You gotta have Friends

Barbara Diamond

The Laguna Beach Library may not be an orphan, but of late, it sure

doesn’t feel like a favorite child.

In the 1999-2000 fiscal year, the county budgeted $93,700 for

books and materials for the local branch of the Orange County system.

This year, it’s down to $30,000.

Fortunately, the library has friends.

Friends of the Laguna Beach Library has stepped up its fundraising

to keep the library shelves stocked with new books and to purchase

necessary equipment.

In addition to the traditional donation from the Friends’

bookstore proceeds, membership dues were raised, an auction of

author-donated, new books was added to the annual dinner,

collaborative efforts on behalf of the library were arranged with

other groups and significant donations secured.

“I am so heartened because of the Friends of the Library,” Laguna

Beach branch manager Marianna Hof said. “They realized our need and

came to our rescue.

“The Friends have not just stepped up to the plate. This is an

historic commitment that doesn’t waver.”

The budget woes are not new, but are compounded each year by

ever-more stringent cutbacks.

“We have been on a budget problem for years,” said Dan Josslin,

Orange County Library regional manager, acting for vacationing County

Librarian John Adams. “The book budget is millions less than in 1992,

when we lost about one-third of our budget due to a tax shift.”

The county library system, which includes Laguna Beach, is funded

by property taxes, not by the county’s general fund.

“Supervisor Tom Wilson found some extra money in fiscal year

2001-02 after the budget fell to $75,700 in 2000-01, but an auditor

took a dim view of the supervisor’s generosity, which he said should

have been distributed to all county departments,” Friends President

Martha Lydick said.

“In 2002-03, we were hit hard and our book and materials budget

dropped to $35,300, followed by $38,100 and down to our current

budget. Ouch!”

Now, Friends has been informed that the county cannot afford badly

needed maintenance projects on the 33- year-old building on the

corner of Glenneyre Street and Laguna Avenue.

“We have less money for refurbishing, less money for repairs,”

Josslin said. “The facilities department is very frustrated. They

have to be very frugal. Nothing cosmetic is getting done.”

Funding will be limited to repairing roof leaks, keeping air

conditioning and heating systems operating, and staffing, according

to Lydick.

“It’s not that the county doesn’t want to maintain the libraries,

there just is no money, facilities manager Tommy Cochrane told me,”

Lydick said.

“Funds are really needed so we can paint the library, re-seal the

balcony deck, buy an awning for the building and re-landscape the

grounds. We also need a new telephone system. It seems ours is

antiquated and the Norstar system is just what the doctor ordered.

“All this adds up to $50,000 -- not counting the book fund.”

Again, fortunately, Friends of the Library has friends.

The City, the Laguna Beach Chamber of Commerce, Coastline Pilot

garden fanatic Steve Kawaratani and the Laguna Beach County Water

District will combine efforts to re-landscape the property. After

which the building will be painted.

Hearts of Montage donated $5,000 to the Friends this month and

Athens Group Vice President John Mansour has promised a check.

The Laguna Beach Woman’s Club made the library one of its projects

and the Arts Commission will help gussy up the site with an

artist-designed bench for the bus stop just outside the library

doors.

From its beginning, the library has been a community project.

According to a “Short History of the Laguna Beach Library,”

available at the branch, Laguna was first introduced to the notion of

commercial book lending in 1919 when a Mrs. Bafford opened a small

alley store at Cedar Way and Jasmine Street.

She charged book borrowers one or two cents a day, unless they

came from out of town, in which case she required a $1 deposit per

book -- even then tourists had to pay the price.

The following year some Laguna women conferred with county

librarian Margaret Livingstone about establishing a county public

library in town.

A library board was formed in 1921 by representatives of leading

civic groups: the chamber, PTA, Community Club, Laguna Beach Woman’s

Club and the Art Association. A benefit was held on behalf of the

library, open to anyone who presented a good book in first-class

condition, signed by the donor. Guests came dressed in costumes

representing books, such as “Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch” or the

“The Virginian.”

An estimated 60-70 books were donated, stored on shelves at the

Putnum Studio on Forest Avenue. Miss Leota Way served the reading

public during the hours the photographic studio and curio business

was open.

The collection was founded with 150 books, 100 of them donated by

residents and another 50 given by the county library.

Exactly when the city library became part of the county system is

unknown. However, it is known that in 1925, the Library Board bought

a piece of property with a small building on Glenneyre Street, near

the current site. They paid $2,500.

By 1939, a reading room had been added and book circulation had

reached 60,000 volumes a year.

In the last half of the 20th century, two new libraries were

built. A 2,200-square-foot facility built in 1953 was outgrown by the

1970s, when the present building was constructed. The

10,000-square-foot building also houses the Laguna Beach Chamber of

Commerce and the Friends’ bookstore.

The Laguna Beach Library Building Association, formed in 1955,

later became the Friends of the Library.

“We now have 300 members out of a population of more than 23,000,”

Lydick said. “Everyone in town should belong. So remember -- ask a

friend to be a Friend.”

For more information, to join or to make a donation, call (949)

497-7053.