North County Library Authority Parcel Tax, Measure L  (back to contents)

Our libraries are safe, well-equipped places, in constant use by adults and where children gather after school. Passing Parcel Tax Measure L will allow Los Altos Libraries to keep their current schedules of providing materials and programs, which our community values.

California Parcel Tax issues began in 1978, after passage of California Proposition 13, which resulted in libraries losing 2/3 of their property tax revenue. By 1983, our libraries were no longer able to maintain their services, and library hours were cut by 1/3. However, Proposition 13 also states that local districts can levy a non-ad valorem tax (a flat identical assessment of all homes and businesses in the affected area—i.e., a parcel tax) if a super majority of two-thirds of the voters approve.

The Los Altos Library Commission then completed a study which proved our library was hugely undersized, especially since our book circulation was the highest in the county at that time. In 1985, the first parcel tax in California enthusiastically was passed and our library was able to restore much needed library hours, books, and materials, and in 1991 a newly-expanded library was opened. In 2011, that parcel tax expires .

Measure L is a $76 parcel tax, which will expire in 20 years. This will cover increasing costs of books, salaries, and benefits as well as additional services. Today our libraries have eight story hours per week, discussions by authors, art lectures, gardening classes, kits for book clubs, many magazines and newspapers, 31 computers, a web site with book reviews, an event calendar, and many opportunities to learn, research, and be entertained.

As you know, we belong to the Santa Clara County Library System. In 2005 we voted on a county-wide parcel tax that supported all 7 libraries in our system. Measure L funds pertain only to Los Altos Libraries. Passage of Measure L will enable our Los Altos Libraries to maintain their current schedules and provide services, materials and programs to our community.

Go to www.renewourlibrary.org for more information on Measure L.

 
New Los Altos Community Librarian  (back to contents)

Beginning on May 10, Jane Cronkhite will be the new Los Altos Community Librarian, replacing Paul Miller who will be retiring on May 8. Jane has fifteen years of library experience, most recently as Acting Manager for the Willow Glen Branch of the San Jose Public Library. In her two and a half years with San Jose, Jane has also been Lead Librarian at the East Carnegie Branch, and Lead Librarian and Acting Manager for the Pearl Avenue branch. Jane also brings many years of experience as a teen services Librarian at both Cuyahoga County Public Library in Ohio and Maricopa County Library District in Arizona.

While we look forward to working with our new Librarian, we will miss Paul Miller’s amiable style. In the following article Paul talks about Los Altos and retirement.

Pat Johnson, President

 
Paul's Thought's  (back to contents)

“I always wanted to finish my career at a library that valued excellence and I did!” Paul Miller, retiring Librarian, said in a conversation with Pat Johnson. He usually was called to libraries to solve problems, but Los Altos was a dramatic change for him. “Here I had to seek projects. Helping with Woodland is an example. The project manager, the contractor and the architect were superb. They all kept me in the loop. It is such a joy to see the transformation. What a stunning building.

”The people of Los Altos are educated and value their libraries. I wandered around the library and had discussions on very esoteric subjects. The Los Altos Library Endowment and Friends of the Library are amazing—the Friends raised $20,000 in one book sale! Other locations might raise that amount in one year.

“I have a home near Edwards Air Force Base and my retirement will be relaxed but busy. Of course I plan to do a lot of reading. Sophie’s Choice is my favorite book; I love it because of the use of the English language. I’ve lived all over the world and hope to write about some of my adventures.

“Creating mosaics out of marble, smalti and mission glass is another way I relax. I shall welcome the time to finish them. ”Chicken Raising for Dummies —I’m looking for a copy. I have the space but not yet the chickens—and I enjoy omelets. “The people of Los Altos were welcoming and supportive. I shall miss them.”

 
Book Sales  (back to contents)

Thanks to all who worked so hard to make the January Book Sale such a success. I am continually amazed at how smoothly, and efficiently, these sales are run. This would not be so without the help from a group of dedicated volunteers. I am again indebted to Shar Thorson for being Book Sale Chair when I could not be at the sale.

The January 2010 sale generated $22,857 gross sales resulting in $21,591 in net sales. This sale contained the largest volume of materials that I can remember. At the beginning of the sale I counted approximately 34,000 items. Thank you to those who donate books and the Room 7 volunteers who sort them every Thursday morning. As I continue my duties as Book Sale Chairperson I look forward to working with the Friend of the Library volunteers. At the January 2010 “Quarterly Members Meeting” the Board and membership present agreed to consider changing the “Holiday Sale” to a regular book sale. This would provide four “major sales” for our books buying community. Stay tuned.

See you at the May Book Sale.

Darwin Poulos, Booksale Chairperson

 
Internet Sales  (back to contents)

Our internet sales are still on an upward trajectory. Gross sales for the first quarter of 2010 (including shipping and Amazon fees) increased over 50% from those for the last quarter of 2009:

A major reason for the jump in sales is that we are now listing many more items, including more music CDs and current fiction. For this, many thanks are due to our donations sorters and pricers for their ever increasing watchfulness for books and media suitable for internet listing. But we could not maintain this sales performance if it were not for the volunteers who list books accurately, ship ordered books quickly and neatly, and periodically adjust our listed prices, thus keeping our customer satisfaction rating at a rare 100% and our prices competitive.

