories below.
(updated 1/22/05) The City Council voted 9 to 0 this evening to apply $35,000 to reopen the Downtown Library on Saturdays. The decision was opposed by library staff but supported by all the speakers before the Council and by the Friends of the Palo Alto Library. Several Council members questioned why it had taken so long for this vote to come before them, given that the original budget allocation occurred in June 2004 and the Library Advisory Commission unanimously recommended using the funds for the Saturday hours in September. The library will now hire the extra staffing with the funds Council provided and aim to open within a month. See earlier story below and a Palo Alto Weekly article.
(1/15/05) The City Council will
discuss on January 18 whether to reopen the Downtown Library on Saturdays. The
library has offered Saturdays hours since it opened in 1971 until 2003, when a
tie vote of the Council’s Finance Committee failed to fund the hours after city
staff pointed out the branch might need to close altogether. However, the
Council subsequently kept the branch open and then allocated $35,000 in June
2004 to restore the Saturday hours, pending a recommendation by the Library
Advisory Commission upon consultation with the Library Director. Although the
Director noted other ways the funds could be spent, the Commission voted
unanimously to apply the money to restore the hours. The issue did not then come
back to the Council because of a pending staff recommendation to close several
branches in favor of a new central library. However, the Council rejected
branch closure unanimously in December 2004, and thus the Council is now ready
to review and vote again on the Saturday hours.
Many working people and fulltime students have been unable to use the Downtown
Library since it lost its Saturday hours, as the branch is only open on four
weekdays and always closes at 6 pm. Shoppers who come downtown on
weekends, especially for the Farmer’s Market, would also benefit by having the
library reopen on Saturdays.
Tuesday night’s discussion will include both the Library Advisory Commission’s
recommendation that the Saturday hours be restored as well as the
City
Manager’s opinion that the funds be preserved instead for other city uses
because of pending budget tightness. The Friends of the Palo Alto Library
have endorsed reopening the library on Saturdays because of the great benefits
this would provide at relatively low cost. Using past library statistics, we
estimate that Saturday usage will be significant, generating six times as many
visitors per dollar spent as Palo Alto libraries achieves overall. We feel
this use of library funds is so compelling that it should be funded as well in
subsequent budgets, if necessary at the expense of less utilized library
services.
Moreover, having just one library in Palo Alto offer no weekend hours whatsoever
is inequitable. Although the branch is heavily used relative to its light
staffing, it has been repeatedly targeted for closure in recent years and has
lost 19 months of Saturday hours. Now that the City Council has offered
funding and unanimously voted for the continuation of our branches, it is time
to end the Saturday closures. See
City Council Meeting Agenda and a recent
Palo Alto
Weekly article.
(1/5/05) Thanks to the many customers and volunteers who have come in on the day after our traditional Saturday sales, we will continue those Sunday sales through at least June 2005. Many say that they find Sundays a relaxing time to come, since there is much less crowding. The Bargain Room offers the same low prices on Sundays as after 2 pm on Saturdays: 25 cents for paperbacks, 50 cents for hard cover books, or $5 for each grocery bag you fill with books. Sunday hours will remain 1 pm to 4 pm.
(1/5/05) Palo Alto's City Council
met on December 13 to consider City Manager Frank Benest's recommendations to
both close the College Terrace and Downtown library branches no later than June
2007 and to establish a new committee to plan and find funding for a
"full-service" library somewhere in Palo Alto that might entail closing Main or
reducing service at Mitchell Park.
At the Council meeting, the Library Advisory Commission announced that it
and the board of the Friends of the Palo Alto Library opposed the branch
closures. 36 members of the public then spoke against closing the
branches, while five others favored the closures, and two were ambivalent.
After much discussion, all nine City Council members voted to reject all
four of the City Manager's recommendations, and thus in effect to keep all
branches open. In addition, they voted 7 to 2 to have the Library Advisory
Commission, rather than a new committee, propose how to create an expanded
library facility, perhaps at the Mitchell Park or Main library sites, and
improve the current branch system to better meet community needs.
In particular, Councilmember Jack Morton suggested expanding the crowded
Mitchell Park branch. That facility is about one third the size of the
Main Library and yet checks out more items and has more visitors. Amid the
narrow aisles in the building, many books sit piled on carts because there are
no shelves to hold them. Long lines of people often wait for the Internet
stations. Back in November 2002, Palo Alto voters narrowly failed to give
2/3 approval to build a larger library and community center at Mitchell Park, so
the Library Advisory Commission may try to craft a plan that garners more votes.
Many are also intrigued by how the branch library system might evolve.
In his recent
guest opinion in the Palo Alto Weekly, Doug Moran described how more people
are using the online catalog system to have books, DVDs, and other items they
want delivered to the most convenient branch. This means that expanding
one library facility to house more items could also make more materials
available to users of the other branches.
Meanwhile, challenges remain for the overall library system. Palo
Alto's city budget faces a several million dollar shortfall for the 2005-2006
year. City Manager Benest told the
San
Jose Mercury in mid-December that libraries will need to share in these
cuts, given that the savings from branch closure were rejected by the Council.
However, the Council had been told that closing the branches wouldn't have
generated any savings, since the staff and library materials from closed
branches would have been redistributed to the remaining ones and the buildings
would have been used for other community purposes.
(1/5/05) A new library catalog will be available after January 12. Among the new features are the ability to see book covers, reviews, and tables of contents for many items in the collection. Other improvements will be phased in later this year, such as the ability to search among online databases and the catalog simultaneously. The new catalog and library automation software is being installed on January 10 through 12, so all branches will be closed during that time. You can return any items due on those days by January 13 and incur no overdue fines. More information.
(1/5/05) Tom Wyman's talk about the history of Palo Alto's library will be broadcast later this month on local cable channels 27 and 28. Tom, author of Palo Alto and Its Libraries, recounts how a single reading room in the Downtown area in 1893 evolved over the decades into our present day library system. His talk includes many documents and photographs, especially of the Carnegie Library that once stood on the present Hamilton Avenue site of City Hall. Check your cable listings for exact times, but we're told that the show will be on at Sundays at 2 pm on channel 27 and on Wednesdays at 8 or 9 pm on channel 28.
(1/5/05) If you're feeling a bit nostalgic for our Cubberley booksale on the 29 days of the month when it isn't open, look for the exhibit about the sale in the display case in the Main Library. Many interesting books are in the display, as are other items about the sale. Reports that people have begun lining up for hours, waiting for the case to open, remain unverified, however.
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All of our volunteers who work so hard were celebrated at a party last
weekend outside the College Terrace Library. Marty Paddock, who has
managed the booksale now for five years, was the special honoree.
Marty has endless patience and endurance to assemble our vast team of
volunteers and keep the sale humming along.
In her honor, the
Booksale Singers performed the following song:
