Everyday Canvas

Our Library

Prompt: “A library of books is the fairest garden in the world, and to walk there is an ecstasy.”
From 1001 Nights
Do you love the libraries? Which services your local library provides do you like the most? Which services would you like to have in your local library that isn’t available now?

===========


I love the libraries, no matter how large or limited. I could live in one if I could. Our library was built about 22 years ago, so the building is fairly new. The inside of it is large on one sprawling story but attaches to another building in the same place that is used for meetings. A part of the second building is seasonally or yearly rented to the county government. The rented part now hosts the master gardener’s section. Some years we even voted there for local or federal elections. The other parts are for librarians' use and for storage.

The wing to the side of the library is the children’s library. In the section for us so-called adults, there are chairs and tables and comfy seating clusters with tufted armchairs and a sofa. One wall here has aisles of books for Non-fiction, the other for fiction. They still use the Dewey Decimal system, but both sections of books on the two walls are also divided according to the subject, such as New Books, Sci-fi, Local, Murder-Mystery, Western etc. with the Fiction wall and the Non-fiction is like any other library.

Foreign language, Poetry, Reference, and Magazines and Newspapers are in the middle closer to the seating arrangements. Also in the middle, next to the Non-fiction wall, are the CDs, DVDs, and Audiobooks in five aisles. I am a sucker for audiobooks because I can listen to books while doing other things in the house, but the new manager is making that section smaller and smaller. I worry that she’ll ease it out.

On the third wall are the used books donated for sale. Also, carriers are provided there if anyone wishes to buy several books at the same time. I have bought some very good books from that wall for pennies, but with shelves of unread books and more than 3000 waiting for me in my Kindles, I now avoid that wall like the plague. I promised myself I won’t buy another book until I have read all the physical books in my possession.

Also on the sides of the building are the conference/study rooms as small as closets separated from the main floor by tempered glass. I can see the people in those places but can’t hear them.

The librarians’ desks are at the entrance to the building as well as the self-checkout counter. In front of the counters are the several computers for anyone’s use, and all the other amenities are well-kept and functioning.

Our library has a Webpage from which I can download some books but the choices are very limited and I can only read them on the computer, which isn’t my favorite thing to do.

What I wish our library had would be probably a snack bar but as a different out-building. Also, I wish the librarians would stick to the old-fashioned “quiet” idea. Sometimes, they let the people talk loudly and make noise. Even they themselves talk to each other in high voices.

Then, once in a while, they let larger groups have a noisy conference around the large table in the YA section’s seating area, which isn’t separated by anything from the main floor. Nobody has ever complained because those groups pay the library for hosting them, but their presence doesn’t do much for the library’s popularity. At least a couple of times, hubby and I left the library much earlier.

Up to about 10-15 years ago, our library used to be much better because the manager was a wonderful lady and librarian to the core. She ran the place perfectly. After she passed away, we had probably three different managers, but none could live up to her high standards.

Another problem with our library is that it is next to the middle school. Now, there’s nothing wrong with that if it helped the kids to prepare their assignments, but the situation is a bit different. The parents who come for the kids wait in the library, talking and making racket inside the reading area, as well as the kids who come in and wait to be picked up.

Still, with all its shortcomings, I love our library. To me, it is the best place in town, even before the beaches and parks.