As workers put the final touches on Camarillo's $26 million, 65,000-square-foot library, the institution that's seen many dramatic changes over the years prepares for yet another transformation.

For 32 years, the Camarillo branch of the Ventura County Library System has been housed in a 16,000squarefoot building at the corner of Ponderosa Drive and Eston Street. It was the largest library the city had seen up to that time.

The first library occupied a school hallway 111 years ago. The county board of supervisors, under pressure from city founder Adolfo Camarillo, established a county library system in 1915. The Camarillo branch opened four years later with 75 books in a mercantile store.

By 1933, the library was housed in the post office and had 350 books and one table. By the early 1960s, the library had its own building at the corner of Ventura Boulevard and South Glenn Drive. Books numbered nearly 78,000.

In 1974, the library moved into an $800,000 new home and circulation rose to 162,000. As early as 1989, the library showed signs of outgrowing its quarters. An indoor water fountain was removed to make way for more books and seating.

IRIS SMOOT/Acorn Newspapers LIBRARY LOVE-Getting all his reading in before the Camarillo Library moves to another location in February 2007, Paul Van Sciver, 5, of Camarillo tears his way through the book entitled "I Stink." His grandmother, MaryLou Van Sciver, in the background, says her grandson "loves the library."

Community volunteers have filled a pivotal role since the passage of Proposition 13 in 1978, which cut the library budget in half. The Friends of the Camarillo Library and other community groups have raised funds to host special children's programs and ensure the library had the latest technological advances, including computers, CDs and DVDs.

"It's going to be bittersweet" to say goodbye, said librarian Sandi Banks, who has worked in the building for 19 years.

The 20 members of the staff have developed close friendships, partly because of the confined space, she said.

"We'll miss a little bit of the camaraderie," Banks said of the new library, which is four times the size of the old one. "But we really need a new library."

The library will close one month before the new one opens. No date has been set.

-Michelle Knight