Busy Library

The Goleta Branch Library serves a population of about 90,000, many more than the population of the City of Goleta.

In the fiscal year ending June 2006 the Goleta Library checked out 564,695 items. That’s a lot of items for a library that serves around 90,000 people.

The reference desk deals with about 24,000 questions a year. That includes phone calls and helping people who come into the library. The number doesn’t include questions like “Has my requested book come in yet?”

If the library doesn’t have the book, DVD, etc. that you want you can place a hold through the online catalog. You can even do this at home and after library hours. The Goleta Library filled 27,471 holds in 2006. If the Black Gold system to which Goleta belongs doesn’t have what you want you can request an interlibrary loan from outside the BG system.

These statistics were furnished by the Goleta branch supervisor at my request.

To give an idea of how useful the library is, let me tell you how in other ways I make use of it. A few years ago I decided it would be fun to read all the mysteries I could find that were set in the Middle Ages.

First of all, I used the online catalog to discover subject headings that would lead me to such books. Then I accessed a database available through the library’s web site, NoveList. There I could search using their subjects. Then I searched the catalog for the titles that I could not find on the library shelves and placed holds. I found 16 authors that I liked; there were others I didn’t much like. Then I branched out to other historical periods using the same methods. This was my reading entertainment for 2 years.

Other online databases are also useful. I use Biography Resource Center to read about authors and their books. If I want to refresh my memory about a news item I use the newspaper databases. If I want a magazine article on a certain topic I use Info Trac/General Reference Gold.

The best part about the online databases is that I can access them any time of day or night. Also I don’t need to travel to the library to use them.