At the April Board meeting, I presented an unscripted description of some of the possibilities a new library could provide. Here is some of the discussion and the first of the sketches from that public comment period.
DRIVE THROUGH PICK UP AND DROP OFF WINDOW
This single feature, I predict, would double circulation! People don’t use the library downtown not because they don’t want to, but because it is INACCESSIBLE on so many levels (pun intended). INCONVENIENT AND A HASSLE are the words I most often hear in conjunction with using the public library.
PAYING FOR PARKING
Having to pay for parking to use the library AT ALL makes using the FREE PUBLIC LIBRARY not free. Add in overdue fines, and the library definitely get priced out of some pockets. They may have transportation issues, or possibly be unaware that they could call for more time on a reserve (or be trained how to use the vacation hold) or to extend the renewal time limit.
FREE PARKING
If the drive through pick up would increase circulation by double — and dramatically reduce unclaimed reserves, FREE PARKING would double the library use again I believe at a guess. So many people I have spoken to say, it is too hard to get too, too hard to park, expensive to park, inconvenient, and I think, ultimately, fails to orient the users to the entire library and the range of possibilities.
With free parking, they would be able to take the time to learn that the library offers ANCESTRY.COM in library use only and with free parking, they could use on their schedule for as long as they needed without having to stack up $$$$ for parking.
The library offers so many excellent events and classes, but many are an hour or longer, so you lose the one-hour free parking window. This means if you want to attend a mid-week book club, it will cost you at least $3 or more.
Tai Chi is an hour long class. Great opportunity to do while getting a two-for to check books out. However, the street parking meters are only 30-minute limits. That means users MUST PAY FOR PARKING in the ramp. Because it takes so much time to find a parking place and traverse the 1/4 mile journey to the entrance, you cannot do that AND take an hour-long class or longer.
People like myself, with multiple sclerosis could manage within limits the actual class. The probable is that I cannot do the class AND WALK TO AND FROM THE PARKING GARAGE especially carrying books.
LIMITED PARKING
Ramp parking is on a first come first served basis. THERE IS NO GUARANTEE THAT YOU WILL FIND A PARKING SPOT to be able to go to the library at all. With the completion of the convention center, the parking ramp adjacent to the library will be even more full, longer, and there is no GUARANTEED parking for library patrons at all.
The ramp itself is not ADA compliant (check the slopes on the handicapped spots on the skyway level and see how a walker even with breaks manages to stay near your car. I’ll save you the time, IT DOESN’T. If you are also trying to get out your books or computer or other things, this is likely an impossible task, even with a wheelchair. While I hope to be able to stand up some when my time comes requiring wheelchair use, I hope to be able to stand long enough to transfer to the chair, but MS makes no guarantees.
Once again, the “handicapped” parking in the ramp is NOT GUARANTEED for library users so it is a crap shoot if you go in the garage and are able to find an accessible spot.
FAILURE TO PICK UP RESERVES
Considerable time and money is spent PULLING ONLINE RESERVES, including interlibrary loans (at $10 per book!). Then a considerable portion of them are NEVER PICKED UP! (I do not recall the actual statistic, I am sure Audrey knows.) People wanted them bad enough to search and reserve them. However, maybe each time they tried to stop by JUST FOR A MINUTE, there was NO STREET PARKING.
They would then be required to take the 5 or 10 minutes to pull into the garage, find a parking place, know how and where the skyway was located, possibly take the elevator down to the skyway, walk over 1/4 of a mile down a steeply incline path, on carpet, to enter another elevator, to go down, to go through entrance doors, and walk 20 or 30 feet to get to the reserve shelves.
Self-checkout (except for Quick Picks, so have to stop by the desk in that case).
Rinse, repeat the journey back to the car.
Add some disability or aging issues, and this can easily take an hour total to drop off and pick up and get to and from the parking ramp.
If you make it in under an hour it is free, but if you actually want to USE THE LIBRARY, for genealogy research, or reference use only, you will pay for parking in the ramp (i.e. NOT FREE). Street parking meters are 30-minute no exceptions — this means you WILL GET A TICKET (as I have done) even with handicapped plates.
Getting a ticket means PAY $20+ OR FIGHT IT, which I did, successfully.To fight a parking ticket costs time and effort people with disabilities do NOT HAVE TO SPARE.
PEOPLE WITH KIDS
Watching parents struggling to wrangle 2 kids and a baby stroller from the parking garage down the long journey already described breaks my heart. They just want to pick up books on a visit but kids can’t be left unattended in cars, so they must make the long journey. Little tots wandering around in a heavily used parking garage while a stroller is being pulled out for the baby is not best practices.
But even street parking offers little relief. If it is snowing, the kids are all bundled up. Snow berms or unplowed snow creates hazards. You need to have quarters for the meters so have to take off your gloves and carry change. Since the meters are 30-minute limits, there likely will not be a credit card option. Even if there were, that is a lot trickier than slipping a quarter in while making sure a kid doesn’t wander into the street.
