With a Little Help From My Friends (at the Montecito Library)

Libraries across America enjoy the support of friend groups for funding support, whether it’s for a reading room, an embellished summer reading program for kids, or the replacement of outdated computers. But traditionally that funding is supplementary to their operational needs. “These tend to be capital projects that are the whipped cream and cherry on top of the pie,” says Patricia Saley, the President of the Friends of the Montecito Library. “The pie is supplied by the municipality.”

In Montecito, the Friends of the Montecito Library exists to ensure there is still a whole pie to serve to the community. Every year the organization founded in 1975 gives the County a grant of $125,000. The donation guarantees the Montecito Library stays open a full five days per week. Without the grant, the library might only operate part time. “That would be really tragic because as you cut back days, people just give up and don’t go to the library anymore,” Saley says.

The annual grant, though, is merely a stopgap solution, Saley explains. The real goal is to put in place a long-term funding and organizational plan that ensures the Montecito Library stays open full time, forever. And part of the plan is to show people that at libraries, “books are just the beginning,” Saley says.

The Montecito Library’s patrons trend a little older than other libraries, but it serves all ages, with facilities filled with laptops and internet hotspots and a calendar stocked with courses that teach how to use technology and discussion groups on a variety of topics that change with the times. After the 2018 Montecito mudslides, for instance, the library offered classes showing how to save books that had succumbed to water damage.

“They do a really good job of keeping up with the times,” Saley says. “People may perceive libraries as these stodgy places, but they’re much more vibrant and topical than you and I might think of when we were kids.”