Drawing by Virginia Kolence

Keep branch library open

We are shocked that the Palo Alto City Council is considering closing the College Terrace branch library, which has been serving the College Terrace and Stanford campus communities for years.  Our kids are sad, too.  They love this local library.  They walk there with neighborhood friends to borrow from and read in the library, which enlarges their knowledge and helps them finish the homework.  This library has become a part of our life.

Carol Li
Palo Alto

From: Laura Forrest
Subject: Potential Library Closures
To: city.council@cityofpaloalto.org

Dear Palo Alto City Council,

My name is Laura Forrest and I live [on . . . ] Wellesley
Street. I am very concerned about the potential
closure of the College Terrace Library and urge you to
consider other options that will allow the City to
keep this library open. My concerns relate to both the
overall effect a closure would have to the
neighborhood and how it would impact my family.

As the mother of two children under the age of five, I
enjoy the fact that we can walk to this neighborhood
library. This is something we do on a regular basis.
If the library were to close, it would mean loading
everyone into the car and driving across town to the
Children's Library (which I understand will soon close
for a lengthy remodel). Not only would a closure be a
personal inconvenience, it would mean the loss of a
valued neighborhood asset.

In several city council meetings, it has been well
covered that the College Terrace area has long endured
traffic and parking problems. I am very pleased that
traffic calming measures will be installed in spring
2005. However, I have a strong concern that any
alternate use for the library would negate this effort
and perhaps create an even worse situation.

The library currently has two regular parking spots
and one handicapped spot on the College Avenue side.
There is curb parking only on the California Avenue
side. Clearly this amount of parking limits the use of
this location for any other purpose.

Please, do not close the College Terrace Library.

Sincerely,

Laura Forrest
Wellesley Street

Thanks for your attention.

Shashi Sastry
Arun Sastry
Sonali Sastry
Deepali Sastry
College Avenue

Srikanta Sastry
Princeton Street

Subject: College Terrace Library
Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2004
To: city.council@cityofpaloalto.org

Dear Council Members:

I write, once again, to urge that you reject any recommendation to
close the College Terrace library.

No doubt it seems selfish to want to keep such a charming amenity, and
indeed it is. But I also understand that it is not very costly. And,
perhaps more importantly, losing a neighborhood library creates new
problems (increased traffic as well as congested parking and facilities
elsewhere) while doing surprisingly little to solve the problem of
inadequate library funding. It makes sense to me that a city as
progressive as Palo Alto would not want force people into their cars to!
do everything.

I'm sure you know that the College Terrace library serves a larger
community than just College Terrace. It is such a pleasant place (I
trust that every Council member has visited at least once!), I know
people from all over Palo Alto and Stanford who use it not only because
it's sweet and convenient, but because it provides the service they
need--and for many without having to drive somewhere.

During this latest threat, I've asked every Palo Alto resident I know
exactly what the current library system does not do for her or him. I
suggest that you do the same, because the responses are telling. While
many people will mention the gorgeous new Mountain View library, not
one person has yet to say what they couldn't do or get at the current
library that a new one would provide. Yet there are people (many of
them librarians I notice) who think that if we don't have a large and
modern plant, we don't have a successful library. It doesn't make
sense to me. Especially when I learned that, for a city of its size,
the Palo Alto libraries have greater circulation than any other in the
state.

I would be willing to make many sacrifices to keep the College Terrace
library. I'd be willing to go back to the old system of paying a
modest fee for summoning books to my branch. This is the primary way I
use the my neighborhood library now, and I understand it is the same
for many others. I would be happy to volunteer hours each week to keep
basic services, such as claiming the will-call holds, available within
walking distance of my home. I am not asking that College Terrace be
made a full service library: It's fine the way it is.

As I've written in the past: Having lived in College Terrace since
1972, I'd always thought it the perfect place to be an old lady, with
food and books within walking distance. What more could a person ! want
for sustenance? It seems ironic that the closer I come to
old-ladyhood, the more endangered my beloved library becomes. Despite
having lived in the same place for many years, and having worked at
Stanford for nearly 30 years, I am not basically resistant to change.
But I certainly want changes to be an improvement, and I can't see how
the modest savings that would be realized warrant closing our little
gem of convenience.

