Given the recent article about leadership at the Santa Barbara Public Library, it’s important for the public to know that the library continues to be open seven days a week, staffed by an incredible team of skilled librarians who are, as always, ready and able to serve the community’s needs.
Over the last three years, I have been privileged to serve on the Library Advisory Board. Currently, I serve as the Chair of the Board but am not writing in this capacity.
Instead, I write as an individual who has had a special opportunity to see at close range all the wonderful things that the library does for our community, despite numerous challenges such as the pandemic and annual budgetary cuts.
I have been greatly impressed with the progress the library has made in offering more diverse collections materials, workshops, programs, and services attending to the needs of our entire community — young and old and all those in between, readers and non-readers, English speakers and Spanish speakers, the unhoused and the out-of-work, to name just a few.
Over the last several years, the library administration has invested heavily in training and supporting all staff to promulgate an ethos of community service. It is my sense that library staff widely share a vision of this treasured institution that is forward-looking, multi-dimensional, and responsive to the needs of all Santa Barbara’s citizens.
At this time, especially, the community owes the library and its staff our support.