*** Editor’s note: This is the first installment in a two-part series on The Athenaeum Music & Arts Library, a unique La Jolla repository for all things artistic. The venue will host an annual national Membership Libraries Group meeting on Saturday and Sunday, April 25 and 26 – meanwhile, its director notes that the community approaches it with something close to benign neglect. *** Ellen Browning Scripps’ name and memory run through the fabric of this city like the Bill of Rights frames the rest of the U.S. Constitution. Art, science, education, recreation, public access, the outdoors, gender equality, animal welfare, freedom of worship, unparalleled philanthropy: Scripps was a walking city government, framing her full-throated agendas to elevate the region into the multifaceted hub she knew it could become. Erika Torri draws a bead from behind the desk in her small office at The Athenaeum Music & Arts Library. The city’s landscape, she’s quick to agree, would be a very different thing without Scripps’ influence. And as The Athenaeum’s Joan and Irwin Jacobs executive director, she maybe wishes Scripps (who died in 1932 and was elected to the group’s board of trustees in 1899) was still around to manage a few affairs. The venue, headquartered in La Jolla, is holding a big library conference on Saturday and Sunday, April 25 and 26, and there’s still lots to do to get ready. This will be the third parley of its kind at the facility, which will host several officials from other such venues in discussions ranging from fundraising to building repair to acquisitions. There’s some talk of the venue’s hand in successfully absorbing the corpus of Johann Sebastian Bach manuscripts – that lofty chatter right there sets it apart as a one-in-a-million repository. “We are a membership library,” Torri told La Jolla Village News, “but we’re doing a lot of art, and we could be a museum. We qualify to be a museum. But then we couldn’t call ourselves a membership library anymore, and that’s so much more special, that here in La Jolla we have one of these icons. But it amazes me that after 115 years, people still don’t know what to do with The Athenaeum.” A little history – as in the historical significance of the institutions themselves – may shed some light on one of Scripps’ legendary pet projects, the longtime area relative nobody knows. “The Athenaeum,” it turns out, is more than a handle. It’s a quasi-formal designation for what are called membership libraries, which hold rare book collections, photographs, manuscripts, music and other memorabilia of special interest to scholars, teachers and other consumers. La Jolla’s is one of only 16 in the nation, in league with cities like Cincinnati, Boston and Charleston. Incorporated in 1899 as the Library Association of La Jolla (still its legal title), it’s also the youngest (the Library Company of Philadelphia is the oldest, begun in 1731). In 1991, these venues merged to form The Membership Libraries Group, with their officials meeting at least once a year since then. La Jolla hosted the event in 1994 and 2007. Once-numerous membership libraries faded as free public systems gained favor in the latter half of the 19th century – before that, Torri explained, “There were no places for education or to bring your students, so these little membership libraries held a very important place.” They still do, of course – but the world is a very different proposition now. American art institutions and their repositories are under fiscal assault, however unintended, and the membership group responds by calling its annual meetings. “We hold hands and give each other support,” Torri said, “because people are getting lost. You have to raise funds for the library. You can’t just get funds from the city” lest you risk losing your membership library status. No city funding exists for The Athenaeum. Membership is $40 a year. The venue’s annual budget is not quite $2 million. Today, Scripps would have flipped her lid over the unremarkable financials. She’d have taken the bull by the horns to fix them – meanwhile, the nature of the venue’s membership would have dropped another side of the fiscal puzzle squarely in her lap. The Athenaeum Music & Arts Library, at 1008 Wall St., is open 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays through Saturdays and 10 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. Wednesdays. Call (858) 454-5872 or visit ljathenaeum.org.