Spartan Daily - Library given top award

Spartan Daily - Library given top award
After only a year since its opening, the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Joint Library has been recognized for its collaboration as an academic and public library with the prestigious "2004 Library of the Year Award," given by Thompson Gale/Library Journal.

The award, similar to an "Oscar" in the library world, was given to both San Jose Public Library and the San Jose State University Library.

Patricia Senn Breivik, SJSU Library Dean, said she was ecstatic that the library received the award.

"It is a thrilling but suitable acknowledgment of work in planning and developing the library," she said. "This is only the second time an academic library has ever received this award."

According to "Library Journal," the first academic library to receive the award was Oregon State University's library in 1999.

"I thought (the ceremony) was all over," Breivik said. "I didn't realize we were getting a super award. We were the only library to get an award, so when they started talking about a library - my heart was beating so fast, I thought I was going to have a heart attack."

The library received the award because the collaboration between the city's library and university library has made resources more readily available to both academic and public communities, she said.

On the university side, students, faculty and administrators checking out materials have gone up more than 100 percent from the previous year at the former Clark Library, Breivik said.

"More people are using the library for both the scholarly side of life and the leisurely side of life," she said.

Because of the joint venture of the King Library, materials that weren't checked out before are now in circulation, Breivik said.

"The foreign language materials are being used more by scholarly people," she said. "When we were in Clark (Library), no one checked out master's theses. In the first eight months (of King Library opening), 1,523 were checked out. Most were checked out by university people and a good amount were checked out by the public."

More people are able to take advantage of the university library's resources, Breivik said. "The things we do have are just being used a lot more," she said. "We have a far better library for our students and for the community than if either (university or public libraries) were to do it on our own."

Many students and faculty are able to check out best-selling books, DVDs and video tapes without having to go to a separate public library, Breivik said.

The idea of the joint library is so popular that other libraries are asking how it is done, she said.

"We're having a conference on Nov. 16 for people who are thinking about doing this," Breivik said.

Ned Himmel, assistant library director for the San Jose Public Library and the King Library, said receiving the award is a great honor.

"We're thrilled," he said. "We believe that it was well deserved, too."

This was the first year the award was given to two libraries, based to the merger of the public and academic library and it's innovative concept, Himmel said.

"It's national recognition for beginning one of the most innovative, large public library systems in the country," he said. "This helped put the library on the map."

"The library was the result of a lot of planning, a lot of committees and a lot of cooperation," Himmel said.

"It was a lot of new ideas and thinking outside of the box," he said. "We had a great story to tell. This is a unique merger and it can be emulated."

David Vossbrink, communication director for Mayor Ron Gonzales, said the mayor is very proud receiving an award that recognizes the SJSU library and the city library.

Pooling resources of the two libraries together allowed both SJSU and the city to have a better library than if each was to build separate facilities, he said.

"No one has tried to blend a public library and an academic library before," Vossbrink said, "It's an innovative partnership between the two."

The King Library has been getting great praise from the community, he said.

"It has opened doors for the community and the university," Vossbrink said. "We're proud of the award from 'Library Journal.' It's an award like the Oscars of library (awards)."

Vossbrink said the award shows that the city has a commitment to voters to pass bond issues.

"The King Library averages about 10,000 people a day," Vossbrink said. "Now we're seeing library usage, in terms of patrons, more numbers of people going to the library than to our sporting events."