CityofSantaBarbara
Source: Santa Barbara Public Library
Santa Barbara Public Library is transitioning to a new, progressive Library catalog in FY23 to improve the customer experience, generate better statistical data, offer a convenient experience for Spanish-speaking patrons, and to generate cost savings that can be invested in the community. In order to implement these changes, Santa Barbara will not be renewing its membership in the Black Gold Library Cooperative.
As a member of Black Gold Library Cooperative, SBPL has been a strong advocate for all member libraries to transition to a new catalog system that would improve statistical reporting, allow for more customization by individual library jurisdictions, improve the user experience, and reduce costs. Black Gold Administrative Council makes decisions based on majority rule and these proposals have been outvoted.
“Change was needed in order to provide the extent of services we wanted to offer our patrons and our vision was at odds with the direction the other Black Gold Member Libraries wanted to take,” explained Library Director Jessica Cadiente.
Not renewing membership in Black Gold is in the best interests of Santa Barbara Public Library in terms of both costs and operational efficiency.
Ultimately, this change will have a positive impact on SBPL patrons. After San Luis Obispo, SBPL has the highest collection budget and purchases the most new print materials annually. SBPL is confident that it can support the ongoing needs of the Santa Barbara community without relying on books from other Black Gold Library Cooperative jurisdictions. In fact, the improved statistical reporting of the new catalog will allow staff to pinpoint which collections, topics, and genres are of most interest locally. Currently, there is no way to distinguish between materials being borrowed by local patrons versus loaned to neighboring jurisdictions.
“Anecdotally, we know that Santa Barbara readers have specific and unique interests not necessarily shared by residents elsewhere. The new catalog has an easy to use purchase suggestion function, and staff will be actively monitoring collection usage and inviting feedback from patrons in order to build collections that meet the needs of our community,” Cadiente said.
To facilitate the transition to the new catalog, borrowing materials from other member libraries has been suspended this week.
Additionally, as SBPL will not be a member of Black Gold, any patron may obtain a library card from any Black Gold member library, just as they can from any library in the state of California.
The Santa Barbara Public Library provides a wide array of services to support community education and access to information including:
- an Adult Literacy Program, which trains tutors to work one-on-one with individuals to improve their reading, writing, and spelling ability in Spanish and English;
- Library on the Go to provide increased community access to library services and materials
- SBPL Works!, a workforce development program that assists job seekers with job search strategies, interview practice, resume and applications, as well as classes to improve job skills;
- business classes and support;
- local history archives and research assistance;
- innovative early literacy and school readiness programs;
- parent and caregiver education; student and teacher support;
- science, technology, engineering, arts, and math enrichment programs for youth;
- teen internship and volunteer opportunities; social service support and resource navigation; computers, wireless internet, and technology assistance;
- arts and culture programming, like our Black History Month and Hispanic Heritage Month event series;
- and more, in addition to access to a wide variety of digital and online databases and learning platforms and print and physical media collections.
Visit the Santa Barbara Public Library online at SBPLibrary.org for information about programs and services. All library programs are free and open to the public.
Goleta and Santa Ynez Valley Libraries Remain Black Gold Partners
What You Need to Know About Changes to Service and Exciting Future Plans
Source: City of Goleta
The Goleta and Santa Ynez libraries want to inform patrons about changes to service now that Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo libraries have announced that they are leaving the Black Gold Cooperative system effective July 1, 2022. This means that their catalogs will become separate, and materials will no longer be shipped outside of these two library systems to the Black Gold member libraries.
We know how our library users enjoy access to a myriad of resources and should rest assured that they still can expect the high level of service that they are accustomed to receiving.
Here is what you need to know about Black Gold Changes to service:
- You can no longer place holds on items or renew items owned by the Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo Libraries.
- Please return any items you have borrowed from the Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo libraries by their due date.
- Please make Goleta your pickup location for holds that are received from any non-Santa Barbara or San Luis Obispo libraries. You are no longer able to pick them up at Santa Barbara. Santa Ynez Valley libraries can continue to pick up their items at either Buellton or Solvang.
- After June 30, you will no longer be able to return Santa Barbara or San Luis Obispo items to any of the Goleta branches. Anything you check out from Santa Barbara must be returned there yourself.