Please do not close the College Terrace library.

Sincerely,
Ruth Sloan

Date: Sun, 5 Dec 2004

We are not Palo Alto residents; however, living in L.A. H. in  the Palo Alto School District area, we used the College Terrace Library on numerous occasions…taking the children to “Story Times” etc.  which were such warm and friendly experiences for them.    I work at Nixon School on Stanford AV;  and being around a lot of Stanford pare! nts, realize how much they also appreciate the neighborhood Library.  I am writing on behalf of my family and friends who have grown to realize what a special place The College Terrace Library is in our community

We do hope that the City of Palo Alto will keep it open for it will enrich the lives of many children in the future.. 

Thank you.
Sincerely,
Ginny Chu
Los Altos Hills

Dear Editor: 

I love the College Terrace branch library.  It's one of life's simple pleasures.  Even though I live in the Evergreen Park neighborhood of Palo Alto, I have walked or biked with my daughter to the College Terrace library many times. Just walking through the doors I am reminded that life is good.

While it is important for Palo Alto to have a large, full-feature main library, going to it feels like an errand, not a joy.  If we let the College Terrace library slip through our fingers, we will never get it back.  Like an endangered species, we must protect it.  Please help save this charming piece of Palo Alto history that still serves its purpose so well today.

Jennifer Zilliac,
Leland Avenue,
Palo Alto

Date: Mon, 08 Nov 2004

From: Franci McFarland

Subject: Libraries proposal

Hi, we live in Stanford (Peter Coutts) and I LOVE the College Terrace branch
library. It is so special to us to have this darling, intimate neighborhood
hangout where we can WALK to storytime and meet people who actually live in
our neighborhood. It creates so much community. We love the storytimes and
Wacky Wednesdays. If we had to drive to get to these things, we probably
wouldn¹t go nearly half as often because it is so hard to get a toddler in
and out of the car etc... And we like seeing familiar faces since its a
small community. While I appreciate the effort to create a ³better² library
by consolidating, I think the neighborhood libraries are so important and
unique to Palo Alto quality of living. I would be interested in seeing
volunteers help staff the libraries, and perhaps reduce the hours instead of
reducing the days. And have more limited copies of books if need be (to
reduce duplications) but don¹t close the libraries! Let me know how I can
help, or feel free to pass this on to whereever someone may care to hear
from community members, thanks!

--

Franci McFarland

Dear City Council Members-

Please, please do not close our cherished and well used College Terrace
Library!!!

College Terrace library important to me and my family because:

1) We use it routinely to check out upwards 50 childrens' books per visit!

2) It is a key resource from which we borrow books-on-tape to support the
audio learning styles of members of my family.

3) It is a place we go to support my youngest child's education in Spanish,
who is in the Spanish Immersion Program at Escondido Elementary School.

4) It is a place we very much enjoy walking or biking to as family.

5) It is the first place I've allowed my older children to bicycle to. It
is a safe haven.

6) My youngest received her first library card there at 3 weeks old!

7) It is a place where we always see neighbors and friends.

College Terrace is OUR library.  In this great big world, in this great big
country, in this great big state, in this great big city...this little
library gives my family a sense of belonging and place. 

It is unique and irreplacable.

Sincerely,
Mary Dougherty
Columbia Street

Date: Sat, 11 Dec 2004
To: city.council@cityofpaloalto.org
From: Deborah Sivas
Subject: Library Recommendations

Dear Councilmembers:

        I was dismayed to open yesterday's Palo Alto Weekly and find the ironic juxtaposition of two articles which suggest that Council is poised to give substantial pay raises to the very same City officials who are pressing for the closure of our public libraries due to lack of adequate funding.  Something is truly wrong with this picture.  I urge Council to resist the unimaginative recommendations of the City Manager and Library Director, both of whom are relatively recent transplants to the community with, it appears, little sense of local history and even less regard for local culture.   

