Libraries to Go Dark In a Literary Light's Home Town in Calif.

Adriana Reyes, left, and Karina Almada, 9, read a children's book at the John Steinbeck Library, due to be closed as early as next month. (Photos Marcio Jose Sanchez -- AP)

Others said they did not think they could afford another tax. Edilberto Valladares, who visited the Steinbeck branch on a recent afternoon to check out educational videos for his young sons, bemoaned the closings. But the Spanish teacher and El Salvador native noted that his wife, the family's registered voter, had not voted for the ballot measures. "We don't have a lot of money to spend, and with [those measures], we have to spend more in taxes," he said.

The library was bustling that day -- teenagers spreading their homework across the tables, a gray-haired man in a cowboy hat thumbing through genealogy records, three Latino farmhands checking out a heavy pile of videos and books.

Regular visitor Kanyada Doughty, not yet 2, ran through the aisles as her brother Kayne, 4, flipped through "One Big Building," a counting book he knew by heart after borrowing it again and again.

"We can't afford to buy him books," said Ming, their mother. After the library closes, "I don't know where we'll go."

Mary Thomas was marveling over the reference computer she was using to help her son, Vince, 14. "I didn't know they had this," she said.

When the libraries close -- possibly as early as February -- residents can go to county-run libraries. But Thomas said none has the resources of the Steinbeck branch -- for that, residents would have to travel 20 miles to Monterey. "It's devastating," she said.

City officials and library supporters say they are exploring ways to bring the issue back to voters, who they believe may be more likely to support a new tax once they realize the libraries are on the chopping block. But at the least the libraries will be closed for months before they can be reopened.

Meanwhile, officials said they have rejected ideas such as charging for library cards -- too undemocratic -- or appealing to a wealthy benefactor -- too unrealistic, said Friends of the Salinas Public Library president Lynne Steele.

"What donor," she asked, "is going to give to a community that voted against it?"

Edds, a special correspondent, reported from Los Angeles.