Library Doors Swing Shut as Budget Cuts Take Effect : Budget: Manhattan Heights branch, with two full-time librarians and six part-time workers, narrowly escaped closure last year.

The true impact of the state budget crisis came home to Richard Blum on Wednesday when he stopped by the Manhattan Heights Library in Manhattan Beach and saw the sign posted on the door.

“This library will close July 1, 1993, due to state budget reductions,” the sign said.

Blum, 55, a TRW engineer who uses the library regularly for research and “peace and quiet,” could hardly believe it.

“Is today really your last day?” he asked Ozzie Freeman, the librarian behind the counter.

“It sure is,” said Freeman, who’s been working at the library on Manhattan Beach Boulevard for 10 years. “I wish it wasn’t, but it is.”

After almost three decades of dispensing books, audiovisual materials and general knowledge to generations of Manhattan Beach residents, the Manhattan Heights Library closed its doors for the last time at 7 p.m. Its 38,000 books will be farmed out to other county libraries; its two full-time librarians and six part-time employees will transfer to other branches, or in some cases hit the unemployment lines. Barring some sort of miracle--and miracles are in short supply in these budget-crunched times--it probably will never open again.

“It was a very personal, family-oriented library,” said former head librarian Lynn Mohr, already using the past tense to describe the library where she worked for five years. “We got to know our patrons very well. We were able to give everything a personal touch. I’ll miss it very much.”

For Mohr, who recently transferred to the West Hollywood Library but came back to Manhattan Heights on Wednesday to say goodby, it was a painful and emotional day. In her 13 years as a librarian, this was the first time she ever had to close a library.

But for Mohr and other county library system employees, library closings may soon become almost routine.

“I’ve been with (the county library system) for 26 years and this is the worst I’ve ever seen it,” said David Sylvester, a regional library collection coordinator who for the last few weeks has been working at the Manhattan Heights Library. “We closed nine libraries last year, out of 94 in the county system, and now this one. And now they’re talking about closing 40 to 50 libraries out of the 84 we have left. Fifty!”

The problem facing the county library system is the new state budget, which takes $2.2 billion away from county governments and gives it to schools. The shortfall in state money is expected to force counties to cut back on a number of county services, including libraries.

“The state takes the money to give to schools and now we have to close libraries?” Sylvester said. “I can’t understand that. To me, schools and libraries are both part of the educational process.”

Libraries that aren’t closed are facing drastic reductions in their operating hours--down to only two to four days a week in most cases, Sylvester said.

The Manhattan Heights Library, a round building that opened in 1964, was scheduled to be closed last year as part of a county library cost-cutting move. But in November, after dozens of people protested the closure, the Manhattan Beach City Council stepped in and provided enough money to keep the library open for six more months. After further study, however, the council decided last month that it couldn’t afford the $26,000 a month it would take to keep Manhattan Heights open.

Manhattan Beach will still have a county-operated library in the city, the larger Manhattan Beach Library on Highland Avenue. But the Manhattan Heights Library will be gone.

“It really drives the budget problem home when it starts to affect the services you’re getting,” Richard Blum said. “I’m sorry to see it go.”

Book-return drops at the Manhattan Heights Library will remain open for a month, Sylvester said. People with books or other materials from the library also can return them to any county library, he said.