Looking to the future at the Hermosa Beach library
The front entrance of the Hermosa Beach Library. Photo
By Ryan McDonald
The Hermosa Beach Library has stood in its current location since 1962, when research meant dusty tomes and unspooled microfilm. Today, with nearly limitless information available at the fingertips of everyone with an Internet connection, libraries are changing, and Hermosa’s will be no exception.
The question is, how?
The city is in the process of gathering information and resident input about who uses the library, and in what ways. This information, collected through an online survey and various community meetings [See About Town], will ultimately guide future changes in the library’s staffing, programming and design.
Though it may seem counterintuitive, increased use of the Internet has made libraries even more important to communities said Linda Demmers, a library consultant and former university librarian. Though it allows for a freer flow of information, the Internet has made people feel more disconnected, Demmers said in an interview. And as public spaces where people can pass time for free get crowded out of urban landscapes, libraries are increasingly becoming a kind of “third place.”
“People are really hungry for a sense of community. It can be really hard to find, even in a small town,” she said.
The County of Los Angeles Public Library system, which oversees the Hermosa branch and dozens of others throughout the county, hired Demmers to assist with examining Hermosa’s needs. Demmers, who has previously worked on projects at more than 20 other Southern California branches, said that gathering information about usage patterns was key to any future transformations that might occur at the library.
In addition to being an older building, Hermosa’s library lacks facilities, like meeting rooms, that are increasingly becoming part of the package of expectations that people bring to a library. Relative to the population area it serves, it has a smaller footprint and offers fewer computers.
But despite this, Hermosa is a busy library. Usage figures in recent years have been boosted by the temporary closure of the library in Manhattan Beach, which reopened after construction in May 2015, but even without that spike Hermosa’s circulation rates are far above county averages.
“With a smaller building, smaller collection, smaller staff, and fewer seats, your attendance is higher than many,” Demmers said. “You’re the ‘little engine that could’: your 6,000 square feet is producing far more than than libraries that are much much bigger.”
What this means depends on your perspective. Demmers and county officials say they could indicate that the currently facility is not big enough to meet demand. But some residents are careful about how changes in the library’s design could impact existing offerings.
“All this stuff you were saying in the beginning made it feel like our library was defunct. But it’s meeting our community’s needs,” one resident said.
Any potential redesign is still far away in time and conception. The examination of the branch’s use will likely be completed by the end of January or early February, at which point the county could initiate a facilities discussion.
Previously released renderings of a new library were done as part of the city’s ongoing reevaluation of its civic center, and are separate from the current discussion, said Community Resources Manager Kelly Orta.
“It’s just part of a conceptual option. This needs assessment is going to help us get a sense of where we need to go with that,” Orta said.