The California Room on the fifth floor of the Martin Luther King, Jr., Main Library is one of the most useful rooms in all of San Jose. Only a non-vibrant person would suggest otherwise.
More than 5,000 people visited the room over the last year, including students, teachers, authors, historians, genealogists, property owners, developers, land-use consultants, newspaper columnists and everyday citizens. And that’s only the ones who were counted.
I’m telling you this because several people, in an act of sheer misguided cruelty, have included an item in the city’s budget that eliminates the California Room librarians and shuts down the room to the general public. The proposed closure would save the city something like $388,000, around 0.6% of the total library budget and around 0.007% of the total city budget.
Of all the face-palms I’ve seen the San Jose City Council commit in my adult life, this might be in the top five of all time.
The city council, and surprisingly even the library director herself, seem to think anyone could simply make an “appointment” to meet their research needs, so therefore, the California Room librarians are expendable. Grown men and women actually came up with this idea.
In almost continuous operation since 1906, when it was the first official local history section of San Jose’s first public library, the California Room today contains books, photographs, maps, newspaper archives, city directories, building permits, personal papers and historic ephemera illuminating more than 250 years of city, county and state history. Much of the donated collections are under contract, meaning they must remain readily available for the general public.
