GAY GEISER-SANDOVAL -- Educationally speaking

The key to success is a good education. The key to education and doing

well in school is literacy. The key to literacy is reading. The key to

reading is practice.

To practice reading, one needs a big supply of books. Big supplies of

books are housed in bookstores and libraries. One requires money and the

other doesn’t, so for those on a limited budget, libraries are the key to

success.

Costa Mesa will soon review the contents of a survey it authorized about

the city’s libraries and future library needs. I would like to propose an

alternative that I think will cause a real increase in the literacy of

all Costa Mesa’s citizens, not just the kids.

Costa Mesa owns the two buildings that house the public libraries, but

they are maintained and operated by the county’s library system.

Costa Mesa is similar to Irvine in that it spends more for library

services than it takes in. It is expensive for a city to maintain a

library system, so most Orange County cities belong to the county system.

But three of Costa Mesa’s neighboring cities -- Huntington Beach, Newport

Beach and Santa Ana -- each has its own city-run library.

Much of Costa Mesa’s population that could most benefit from easy access

to books has problems getting to a library. Some senior citizens and many

families with young children don’t have cars. So, a trip to the library

to get a book or use the computers requires a lot of time to take a bus

across town. And the distance means these youngsters can’t get to the

library by themselves until they are much older.

But, what if kids had access to books and a quiet place to study right in

their neighborhoods? What if they could format a paper on a computer or

do research on the Internet near their homes? What if parents and senior

citizens could get books without worrying about transportation to the

library?

What if story time for small kids was five blocks away, instead of clear

across town? Wouldn’t easy access during the summer lead to increased

usage?

Costa Mesa already has satellite libraries all over town, in the form of

school libraries. The buildings, books and technology are in place. Also,

Orange Coast College has a big library.

All we need to do is have these different governmental entities work

together to form one subsystem, which would be available to all. Adults

could use the school libraries after classes were dismissed for the day.

The city could help by funding the labor needed to keep the libraries

open extra hours. It should also hire a coordinator to put on programs

periodically at each of the sites. The programs would get great exposure

just from announcing the event at school.

High school students, who are required to perform community service,

could help with library duties, story times and other programs. A certain

portion of each school library could be designated for rotating books,

which would move from library to library. This would supply an endless

set of new and different books for each library site.

This plan would require a lot of cooperation between the four

governmental agencies involved -- public library, school district,

college and city -- but the benefits to the whole community would be

huge!