Comments on: Library palaces vs. a child-friendly neighborhood approach http://www.teleread.com/ebooks/library-palaces-vs-a-child-friendly-neighborhood-approach/ News & views on e-books, libraries, publishing and related topics Wed, 15 Feb 2012 08:05:45 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Mike Perry http://www.teleread.com/ebooks/library-palaces-vs-a-child-friendly-neighborhood-approach/comment-page-1/#comment-994779 Mike Perry Tue, 30 Dec 2008 21:59:22 +0000 http://www.teleread.org/blog/?p=1516#comment-994779 Interesting points. Seattle built itself a similar 'library palace' at enormous expense. It's now on the 'must see' list for tourists, but it's easy to suspect that the money might have been better spent elsewhere. For most Seattle residents, the trip downtown and the parking is too much hassle. And interestingly, I asked one of the librarians there why the rest rooms there were painted such a horrid green that they left me feeling like I was in a bottle of mint mouthwash. She said that was deliberate as a way to keep people from loitering in them. There's another point that needs consideration. In Seattle libraries, the hold section for books and DVDs brought in from other branches keeps growing as people discover how easy it is to go online and request precisely the book they want rather than look for something at random on the shelves. Large cities might be better served by warehousing much of their collection somewhere the cost is cheap and distributing most books from there. Neighborhood libraries seem to be becoming places to read or pick up books, not places to find them. They could hire high school and college students (perhaps on skates) to pull and replace the books. Then most books would go from one location to many rather than the current and inefficient many to many. Interesting points. Seattle built itself a similar ‘library palace’ at enormous expense. It’s now on the ‘must see’ list for tourists, but it’s easy to suspect that the money might have been better spent elsewhere. For most Seattle residents, the trip downtown and the parking is too much hassle. And interestingly, I asked one of the librarians there why the rest rooms there were painted such a horrid green that they left me feeling like I was in a bottle of mint mouthwash. She said that was deliberate as a way to keep people from loitering in them.

There’s another point that needs consideration. In Seattle libraries, the hold section for books and DVDs brought in from other branches keeps growing as people discover how easy it is to go online and request precisely the book they want rather than look for something at random on the shelves. Large cities might be better served by warehousing much of their collection somewhere the cost is cheap and distributing most books from there. Neighborhood libraries seem to be becoming places to read or pick up books, not places to find them. They could hire high school and college students (perhaps on skates) to pull and replace the books. Then most books would go from one location to many rather than the current and inefficient many to many.

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