HOW TO USE THE LIBRARY
At the present time, there is NO HOW TO USE THE LIBRARY training offered. It is just assumed that people know they can park for free in the ramp for one hour. It is assumed that they know they can do reserves electronically. I’m guessing the majority of casual users don’t even know there is ILL, reference use only, or other sections of the library that could be useful to them because of the lack of immediate orientation. This probably adversely affects immigrants, ESL users, and people with disabilities.
The reference desk is on the second floor at the back of the room with the people’s heads barely poking over the top of the counter. If you did not KNOW there was such a thing as a reference desk, you likely would never know how useful reference librarians can be.
There needs to be a library information desk front and center to direct people where they need to go and be available to train people how to do things. Doubling this up with circulation duty is tedious for familiar users. Self-check out helps, but with the multiple exceptions, it is not good enough.
To pick up music, ILLs, and check out some videos, you must go to the circulation desk. Meanwhile, a new patron with 3 kids is trying to figure out how to get a library card. Separate functions need to be separate.
REFERENCE DESK
The Reference desk and all nonfiction could be dedicated to the second floor. With clear signage and direction from an information/orientation (volunteer?), many more people are likely to give nonfiction a chance and venture beyond the first floor. The Rochester Public Library has an extraordinarily deep nonfiction collection that doesn’t get used I think as much as it would if people had orientation to the possibilities.
The shelves are too high, the books are heavy, and the lighting is virtually nonexistent. It is not a welcoming set of stacks to explore. If I were already wheelchair bound, I would not get much chance for “discovery” by serendipity — the best thing about library cataloging skills puts related books together so you can find something you didn’t know you needed.
Much better ambient lighting and more vertical oriented or diffusing light to clearly allow the call letters and titles (black on red for example) to be READ while growing the shelves would be an immeasurable improvement.
As someone with visual issues, the lack of light and LACK OF EXAMINATION BOOK TRAYS in the shelving is a considerable handicap. In case you haven’t seen the book tray concept, it is where they put a breadboard type pullout along the shelves with heavy reference books so that a user can pull it out to hold the book to examine it were they stand to see if it has what they need.
No more sitting on the floor or carrying it 20 or 30 feet away to a desk is required (not to mention the need for staff to resolve). No more standing their juggling purse, book bag, possible kid(s), and other material you have to carry with you.
A simple, common, sensible solution that seems to have gone the way of so much practical and useful features, like the BOOK ELEVATOR.
BOOK ELEVATORS
With circulation located adjacent to the book drive through for drop off and pick up, first of all NO ONE WOULD HAVE TO GET OUT OF THEIR CARS like they do have to do today with the existing drop off.
The circulation desk would be oriented like a bank branch, counter on the inside and drive through on the outside. No extra staff required. Reserve shelves would be right there for them to easily grab whatever is required. Dropped off books would immediately be placed in an automated return that would lead to a book elevator, sorted by what floor they need to be shelved on. Book elevators go both ways, so people pulling material from higher floors do NOT HAVE TO TRAVEL THEMSELVES with the book carts for reserves between floors. They simply pull the books and take them over to the book elevators and send them down for CIRCULATION to place in the reserve shelving area.
ILL
At a cost of $10 per book, if 5 out of 10 ILL reserves are not picked up per day, that costs the library budget $50.00 plus the time and labor of the staff pulling, documenting, and shelving the book etc. FOR NOTHING. Of course, other things could intervene other than lack of fast library access, but either find out why things are not picked up or assume that the most likely cause is ACCESSIBILITY due to parking and long walk and so much time.
Contrast to the 3 minutes it takes to get a full meal at a drive through. Surely we can make picking up books as easy as getting a hamburger!
ESCALATORS
Instead of having steps at all, install people moving escalators like Seattle Public Library does. This would allow people with disabilities who are only somewhat limited to ascend and descend without having to walk someplace different from other people to move up and down floors. They have the advantage of functionality like steps if power were to go out and the open access so that if the power goes out, you are not confined in a steel box.
Escalators could provide a nice overview of many library units that would be overlooked otherwise. For example, if a glass wall divided the kids area, then you could see where to go for that without asking for directions. Maybe with an audio visual studio you could see the equipment in use and it might encourage exploration.
Classic New York (and elsewhere) tradition is to have an escalator wide enough for two people. WALK ON LEFT, RIDE ON RIGHT is the rule of best escalator use. People who can and want to go faster can dash right up the left side treating the escalator like stairs. People with mobility issues can relax and save their exertion for finding books. Parents with kids don’t have to struggle to get them up stairs without falls and can easily hold hands or put the children in front of them.
Plus they are FUN. Seattles are illuminated by neon and it really is appealing.
PEOPLE MOVER STYLE ELEVATORS
These types of elevators, or the more heavy duty but standard type of elevators are fun to ride because YOU CAN SEE WHERE YOU ARE GOING. Again, like escalators, this helps orient the users to the space. The “people movers” are pneumatic tubes like banks use to reach outer placed drive up cars. They are common in Europe. They can be single person (Beam me up, Scotty!) or larger, wide enough to hold a wheelchair.
So much more pleasant then a ill-lit fluorescent tube and dark gray steel walls.
So much more could be included, cafe, more internet stations, a Project Runway styled sewing room with books related to dress and patternmaking and actual sewing machines for people to use.
More to come!
I Love Libraries 