        It is obvious that Mr. Benest and Ms. Simpson are quite taken with the glitz and glamour of the "newer, bigger, better" approach embodied in such structures as the new Mountain View library, to which we have heard endless comparisons, but they have utterly failed to make the case that Palo Alto's well-used and long-functioning library system is somehow hopelessly broken or that the solution for an aging collection is to throw out one of the system's most cherished features (its small branches) and start over with a flashy new central library-cum-computer and meeting center.  Palo Alto has long held itself out as offering something different from the big-box steamroller culture that surrounds us, as evidenced by our publicly-owned local utility, the establishment of a consumer co-op to bring cable television here, a long history of supporting co-op and small neighborhood grocery stores, and the like.  While many of these institutions have, unfortunately, fallen by the wayside or are under extreme pressure, there simply is no compelling reason at this juncture for Council to endorse the demise of a decentralized library system that offers many, many community residents the services they want and the local values they embrace.

        We have lived in the College Terrace neighborhood for twenty years and have small children who use our local branch every single week.  At any given time, they have at least a dozen books checked out and are able to walk or scooter to the College Terrace branch whenever they are in need of a fresh supply.  Our eight-year-old literally taught himself to read when he was four largely because he had ready access to the College Terrace branch, and our four-year-old is following in his footsteps.  I use the branch to check out permanently-housed literature, to pick up books ordered from other branches, or to hang out reading with the kids, perusing a current issue of Scientific American, or chatting about community issues with neighbors who congregate there.  Classes from Escondido Elementary School (and perhaps elsewhere) also frequent the facility on foot, and most of the school's students obtained their first library cards there.  Stanford students also can be found studying there.  The College Terrace branch thus facilitates a variety of important, if low tech, community values and offers a cozy, comfortable place for children to develop a lifelong love of books and reading; I assume that other branches serve the same or similar functions.  The truth is, we do not expect the small local branch to offer a full or substantial permanent collection, sophisticated reference librarian services, or unlimited state-of-the-art computer access.  For that, we can travel to other Palo Alto branches or to one of the world class Stanford libraries.  Given that our planet is facing a global warming crisis of truly epic proportions, the City should not be making branch closure decisions that encourage people to get into, instead of out of, their cars, or that discourage people from using the library facilities at all.  I can assure you that my children would have spent a lot less time in Palo Alto libraries if we had had to get into a car and drive to a facility across town.

        Frankly, I am taken aback by the pedestrian approach of the City's new Library Director.  I attended one of her "listening tour" meetings and was, at first, hopeful that she might bring new energy for creative solutions to the financial shortfalls that face our library system.  But although Ms. Simpson professed to have no pre-ordained agenda and to be openly and actively listening to community concerns, she soon thereafter proposed the same old tired, divisive "close the branches" approach.  It is now quite clear that she wasn't really "listening" at all, since at least 95 percent of those community members who spoke up at the meeting I attended came out strongly and passionately against branch closure and in favor of the community-centered values that the branches facilitate.  Instead of really listening, Ms. Simpson apparently was using her "new kid on the block" status (of which she reminded us several times during the evening) as a rhetorical device in what turns out to be a big public relations campaign.  It reminds me very much of the current administration in Washington, D.C.; if we just keep saying "Iraq is on the verge of using weapons of mass destruction to support worldwide terrorism," people will come to believe it despite the facts.  Here, Ms. Simpson apparently believes that if she just keeps saying -- over and over and over again in the press and at public meetings -- that Palo Alto has a second-rate, woefully deficient and hopelessly outdated library system and that we just need to throw the whole thing out and start again, maybe people will come to believe it despite their actual experience to the contrary.  I hope and trust that the educated residents of Palo Alto and their Council will see through such transparent political campaigning and soundly reject City staff's arrogant "we know what's best for you" attitude. 

