The Central Library isn’t really a library. The noisy, stinky food smells reminds me of a greasy spoon. I need to concentrate when I’m at the ‘library’, and the loud crunching of salads doesn’t help. Coffee is fine, but there is just too much food. What would happen if the library locked down the computers and nobody could play video games, or spend the day watching Youtube videos. We, the taxpayers, put $60 million into that drop in center. Why didn’t they just make the old library into a hang out? And the empty middle of the building!!! I can hear kids screaming on the first floor. It’s a drop in center. It may be a world class design, but the world can use it as an example of how not to build a library….. —Reading is not dead
This article appears in Mar 31 – Apr 6, 2016.
So kids can’t be kids? Get over it. Go home and read in quiet then. The new library is built for everyone. You don’t like don’t go. Do not expect people to cater to your need of quiet. As long as adults and kids do not destroy anything its all fair.
World Class design? It looks like someone spilled Miracle Grow on a Rubix Cube.
We covered this in “Eating at the Library with slurping noodles” – http://www.thecoast.ca/LovetheWayWeBitch/a…
There we determined it was not a library but a public space serving food, a “grosseteria” if you will.
Just turn down your hearing aid, Gramps!
There must be about 8 other branches that aren’t Central. Perhaps one is acceptable. It’s all about having options.
There are thirteen other branches. Pick one.
Is not a library supposed to be a place where people can go and read in peace? I don’t think a bunch of screaming kids playing indoors in a library qualifies as a library. It’s a drop in center with a bunch of books in it.
Remember when people used to SHHHHHHHHHH when people spoke too loud in a library? Now they can come in with their brood and let them run wild and loud all over the place.If told to quiet down most get indignant and start accusing people of being anti-children, racist, or whatever else suits them to spew out. It’s a I’ll do whatever the hell I please wherever the hell I want world now everyone, do you not see it?
The primary function of a library was (and still is) to make books available for borrowing – i.e. to take home and read. Seating was traditionally made available as a nicety for people to sit and browse periodicals and reference materials. I don’t think it was ever intended as a place to go and park yourself for hours to read a novel and expect abject silence.
The new library is doing the right thing in making it welcoming to as many people as possible – especially children. As far as I am concerned, anything that encourages children to become regular visitors to the library and to read more is a good thing.
I wonder if the kids on the first floor can hear your pitiful whining too?
By the sound of the bitch these children are doing everything but reading.
It would have been so easy to just close the central opening on the fourth floor and create a quiet space.