Newport library gets sweet birthday present

Alex Coolman

NEWPORT BEACH -- For the second year in a row, the Newport Beach

Public Library has come up with high rankings in a national survey.

The library was named the nation’s third best for cities with

populations between 50,000 and 99,000 by American Libraries Magazine,

said Melissa Adams, a spokeswoman for the library.

“When put up against libraries of similar sizes,” she said, “we came

out looking pretty good.”Fifteen criteria were used for the rankings,

including staff levels, expenditures and collection turnover.

Speaking in front of the Newport Beach City Council on Tuesday,

Patrick Bartolic, chairman of the library board of trustees, said the

ranking was an encouraging sign.

Despite tensions that characterized the relationship between the

library’s board and its fund-raising foundation, Bartolic said, the

American Libraries survey reaffirmed the library’s status as an excellent

place to read and learn.

“It’s an outstanding facility,” he said.

Both Bartolic and Adams gave credit to the community and to the City

Council for their support of the library.

“We’ve got a well-educated population base that’s fairly affluent and

has typically attended universities and higher education,” Bartolic said.

High quality “is important to them, and they want to see it in their

libraries.”

Newport Beach placed No. 3 in last year’s American Libraries survey.

But this year’s results were slightly sweeter because this year is also

the library’s 80th year of operation.

At Tuesday’s council meeting, Bartolic presented a pair of giant

birthday cards to the council -- one from adult users of the city’s

libraries and one from children.

“We have an outstanding, dedicated council,” Bartolic said.

“Successive council have been dedicated to seeing [the library] be an

outstanding institution.”

The trustees also presented the city with a cake, whose flaming “80”

candle was given to Mayor John Noyes to extinguish -- a tribute to the

mayor’s “hot air” that Noyes accepted with good humor.