        Not only has Ms. Simpson failed to make the case for closing our branch libraries, she has not demonstrated -- or even tried to explain -- why Palo Alto instead needs a new, expensive, grandiose central facility that offers conference meeting space, a high tech computer center, and the like.  Presiding over the creation of flashy new infrastructure may be the legacy that Ms. Simpson's fancies, but it hardly seems to be something for which a majority of Palo Altans is clamoring.  Meeting space is already available elsewhere, such as at Lucy Stern, and no one has shown that there is a significant unmet demand for more.  Similarly, every single teenager that I know in Palo Alto, and most adults, already has access to a computer and the Internet, yet Ms. Simpson is justifying her "bricks and morter" vision in large part based on the need for more of these services, especially for teenagers.  The hubris and tunnel vision of our uninspired City officials, scrambling to get on the Mountain View bandwagon, is analogous to the frantic suburban mall and sprawl mentality that took hold in the 1960's, when municipal planners undertook to implement what we now know to be a disastrous low density infrastructure design that requires everyone to get into his or her individual car and drive to large, impersonal shopping centers for every conceivable service.  Palo Alto largely, if not entirely, resisted this once-fashionable movement, in part because much of the City was already build out.  The result is that many Palo Altans can still walk to downtown or California Avenue or midtown businesses and it is this very walkability attribute that sets Palo Alto apart from, and makes it more desirable than, other nearby and otherwise comparable cities like Mountain View and Los Altos.  Cities that invested extensively in a centralized services model of urban development now largely regret that decision and often try desperately, if futilely, to undo their fate.  Council should not make the same short-sighted mistake by destroying a much-valued and functioning branch library system that can never possibly be recreated. 

        In response to the Library Director's solicitation of public input, I submitted a lengthy comment letter that explained the non-monetary value of the branch system to my family and my neighbors and appealed to Ms. Simpson to move forward with a constructive community consensus-building process by developing (and then taking to Council and/or the voters) a systematic, transparent, and fact-based analysis regarding the actual deficiencies of the current system, the costs of various services, programs, and branches, and a range of options for addressing the problems.  In response, Ms. Simpson dismissively asked me whether I would be willing to support the expansion of the branch system to other neighborhoods because, after all, it isn't really fair that some neighborhoods have branches and others don't.  As a matter of fact, I would support such an approach if we could find the resources and political will to do it.  But more to the point, Ms. Simpson's non-response was a "red herring" -- the tactic generally employed by those who don't have the facts on their side.  Branch location decisions and their sunk costs were made decades ago; those decisions, to which the community has long adapted, may or may not be optimal today (or even when they first occurred), but that issue is not on the table in 2004.  The question for the community now is not where a particular branch is located, but what those branches offer the community today.  To illustrate the point:  If a new central facility were proposed for the California Avenue area, arguably within walking distance of our home, as a replacement for all branches, I would nevertheless be opposed to the proposal because a small, community-centered branch is quantitatively different from a large, impersonal central facility, much like my local grocer at JJ&F provides a quantitatively different experience than Costco or even Molly Stones.  Sure, it would be great if every single neighborhood had a little College Terrace-like branch, but the fact that every neighborhood does not is hardly a reason for destroying those few branches that remain.  It seems to me the burden is on Ms. Simpson and her supporters to show why we should so drastically alter the status quo -- a status quo that is working for many, many of us -- not on the community members who have been patronizing and paying for the branch facilities for decades. 

        All of this is not to say that the Palo Alto library system is perfect or that we should not be looking at creative ways to upgrade its collection, infrastructure and services.  But the "sky is falling" mentality of our City officials is not a constructive approach to problem-solving.  As very regular users of the system and as concerned taxpayers, I can assure you that we do not think the sky is falling.  In fact, our College Terrace branch is fully adequate for the services it offers and those we expect and value.  I suspect the primary expense of maintaining this tiny little facility is the cost of staffing.  Ms. Simpson has gone on at length in her "town meetings" and in the press about the need to pay our librarians adequately and to not exploit them.  I could not agree more.  But frankly, there is no need for highly trained reference librarians or technicians to staff this facility and presumably some of the other branches.  Indeed, like many others, I worked my way through college shelving and checking out books in a sophisticated university library, with virtually no formal librarian training, and the patrons never suffered for the arrangement.  There is no reason why our branch libraries could not function in the same way, employing college students and the like to provide very basic library services and to lock up at the end of the day, while our more highly skilled and presumably better paid librarian staff is housed in the Main library with the expectation that patrons who need more sophisticated reference services or materials must travel to that facility.  I know this is Palo Alto, but every inch of the library system does not have to be gold-plated. 

