DATE: Thursday, March 27, 1997              TAG: 9703270003

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B10  EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Editorial 

                                            LENGTH:   76 lines

VIRGINIA BEACH LIBRARIES GATHERING PLACES PUBLIC LIBRARIES NEED PUBLIC SUPPORT TO SERVE THE COMMUNITY

Can Dewey Decimal and doughnuts co-exist? Will croissant crumbs clutter the card catalogs? How can the stacks compete with the aroma of fresh-brewed espresso?

These are just a few questions Virginia Beach library patrons will be pondering tonight as they consider the future of their public library system.

But this is about more than integrating espresso bars with the encyclopedias. It is about forming a vision of what Virginia Beach libraries will look like in the future, how to keep current with developing technology and how these public buildings can nurture a sense of community in a city with a transient population no downtown.

When the citizen input is tabulated in April, library officials plan to approach City Council and ask for support for a modernized and expanded library system and perhaps request a bond referendum to help pay for it.

We enthusiastically support major improvements for the Virginia Beach library system. Virginia Beach made a commitment years ago to neighborhood recreation centers that have proved to be enormously popular amenities. A similar commitment to good libraries is now needed.

As America has become more suburbanized, citizens have expressed a longing for new meeting places to take the place of the old town squares or town halls. Municipalities across the nation have responded by taking a second look at an old standby: the public library.

Some of the results have been delightful.

Libraries have always had books, periodicals, tax information and back issues of the newspaper, but modern libraries hold so much more. In some communities libraries now house personal computers and film rooms, auditoriums, meeting rooms, cafes and gift shops. Local book clubs meet to discuss literature in these welcoming settings, and friends meet, dine and browse for books together there. Volunteers tutor the illiterate in private library cubicles and students without computers at home are able to prepare papers and reports in the library almost as easily as their more fortunate classmates with PCs in their bedrooms.

In short, the local library has the potential to be much more than just a place to dash in and check out a book.

``It used to be libraries were able to simply help people find the information they needed,'' said Virginia Beach library director Marcy Sims. ``Now, with all the information that's exploding on the scene, libraries and librarians serve as navigators, helping people make their way through very sophisticated research.''

Virginia Beach, with one central library and just six branches - and a single computer that the public can use to access the Internet - is severely limited in its level of sophistication. Compare Virginia Beach to Charlottesville, for instance, which has a bit more than a quarter of the population of the Beach but has eight library branches. Colorado Springs, with a population almost identical to Virginia Beach, boasts 14 branch libraries.

But a small library system has not kept patrons away. Last year 1.8 million people visited Virginia Beach's public libraries - 720,000 at the 9-year-old Central Library.

Every Sunday afternoon about 3,000 people visit the Central Library in Pembroke.

And yet there are entire communities within Virginia Beach without a nearby library. The six branch libraries are bursting at the seams from so much traffic, librarians are overworked, and library users suffer from too little new technology.

``We're so busy library staff members literally run all day, performing triage,'' said one librarian this week.

Library officials believe the city needs at least six more area libraries. They say existing libraries need to be wired for computers and all of the libraries need PCs and public access to the Internet.

State-of-the-art libraries are a gift citizens bestow upon themselves and their children. Fine libraries bear testimony to a city's commitment to literacy and learning.

Citizen input on the future of Virginia Beach libraries is being welcomed tonight at the Princess Anne Recreation Center, 1400 Ferrell Parkway at 7 p.m.

We urge the public to support their public libraries.

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