THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, September 30, 1995 TAG: 9509300270
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A01 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ALEX MARSHALL, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 220 lines
When Steve Story's son needed a book for African-American history month in school, the Storys did what thousands of other Norfolk residents do when they seek a comfortable, well-stocked library: They drove to Virginia Beach.
``I go to Virginia Beach libraries routinely,'' Story said. ``There are more materials; they are more inviting; they don't have a homeless problem; they are well-lit. Part of it is simply the difference between new and old, but it's not all of it. We would go to Larchmont, and they just had one or two books. It didn't have the same depth as Virginia Beach. I hear that from a whole lot of parents.''
Perhaps the only unusual thing about Story's library habits is that he is chairman-elect of the Norfolk library's board of trustees and so knows the system's strengths and weaknesses as well as anyone.
Story, a lawyer, is one of almost 17,000 Norfolk residents who are registered to use Virginia Beach's libraries and who drive there regularly to do everything from checking out popular fiction to working on research papers.
They are profiting from a policy that allows any citizen in Hampton Roads to receive a free library card from local cities.
Every day, on the average, 64,000 people commute from Virginia Beach into Norfolk. Many of them work downtown. Yet only 2,500 Virginia Beach residents are registered to use Norfolk libraries - even fewer from other cities.
The decline of the city's libraries raises questions about Norfolk's spending priorities and goals and whether an improved central library might play a role in the development of downtown.
Nauticus, which cost $52 million to build and is a key component of the city's efforts to revitalize downtown Norfolk, draws 3,000 to 4,000 people to the waterfront on a good weekend.
Virginia Beach's central library, which cost that city $7 million, on a good weekend draws twice that number to a strip shopping center district on Virginia Beach Boulevard.
Several cities across the country, including Charlotte, San Antonio, Denver and Chicago, have used an improved or new central library as part of a downtown development strategy, say national library officials. Denver this year opened a brand-new central library, designed by world-famous architect Michael Graves, off of its statehouse mall downtown.
``New center libraries have helped revive center business districts,'' said George Needham, executive director of the Public Library Association. ``Here in Chicago, when the downtown library started to have Sunday hours, so did some of the businesses around it. It can be seen as an economic revitalization strategy.''
A strong central library downtown could dovetail with Nauticus, the Chrysler Museum, the planned MacArthur Center and other amenities.
But today's Kirn Memorial is hardly a draw. It doesn't open on Sundays, few people wander the stacks, and the collection is aging.
NORFOLK'S LIBRARY PROBLEMS are, to some extent, shared by Portsmouth, which has the area's other urban library system.
With only four branches instead of Norfolk's dozen, a smaller geographical area and a tradition of private donations, Portsmouth has been better able to maintain its essential services, say its director and other library officials.
``The city has always been very proud of its libraries,'' said Library Director Dean Burgess. ``City administration has seen that and often protected us from the worst calamities that might have hit us.''
The suburban cities of Virginia Beach and Chesapeake have new central libraries that are bright and airy and well-stocked with books. Although their funding is only about average by national standards, it is far better than Norfolk's or Portsmouth's. The biggest problems users face in Chesapeake and Virginia Beach is waiting in the checkout line or finding a parking space.
Statistics on library use, funding and staffing show how divergent the region's cities have become in library resources:
Although Chesapeake has fewer residents than Norfolk, it has a library staff of 109 - almost twice as many as Norfolk's 65. Virginia Beach, with its staff of 188, has nearly three times as many staffers as Norfolk.
And Norfolk must spread its staff over the Kirn Memorial central library and 11 branches.
Virginia Beach and Chesapeake have only five branches each, not including bookmobiles, law libraries or Virginia Beach's small Pungo branch.
THE NORFOLK LIBRARY HAS a new director, and she readily admits the system's problems and challenges.
``We need to reassert ourselves as a used and well-loved community library,'' said Sally Reed, who arrived this summer from a similar position in Ames, Iowa. An entire class of readers, Reed said, have written off Norfolk libraries and no longer even try to use them.
``We have to earn back the confidence'' of the citizens, Reed said.
In the past decade, Norfolk has not made library funding a priority. The library's budget has declined from $4 million in 1990 to $3.5 million this year.
Every year, Chesapeake spends more than twice as much per citizen on new books as Norfolk.
The lack of financial support is one reason the cities' libraries vary so drastically in usership. Though there is some inter-city crossover, in general, Virginia Beach and Chesapeake residents check out an average of eight or nine books annually per person. The average Norfolk resident checks out only two books per year; Portsmouth residents average three.
In the late 1970s, Reed said, Norfolk had a general librarian, a young-adult librarian and a children's librarian for each of its 11 branches. Now, each general librarian must supervise two branches, and there is only one children's librarian for the entire system.
``It really takes more money,'' Reed said. ``That's the bottom line. It's the people's decision.''