        Tellingly, neither Ms. Simpson nor Mr. Benest has provided the community with a cost analysis that provides a breakdown of actual expenses and potential areas of cost savings.  As Friday's Palo Alto Weekly article explained in justifying Mr. Benest's forthcoming pay raise, the city manager "essentially acts as CEO for the city."  Certainly no CEO would be allowed by his board to radically alter corporate policy in the absence of a cost accounting and a well-documented factual justification for the change.  The Council should act like Mr. Benest's board here and demand full accountability before it makes any irreversible decision on the future direction for our library system:  Where are the bulk of the expenses?  What does it cost to run the branches?  Can we economize on branch expenses by using less skilled labor?  What will it cost to upgrade the collection to an acceptable level -- and what is that level?  What is the need or demand for non-traditional services (meeting space, computer access, etc.) as part of the library system?  If such demand exists, can these services be provided in other ways (e.g., through other City facilities, through corporate donations, through some reciprocal arrangement with Stanford, whose residents can and do use the City library resources, etc.)?  What will it cost to expand the existing Main library physical facility to an acceptable size -- and how do we decide what constitutes an acceptable size?  Where does library funding fit in the City's overall budget priorities?  Should the City shift resources from other services to the library system?  And how do we begin that dialogue?  Mr. Benest and Ms. Simpson have not begun even to pose these questions, let alone answer them.  No corporate board of directors would countenance such sloppy decisionmaking, and Council should not either.   

        My family and I are huge proponents of a robust library system as the hallmark of an educated populace, and we would quite readily support a parcel tax or other funding vehicle to ensure the adequacy of an ongoing operation and maintenance budget and for necessary collection and infrastructure upgrades.  As Palo Altans who value education, literacy and books, we should not tolerate a situation where library staff must come hat-in-hand every year, begging for budget allocations just to keep the doors open and the lights on.  But I can say unequivocally that my family will not support a proposal that shoots for the moon at the expense of the branches.  Indeed, I am personally committed to working actively against any such proposal, as I know many of my neighbors are.  If we had unlimited resources, our libraries could be all things to all people.  But unfortunately, in the real world, even Palo Alto must live with scarcity and something less than perfection.  Our collection cannot rival a Barnes and Noble warehouse; those who demand such unlimited variety and access will simply have to buy it in the marketplace.  Our library cannot offer and perpetually maintain the very latest and greatest computer technology and services on a par with institutions like Stanford.  We cannot expect to have the meeting or conferencing capabilities of an HP or a WIlson Sonsini.  But if we are willing to accommodate long-held community values such as maintenance of the branch system and to make a strong case to the community for upgrading our system, perhaps we can have some of these things.  Ms. Simpson and Mr. Benest should take a lesson from the recent failure of the school parcel tax and stop playing their elitist "hide the ball" game with the sophisticated voters of Palo Alto.

        The future of our library system is obviously a highly-charged issue that has defied resolution for years.  However, I firmly believe that the educated and generally progressive Palo Alto community will support a carefully crafted proposal to expand funding through a parcel tax, a redirection of existing resources, or otherwise if a strong, objective case for such a proposal can be made -- an effort that will take the kind of hard work and creative thinking with which Ms. Simpson apparently cannot be bothered.  Instead, she presents us with a false choice -- either close branches and build a new central facility or do nothing and live with a mediocre, second-class system -- that can only lead to controversy and stalemate.  I urge Council to think outside the box in which the City bureaucracy is still mired.  Let's see our increasingly well-paid City staff actually do their job by preparing a full accounting of library system expenses and developing a menu of innovative options, not unlike the impacts and alternatives analyses found in environmental impact reports, so that Council can make truly informed decisions on behalf of its real constituents.