The future is bright for Goleta and Santa Ynez Valley Libraries. We are working behind the scenes to transition the circulation system to an open-source software called Koha, provided by the same company that hosts the library’s new user-friendly online catalog which debuted last fall. This exciting change will take place on Monday, April 25th. Stay tuned for more details as the date approaches.
We are also excited to share that we will have an increased book budget for the fiscal year beginning on July 1st to enrich and expand our collection for your use and enjoyment. We would love to hear which titles you’d like to see added to the library and encourage you to use the Suggest a Purchaseform on our website to make a request.
Questions can be directed to goletavalleylibrary@cityofgoleta.org.
The whole thing does not sit well with me. I believe there is much involved here that is not evident. The emphasis on using demographic statistics to base purchases on already seems to be have been in place. (Quote: “In fact, the improved statistical reporting of the new catalog will allow staff to pinpoint which collections, topics, and genres are of most interest locally. “) Many books I ordered were only available from other branches despite being currently on national lists. It sounds as though the SB Library only intends to favor some (majority) over all city residents.
Nope this seems shady and the language cagey. Not a good move at all – for us or for the reputation of SB as a good neighbor in the county.
This move is arrogant and selfish. The whole point of the Black Gold Collective was to share so that smaller districts could have access to a larger inventory than they could individually accumulate. The decision to abandon these people is bad. I had expected that librarians would be more democratic and sharing than this. As a customer of the SB library I have been able to access many books from the other libraries that SB does not have on line. This is no longer possible. I am told that I can request them to purchase these books but when I do I am given a bureaucratic “we will consider your request”. The city council supported this decision. Contact your council member and the mayor to express your dissatisfaction with this choice.
I’m so disturbed and annoyed by this that I can’t even compose a coherent response.
Seems like they confused their mission statement with SBCC.
I agree with all the preceding statements. And this just seems arrogant: “Anecdotally, we know that Santa Barbara readers have specific and unique interests not necessarily shared by residents elsewhere.” Also, if the SB library plans to cater to their “specific and unique” interests, then what about SB residents with other interests? They’ll be paying taxes to the SB library but won’t be able to borrow books from other libraries that meet their non-SB tastes.
I think it’s ironic that this is cast as a net benefit for SB users. The fact is, the majority of the books we get for our daughters are Black Gold transfers. To think this move will suddenly make our library purchase books that they might like when they haven’t for years is laughable. Goleta separating was the canary in the coal mine for this broken, empty institution and we have bee spending more time out there than here.
Yes, agree, the library is very sad. Beautiful large building, where there used to be the rows and rows of books; two years ago books were sent away (where?) so now there’s lots of open space. The only pleasure was being able to reserve books that, mostly, were in other libraries — now, the only other libraries will be Montecito and Carpinteria. The library director pulled the wool over the eyes of the Council from mayor Murillo on down and it is very sad.
How mean spirited for the Santa Barbara Library to decide not to share books with patrons of the smaller libraries in the tri-county area. And to justify their decision by saying that they have a bigger collection budget than other libraries seems completely counter intuitive. And not to forget, they also claim that their decision is warranted because their readers “have specific and unique interests not necessarily shared by residents elsewhere”. So not just mean spirited but narrow minded. I would have expected better from library administrators.
This move is typical for this particular library administrator. She likes fewer books and plenty of empty space in the building also.
It sounds more like SBPL wanted to expand services way beyond ‘traditional’ library functions and the other local BlackGold libraries didn’t want BlackGold to have to pay for them. SB City taxpayers will be picking up that tab. (This is reminiscent of the City of SB’s decision to ‘upgrade’ electricity customers to 100% renewable energy at an increased cost to customers, while the County and other Cities set the default to 50%, letting customers opt-in to a 100% choice.) Serious library users will simply need to get a library card from SBPL and a BlackGold library if they want to have access to both. Choices made.
Not pleased with this move. There is a much larger resource available with all libraries working together. Santa Barbara is moving towards ebooks and on line technology. Downtown library is an empty box these days.
The SBPL needs new leadership. It’s being run into the ground. I bet they removed books to allow more space for homeless to doze off there all day. It used to be a real library when I was a kid.
Several years ago they did remove a lot of books, and we were told “but they are all available via Black Gold, so you haven’t lost anything.” Now, no Black Gold. And they keep telling us they have all these digital options. But I want physical books.
They’ve actually removed the chairs, due to covid, so nobody is lounging there, homeless or otherwise.