Libraries

Conceptual plans for a new $3-million Woodland Hills branch library will be unveiled at a public meeting Thursday evening. Architect Barton Phelps will present three alternatives--a single-story building and two versions with second stories--one of which would replace the existing library. At 12,500 square feet, the new library would be more than twice as big as the present one.

By the end of the century, West Hollywood residents could be flipping pages in a new state-of-the-art library. The West Hollywood City Council agreed Monday to appoint a committee to head up a library construction effort, determining the types of services the library should offer, the design and location of the building and other concerns.

Ray Charles' original Los Angeles studios will be turned into a memorial library in the late musician's name, and equipment will be updated so musicians can produce new music at the site. The studios, now a cultural landmark, were set to become a Ray Charles Museum, but the Ray Charles Foundation opted to make the site a library instead, foundation publicists said Tuesday. Groundbreaking for the renovations, at 2017 W. Washington Blvd., will be Jan. 25.

Area residents are invited to a meeting Monday to view and discuss preliminary plans for the new Sylmar Library. The architects, Hodgetts & Fung Design Associates, will be present to answer questions about the 12,500-square-foot facility, which will include special reading areas for children and young adults and a multipurpose meeting room. An improved "virtual library" area will offer multimedia computer workstations with access to the Internet and a variety of databases.

Trustees of the Placentia Library District cut staffing, reduced library hours and eliminated programs for children this week to deal with a tightening budget, officials said. The city's voters rejected a tax measure Nov. 5 that would have raised an estimated $460,000 annually for five years to maintain and restore library services and programs. The library operates as an independent special district and does not receive city funds.

There was ample praise to go around Thursday for those who helped to make Los Angeles Baptist Junior/Senior High School's new $1.75-million library and media center a reality, but in the end all the credit went to God. Quoting Psalms 127:1, Principal Gary Smidderks told students, faculty, parents and guests invited for the dedication ceremony that "unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it."

They came, they saw and they checked out books. More than 11,000 bookworms descended on Redondo Beach's new main library Saturday for a grand opening celebration that included everything from a magic show to free ice cream. "It was Grand Central Station on a crowded day," library Director Shari Petresky said. "It was absolutely packed." The slate and copper building, which contains 130,000 books and state-of-the-art computer services, has remained busy throughout the week.

With patriotic fervor, students, teachers and administrators at Kester Avenue Elementary School marked the opening of a new library Friday. The $40,000 library, built in two rooms formerly occupied by a workroom and the school's old library, was partly funded by the Wonder of Reading. The Los Angeles nonprofit organization was founded three years ago to help city schools bolster library resources. L.A.

In the early 1950s, Danish-born artist Kay (rhymes with sky) Nielsen spent two years on scaffolding in the library of Sutter Middle School, restoring and extending his masterpiece. Called "The First Spring," the enormous mural is still housed in the Canoga Park school, a little-known treasure threatened by the Valley's punishing climate and the Los Angeles Unified School District's lack of funds.

The architects who designed Bill Clinton's presidential library, a gleaming glass-and-steel building over the Arkansas River that invokes his administration's theme of "building a bridge to the 21st century," has won a National Design Award for excellence in architecture.