Donations Open New Chapter : Moorpark: Library supporters have raised $4,800 and gathered books for poorly stocked high school shelves.

The Moorpark High School library has a view of the mountains, rows of study tables and an adjoining room for a computer lab--everything to invite serious students except enough books.

With row upon row of empty or half-filled shelves, the library that was intended to be the centerpiece of the hillside campus is instead underused by the students it is meant to serve.

Until last year, Moorpark High students avoided the problem of their understocked library by traveling 15 miles to the Thousand Oaks Library to complete their term papers, book reports and research projects.

But two years ago, when Thousand Oaks began to charge non-residents $55 for library cards, Moorpark students, parents and school officials became painfully aware of their high school library’s empty shelves.

“It’s been a really tough year,” Moorpark High School Principal Cary Dritz said. Some students “have been going all the way up to UC Santa Barbara to do their research.”

Alarmed by the Thousand Oaks decision, a group of teachers and parents banded together to rally community support for the library.

In addition to collecting hundreds of donated books, the group has raised $4,800 this school year, which is more than the library’s $4,300 annual book budget granted by the district.

Although school Librarian Marlene de Valera said she is encouraged by the outpouring of support, she and other school officials acknowledge that they have a long way to go before the library is up to par.

The problem, school officials said, is that the library’s book budget has not kept pace with the explosion in the high school’s student population.

Since Moorpark High School moved from its old location downtown to the new campus on Tierra Rejada Road in 1987, the number of students has grown from 800 to 1,300.

Dritz said he has been pouring the school’s money into equipment, textbooks and supplies to keep up with the burgeoning enrollment, with few dollars left for buying library books.

Even with the 1,400 volumes that have been purchased or donated to the library this year, its total collection consists of only 7,000 volumes, which is barely half the number of books that the American Library Assn. considers adequate for a school of its size, de Valera said.

And about 2,000 of those books are obsolete or unsuited for today’s high school students, she said. “We have books in here that haven’t been checked out since 1964.”

Altogether, according to the schools’ librarians, the Moorpark High School library’s collection averages out to about 5.4 books per student compared to 9.5 books per student at Thousand Oaks High School and 15.5 at Simi Valley High School.

Moorpark parents and teachers said they are not discouraged by the long haul ahead, pointing to the improvements already made in the library’s collection.

But parent Linda Martinez, who is leading the fund-raising effort, said she has a different worry: How can parents and school staff persuade students to check their own high school’s library stacks first before traveling long distances to find the books they need?

“We almost have to re-educate students to use the library,” she said.