You can see our Amazon listings at www.amazon.com/shops/lafriendsofthelibrary. To focus on subjects of interest, see the categorized listings on our website, at www.losaltoslibraryfriends.org/internetsales. You can buy the books from either page.

Internet Sales Committee

 
(Volunteer) Help Wanted  (back to contents)

We have a large complement of active, energetic volunteers who work weekly in the donations sorting room, and in the main library café. But in some areas we could use some more help. If you would like to help out in any of the following areas, please see below for contacts:

Main Library café. Volunteers are needed to set up for café sales on Saturday or Sunday mornings, our busiest days. This takes about an hour for set up, and longer if you stay on to interact with our customers. Please contact Elayne Dauber (epubdauber@sbcglobal.net) if you would like to contribute to this very profitable activity for the library.

Pricing foreign language donations. A volunteer is needed to augment our staff of people who price donated foreign language books for public sale. The necessary characteristic is an appetite for language, reflected in the ability to recognize (not read) most of the following: Chinese, Japanese, Korean, French, Latin, Greek, Spanish, Italian, German, Russian, other European languages (as a group), Arabic script, Hebrew script, and Indian scripts, Please contact Paula Newman (newmanp@acm.org) if you would like to participate in this very interesting work on Thursday mornings.

Developing and maintaining our websites. We currently have 2+ websites. Our public website is http://www.losaltoslibraryfriends.org. We also have an internal, interactive website, available to weekly volunteers, which contains and organizes our records and procedures. A third site, still in development, supports our internet listings activity on Amazon. We need another volunteer to further develop and maintain these websites. Volunteers should have a programming background, an interest in usability, knowledge of HTML, and knowledge of PHP or a willingness to learn it (for any users of contemporary scripting languages this is easy). If you are interested in this challenging but rewarding activity, please contact Paula Newman (newmanp@acm.org).

 
Membership  (back to contents)

I am pleased to report that membership in the Friends of the Los Altos Libraries is Altos Libraries is holding up very well this year with 664 members compared to 617 at the same time last year. It is gratifying to find that donations, just over $6,600.00, are also slightly higher than last year. Income from donations, although they come from fewer members, are essentially equal to the income received from annual dues. Even in times of economic uncertainty the members of our community value and support our organization and our library.

Hardin Smith, Membership Chair

 
Investment Committee Update  (back to contents)

The average annual rate of return for the Friends' Vanguard accounts for 2005-2009 was 5.0%. For the period 2007- 2009, it was 1.1%. For 2009, it was 17.6%.

Our last review as of December 31, 2009, indicated the return on the Friends' general fund continued to compare favorably with other funds, considering risks associated with each of the funds.

Friends Investment Committee: Darlene Smith, Art England, Harry Cuddy, and Bob Dahl

 
Finance Committee News  (back to contents)

The new Finance Committee reported on the first half of this fiscal year at the last Friends’ meeting. That report compared how well we are doing so far with respect to our approved budget. The Friends, in accordance with State law contributed, $10,000 to the campaign for parcel tax Measure L. The passage of this tax in June is essential to keeping our libraries open the hours residents expect.

The Finance Committee meets quarterly to review reports before they are presented at meeting and to coordinate the work of the Treasurer, Investment Committee and Appropriations Committee.

Friends Finance Committee: Elayne Dauber, Gerry Dunckel, Darlene Smith, and Alan McLeod

Both on-going and the 25-cent book-cart have been doing very well this year. To date we have sold 6,281 books from the better quality, more recent Ongoing section, totaling over $17,000. Not only do you have the opportunity to discover great cook-books, non-fiction and fiction, but children ages 7-12 also avidly gravitate to our shelves for children’s boks, reference and exam taking, and gardening. We also have 2 display tables that have great books for gifts, holidays and just plain pleasure.

The 25-cent book cart has sold over 10,000 books for a total to date of almost $2,300. These older paperbacks are your chance to find books that are difficult and/or more expensive to find elsewhere-and at such a bargain price!

A big thank-you to all the book lovers amongst us, and to those who are reselling—in stores and on the net. Books are finding homes, giving pleasure, and people are making a living, and those are good things.

However, in the midst of all this sunshine, a little bit of rain does fall. It is sad that some people feel they cannot afford or do not want to give the 25 cent donation for the book cart, and so just take the books. This year, to date, some 1,200 books have wandered. This represents over $300 that would have gone directly to the Library. If you truly cannot afford it, then we certainly don't want to deny you the pleasure a book will give you. But ....

Ongoing and the display tables have also experienced “wandering” books, including a children's Bible. The books that have gone missing have varied in dollar amounts-up to $15.00, with cookbooks seeming to head the list. This is not a 'need'. It is stealing from all the people of the community. As for those who just take the children’s books—what a lesson for our youngsters.

I cannot end this on such a downer. People in general have been honest and so very generous to the libraries (Main and Woodland), giving of their time and energy, donations (both monetary and books), and support of our efforts. A big and heartfelt Thank-You.