Financially strained, Norfolk has focused on other forms of downtown development, from Chrysler Hall and Scope, to the MacArthur Center and Nauticus. Its libraries have slowly fallen behind.
FUNDING ISN'T THE ONLY REASON for the glaring differences in circulation among the cities, say library officials. The more middle-class populations in Virginia Beach and Chesapeake check out more books because they read more books.
``Suburbia has a much more homogenous, middle-class population, and middle-class people are library users,'' said Mary Mayer-Hennelly, assistant library director in Norfolk.
The low library user rates in Norfolk and Portsmouth may point to problems in education levels or reading habits that libraries, schools and families need to focus on, say library officials.
Library officials locally and nationally say the Norfolk system faces some strategic choices if it sets out on a program of improvement.
They include:
Whether to prune Norfolk's system of 11 branch libraries, not including Kirn, which stretch from Ocean View to Berkley. The system is expensive to maintain and diverts scarce resources from buying new books and equipment.
``There are still nights of the week when there aren't any libraries open,'' Reed said. ``And in a city this size, that's inexcusable.''
But having so many branches puts a neighborhood library within easier reach of residents.
``What a wonderful thing for our city to say that every kid can get on a bike and easily get to a neighborhood library,'' Reed said.
Whether to renovate the city's central library - Kirn - or move it, possibly out of downtown.
Mayor Paul D. Fraim and Vice Mayor Paul R. Riddick have discussed building a new central library on Military Highway. With easier parking and a more central location, the library could draw users from all around the city, they have argued.
But the move would be akin to relocating City Hall, say other city officials. It would acknowledge that the center of the city no longer resides downtown. It also would eliminate the opportunity to have an improved library contribute to downtown revitalization.
Although Norfolk's library system is struggling, it still has strong points, area library officials say. It has an excellent historical reference room, a fine collection of older fiction and specialized reference resources. It recently opened the first public library Internet site in Hampton Roads.
STORY, VICE CHAIRMAN of the Library Board of Trustees, would like to make the library a leader in helping citizens onto the information highway. But before this happens, he says, it must do better with the essentials.
``With more money, I would add more staff and materials, update the children's collection, get multiple copies of popular fiction, and then add computers and CD-ROMs for every library,'' Story said.
The library's new director, Reed, says her first task is to bring back the city's middle class. This will probably mean buying more best-sellers, even at the expense of copies of less popular but critically acclaimed books.
``What I hear the most from people,'' Reed said, ``is that `the Norfolk libraries never have what I want.' ''
IF NORFOLK DOES NOT IMPROVE its libraries, the stream of citizens to Virginia Beach could become a torrent. In the past two years, the number of Norfolk citizens registered to use Virginia Beach libraries has more than doubled - from just under 8,000 people to almost 17,000.
If gaps in funding persist, suburban residents may resent paying for the services that Norfolk residents use. Right now, any resident in South Hampton Roads can get a library card for free from any city library system, even though each system is funded locally.
Needham, of the Public Library Association, says regions in California have split over this issue.
One possible solution would be a regional library system, say library officials in several cities. Even though it's considered a political pipe dream, a regional system would give the urban cities a better funding base and give the suburban cities a centralized research library.
Although each is good at stocking best-sellers, neither Chesapeake's nor Virginia Beach's central library has the depth of materials that a big-city central library has. With the region cooperating, it could have a first-class research library, said Burgess, director of Portsmouth libraries for 21 years.
``The cities have so much pride that they don't want to give up control of their services,'' said Burgess, who retires next year. ``We are an area of a million and a half, and we ought to have the big, regional library with a first-class central collection that they have in Baltimore, Cleveland and Philadelphia. That's the way to deliver the best service.'' ILLUSTRATION: Staff graphic by ROBERT D. VOROS
Research by ALEX MARSHALL
NORFOLK'S DECLINING LIBRARY SYSTEM
[Includes the following charts:]
Local spending on new books
Registered residents to use libraries
Circulation per capita, by city
Sources: Local libraries, state and national reports
For a copy of charts, see microfilm
Includes color photos
Kirn Library in Norfolk
Main Library in Virginia Beach
Chart
CITY SPENDING
Spending on libraries, per capita, by city.
Chesapeake $22.92
Virginia Beach $21.98
Norfolk $16.39
Portsmouth $14.65
Suffolk NA
National average $20.46
Source: 1995 Public Library Statistical Report
COMPARISON SHOPPING
Nauticus, which cost $52 million to build and is a key component
in the city's efforts to revitalize downtown Norfolk, draws just
3,000 to 4,000 people to the waterfront on a good weekend.
Virginia Beach's central library - in a strip shopping center
district on Virginia Beach Boulevard - draws, on a good weekend,
twice the crowd Nauticus does. The library cost the city $7
million.
KEYWORDS: PUBLIC LIBRARIES
by CNB