COUNTYWIDE : Library Computer System Approved

Even as county library branches prepare to scale back services dramatically, the Board of Supervisors this week gave final approval to the purchase of a $2.34-million computer system that will allow home computer access to magazine articles and library indexes.

The county is cutting $3.8 million from its library budgets, meaning significantly shorter hours, fewer new books and potential layoffs at all 27 branches in the county system. This week, libraries will begin closing each Friday as a result of the financial cutbacks.

Officials said the money set aside for the new Integrated Library Computer System should be viewed as a way to help cushion expected staffing cuts in the libraries.

“There’s a certain irony to the timing, but it really is, in my mind, two separate issues,” said John Adams, the county chief librarian. “This computer system will in fact help us maintain services that are being affected by the extraordinarily regrettable (budget) situation.”

Supervisors voted in 1992 to earmark money for the new system, and the board agreed Tuesday to give final approval for the actual purchase. Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder lauded the technology, which should be on line by Jan. 1, as a way of opening new moneymaking possibilities and “taking us into the 21st Century.”

The system, created by Dynix Inc., is a state-of-the-art network that would allow the district’s 800,000 library cardholders to access library material from home or office computers. Users will be able to view their own account records, find particular titles and read the full texts of articles from more than 500 periodicals. Adams said the full text of newspaper stories would eventually be added to the system’s offerings as well.

Officials have not yet determined how much it will cost the public to use the system.

Adams said that fees generated by computer users will help defray the system’s costs. He also said the system will let library patrons independently retrieve information that now requires staff assistance, meaning that potential layoffs would have less impact upon service.

The looming layoffs could diminish library staffing from 403 employees to fewer than 350, Adams said. While losing those employees is a “deeply affecting” situation, Adams said, the access provided by the more sophisticated computers will free remaining staffers.

“This is the next step, in an evolutionary sense, in information delivery,” Adams said. “We are, under the current system, almost completely tied geographically and format-wise to print material, and this is moving us toward electronic information.”

The new system will replace a 10-year-old network that was designed and installed by a now-defunct company, Adams said. The system allows users to look up book indexes electronically, but it can only be used on-site.

When two county libraries in Florida and Illinois recently dropped the aging system, Orange County became the nation’s last library using it.

“There’s no maintenance available, and should something go wrong it would be like trying to find a water pump for a ’48 Packard,” Adams said.