Finally, don’t forget—we also offer GIFT CARDS that cover so many occasions.

Ida Cohen, Ongoing Sales

 
LALE Update  (back to contents)

As mentioned in the previous "LALE column" in this newsletter, the library endowment (LALE) board made a grant in 2009 of $5,000 for the purpose of augmenting the library's resources in areas that will be of particular value to high school students in the face of dwindling library services within the schools. A $5,000 grant is making possible the acquisition by the library of additional books related to Book Talks at the high schools by the Teen Librarian as well as extra copies of books assigned to high school students for summer reading.

Sarah Neeri is the Teen Librarian, and she reported on her current programs and projects at a recent LALE board meeting. She is pleased by her reception at the Mountain View and Los Altos High Schools, and is adding Homestead High to her rounds this year. One of her objectives is to encourage use of the recently refurbished Teen Area in the main branch of the library. The library's goal is to be a welcoming place for students, and our Teen Librarian's challenges include reassuring young students who may have misplaced library books in their childhood that such past "sins" are long since forgiven and forgotten; such students need not fear that a long-delayed punishment awaits them if they return to the library.

Earlier this month, LALE again hosted its annual "Speaking Volumes" event. This year, we were very fortunate to have T.J. Stiles as our speaker. He is the winner of the 2009 National Book Award for the biography, The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt. His earlier work, Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War, was a New York Times Notable Book and won two other distinguished awards. He has written for The Los Angeles Times, Salon.com, Smithsonian, and The New York Times Book Review.

The LALE board adds it’s "hail and farewell" to Paul Miller, as he begins his new career as a retired librarian. During Paul's tenure as Community Librarian of the Los Altos Library, LALE took pride in assisting him in the installation of the Virginia Whipple Collection, comprised of the full set of Great Courses of the Teaching Company. This significant resource of inviting and instructive materials is contained on CDs and DVDs that are used by patrons in their cars and with their home entertainment centers. Further, LALE has helped during Paul's watch with an overall upgrade of the library's collection of classical music CDs as well as a refurbishment of our literary classics. The grants involved in these areas were in addition to LALE's traditional support of Science and Technology resources.

Bob Simon (bob@logotogo.com), 650-948-9054

 
From the Library  (back to contents)

The Los Altos Library is always grateful for the generous financial support of our Friends of the Library group. Each year the Friends financially support many endeavors by the library that have a direct and positive impact on public service.

One of the most visible and important areas of support is the Friends’ Bestseller collection. Both the Los Altos Library and Woodland branch have a Friends Bestseller collection. Books are added nearly every day to meet the overwhelming demand for new and popular books. The collection includes both fiction and nonfiction, and mostly adult items but also books for teens and children.

About 200 bestsellers and high demand books by today’s most popular authors are added every month. Books are checked out for 7 days (renewable once) and are outside the regular library collection. Since these books cannot be reserved and since there are multiple copies depending on demand, there is always a good chance a patron can find a bestseller they are looking for, and can walk away with the book they want.

Each book checks out an average of 25 times, and when the demand subsides, these books are returned to the Friends for sale at their regular book sales, thus bringing even more financial support to the library.

This collection and this public service would not be possible without the support of the Friends.

In addition to this ongoing commitment, the Friends support many different projects every year. This year they gave the library enough funds to purchase multiple copies of new and popular feature films. They generously supported the purchase of about 2,500 extra adult talking books for both Los Altos and Woodland, and about the same amount for children’s titles at Woodland, in addition to expanding the Woodland Branch’s collection of children’s paperback fiction.

The new wooden display stand in the Children’s area, featuring special rotating displays (for April it’s poetry for National Poetry Month), was purchased by the Friends. The brand new wooden CD cabinets most recently purchased will allow us to expand our ever popular music CD collection. The Friends also purchased a new set of bookshelves so we could finally complete our teen area remodel, allowing our teen librarian to expand our collection of graphic novels, always extremely popular with this age group.

The Friends help out behind the scenes as well, purchasing extra book carts and stools that help make our staffs’ jobs easier and more efficient.

Other ongoing projects generously supported by the Friends include annual funding of our children’s and teen summer reading programs, and this year the author visits for our adult summer reading series: mystery writer Laurie R. King and bestselling author Mary Roach will both be speaking here this summer

These are just some of the many ways the Friends of the Library give their generous support to the Los Altos Library and Woodland Branch.

Cynthia Wilson, Supervising Librarian, Adult & Teen Services

 
Art Lectures  (back to contents)

This May the Musée d’Orsay is sending a collection of impressionist paintings to the de Young Museum. The following five lectures pertaining to the exhibit will be presented in the Community Room of the main library at 7:00 PM:

May 17: Kay Payne: “French Impressionism: The Artists and Their Paintings.” This is a background lecture with some selections from the exhibit.

May 26 & June 2 (Identical lectures): Kay Payne, “Birth of Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay,” a lecture specific for this exhibit.

June 9: Marsha Holm, “A Brush With Fame: Claude Monet and His Art”

June 23: Rita Dunlay, “Degas: The Reluctant Impressionist”

All lectures will be in the Program Room of the main Los Altos Library.