PROJECT 2: PROPOSAL TO CREATE REFERENCE LIBRARY

The city that I am interested in opening up a library is Huntington Beach of California; this city has a population of 193566 people. The city has an unemployment rate of 7.3%.  The industry type includes: 15% of sale related jobs, 27% of office administration and management jobs, 6% of financial business job, 6% of education training and librarian jobs, 5% health care job, 5% construction jobs, 3% food service job, and 3% of architecture/engineer jobs.  The city of Huntington Beach is consisted of 74,681 households with 48,254 households are family households; there is a total of 77,013 housing units which is comprised of 60.29% of owner occupied and 39.71% of renter occupied.  When it comes to household income, the city of Huntington Beach has the following breakdown: 1.56% of household income at or above $ 500,000, 7.39% of household with income from $200,000 to $499,999, 9.88% of household income $150,000 - $199,999, 20.71% of household with income $100,000 - $149,999, 15.99% of household with income $75,000 - $99,000. In term of age distribution, Huntington Beach city is consisted of 11.46% of people at nine year of age or younger, 9.73% of eleven to seventeen year of age, 8.1% of eighteen to twenty four year old people, 13.63% of twenty five to thirty four year old people, 15.27% of thirty five to forty four year old people, 15.94% of forty five to fifty four year old people, 12.81% of fifty five to sixty four year old people, and 12.06% of sixty five or older.  Furthermore, the Huntington Beach city also has about 75% of people who has from some kind of college degree to doctorate degree (City of Huntington Beach: http://www.ci.huntington-beach.ca.us/business/demographics/)

            The Huntington Beach Central Public is a public library, and it has many programs besides providing book and material to patrons; for an example, this library has children events such as preschool book reading, face painting, disaster preparedness, adult computer training class, make up class, etc. It is located at 7111 Talbert Ave Huntington Beach, CA 92648 and has an URL of http://www.huntingtonbeachca.gov/government/departments/library/; this is the biggest and the main library in Huntington Beach.  One of its branches is the Helen Murphy public library which is located at 15882 Graham Street, Huntington Beach, CA, 92648 with an URL as http://www.huntingtonbeachca.gov/government/departments/Library/hours_location/helen_murphy_branch.cfm; this is a much smaller library with no extra classes or services comparing to the Central library.  After visiting these two public libraries, I have decided that the library which I plan to open will be a public library for students from first grade to high school; this library will have buses to pick up students from different schools and to drop students off at the library for after school program.  The reference area will be divided into twelve sections designated for twelve grades.  Here, tutors will make sure student understand and do their home works. For every hour of studying, a student will earn fifteen minutes of play time. Each section will have play table with toy, computer, and magazine material appropriate for each grade. The library will have free internet, hot and cold water, couches for students to lay down if they feel sleepy; the reference area will have a collection of World Atlas and a collection of Statistical Abstract Data of the United State so that students will have an opportunity to learn about different countries in the world and relate or compare that to the United State census data through Statistical Abstract Data of the U.S. 

The library data base will have electronic books of all grade school books, thus allowing students to read ahead for their next day class section. None of the libraries which I have known so far offering an after school program; as a result, the new library will definitely standout from the rest of other libraries.  But most of all, the library will be very practical to parents who work long hours and be useful to students who have hard time doing home work alone.  Furthermore, this library will recruit senior retirees to be tutors, thus pulling community together and helping each others.

PROJECT1: REFERENCE OBSERVATION

            I visited a public library in Huntington Beach city at two pm on Saturday; it is a branch library.  I am not sure what the specialty of the library is; however, it has first floor reserved for children section with book, computer, reading tables and chairs, toys and games.  During my time here, I saw a patron asking the library for where she can find books regarding real estate.  The librarian asked the patron if she was looking for book on how to buy a house or book for entering into real estate profession; the patron said that she was interested in books for real estate exam in the particular.  The librarian found couple books so she wrote the location numbers onto a piece of paper, gave it to the patron and say that the books were at the basement.  On the second floor, which is the main floor, as I entered the library, to my right was a desk area with two librarians helping patrons make library card by having patrons to fill out application and take picture.  Further in, to the left, was an information desk where librarians can look up to see where material is located.  To the left, there was a desk area with two other librarians checking the books out for patrons by scanning in the patron’s library card and then scanning in the books.  The librarians at this place did not use stamp nor printout receipt but instead, just verbally told the patrons that the books would be due three weeks from today; the library is  probably trying to cut on cost by saving on ink and paper.  Further in to the right was a reading area with five shelves full of magazines.   There were about seven tables with chairs for patrons who wished to seat down and read.  I did not see any Encyclopedia books at all. 

For library instruction, I saw a sign saying no food or drink; however, as I walked to first floor, I saw a cafeteria.  Thus, the sign did not mean no food or drink everywhere in the library; it actually meant no food or drink only at those areas with the poster signs.  I did not see any workshops posted on the calendar.  In term of reference collection, the library had mainly books; it also has a program in that patrons can rent out DVD with the cost of one dollar for one DVD and patrons can keep that DVD for three days.  However, children can rent out children DVD for free.  I believed that this library specialty is child development because it had the whole first floor full of children books and other equipments for children activities.  In fact, in this first floor, at the time of my visit, there was a children workshop with a lady working on children face and hand painting.  The first floor also had a reference area, where children could themselves go and ask the librarian for certain material or reserve time to play on computers.  One of the parents was telling me that this library used to have children reading program on Saturday from eleven am to one pm.  But the program was put on hold since the library was going through a budget skimming.  So, over all, I believe that this library specialty is literacy and theater since there was a big theater inside the library.  However, I still had not yet to see it.  I walked around looking for it but unable to located.  I tried to access the library online from my home, but unable to access any material since it was asking for my library card which I did not have at a moment. 

There are a couple of things that I do not like about this library: 1) the signs about material numbers were somewhat unclear.  For an example, I was looking for books on exterior house painting.  After the librarian gave me the material number and said that it was down stair, I did not know that she meant the material was in the basement.  I spent fifteen minutes on the first floor before going to the basement.  The library should have a sign right next to the stair, pointing down for certain material number, that way, patrons would understand and keep moving to the next floor.  2) this library was an exclusive library, meaning that if a person has a public orange county library only, he/she may not able to borrow any materials from this library.  Not only that, a person needs to be a Huntington Beach resident in order to open a library card.