Sunday, May 15, 2011

Count Down to the New Santa Clarita Libraries

No one is clear what is going to happen in the coming months. The seamlessness that the Mayor talked to me about months ago quickly unraveled. The County plans to close the libraries on June 18th. The Santa Clarita website says that all three libraries will open on July 1st. This means that Santa Clarita will be without library service for a minimum of 13 days. But a LSSI told a candidate that interviewed with them that it is possible that the only library that opens on July 1st will be Canyon Country. The city wants to spruce up Valencia and the talks for Newhall were in a stall so the city might not purchase the Newhall Library property and may instead open up a storefront library until the big new library is opened. Another new hire admitted that LSSI and the city don't seem too terribly organized and seem to be flying by the seat of their pants. Yet, another new hire hasn't heard anything about anything and isn't scheduled to report until July 1st--the day the new libraries are supposed to open. Hmmm...I am still concerned. July is going to be a very interesting month for Library Service in Santa Clarita. I am interested to see what will happen.
Last Wednesday, I had the day off and took all my tea stuff to Canyon Country. Dot and I set up the meeting room for the final farewell for the Friends of the Santa Clarita Libraries which has decided to dissolve because the city and LSSI never actually sat down with them and made them feel that they would be a valuable organization in the new system.
I am looking at starting a PhD in Information Science and see this as the perfect case study on the future of library services.

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