New library branch opens in Village
By Xandi Staines
May 9, 2005 9:00 p.m.
A new branch of the Los Angeles Public Library opened in
Westwood on May 7, offering the area’s readers, including
UCLA students, a new source for their favorite John Grisham, Dan
Brown or J.K. Rowling novels.
The new Westwood library, located on Glendon Avenue about a
block south of Wilshire Avenue, provides a much greater variety of
popular fiction, nonfiction, music and movies than the UCLA
libraries, Westwood librarians say.
“We have a different mandate,” said Cheryl Collins,
the branch manager at the new Westwood library. “The
libraries on campus are geared to the curriculum. We’re
geared to what the public asks for, which is mainly fiction,
popular histories (and) biographies, so that would be our strongest
suit.”
More than 1,500 people visited the library on its first day,
Collins said. The new branch currently has a collection of about
45,000 volumes, which Collins said might expand to around 50,000 as
the library revises its holdings.
The UCLA libraries’ collection, by comparison, recently
passed 8 million volumes, with an annual circulation of about 2
million, said university librarian Gary Strong.
But Strong, like Collins, emphasized that the UCLA library
system is meant for a different kind of use than a public library
like the Westwood branch.
“We need to remember that it’s kind of like eating
out, in a sense,” Strong said. “You go to a particular
Italian restaurant because of the cuisine; you go to a particular
Mexican restaurant because of the cuisine. I use public libraries
because there are things to read there that we don’t have
here.”
Unlike the UCLA libraries, the Westwood branch will not be open
late at night or on Sundays, meaning that students looking for a
place to study at night may choose to stay on campus.
“The city has been under a hiring freeze for three years,
and we’ve had a couple of bad budget years, so we have
relatively restricted hours. That’s our downside,”
Collins said. “We’re mainly open in the
afternoon.”
But Collins said she thought students might enjoy coming into
the branch library as a refreshing alternative to crowded on-campus
facilities, especially once the branch’s wireless Internet
system is installed.
“Right now we’ve opened without WiFi, but that is
scheduled to come up some time, and I think this might make a nice
respite,” she said.
Students said they would be willing to make the trip to the
Westwood library, even though it might be less convenient than
those on campus.
“I would definitely go there,” said Lindsay Whalen,
a second-year history student. “Reading for fun is my
favorite thing. I don’t really read the fiction at the (UCLA)
libraries.”
In addition to fiction and nonfiction books, the Westwood
library also offers an extensive collection of movies on DVD and
VHS ““ all for free, unlike video rental stores in
Westwood.
“It’s a good deal,” Collins said. “For
the popular ones (the rental period) is two days, but it’s
absolutely free. There are art films, there are box-office hits.
… It’s a pretty general collection.”
The Westwood library is one of four new library branches in the
L.A. area, all of which were paid for by Proposition DD, which was
approved by voters in 1998. Prop DD also paid for 30 other library
branches in Los Angeles to be refurbished.
The library’s opening day on May 7 came after roughly two
years of construction on the new building, which offers a community
meeting room on the ground floor, in addition to the shelves of
books housed on the second floor.
