The new Seattle "Library"

[icarus]

wildernessguru and I visited the new multi-million-dollar Seattle Library.

Inside, it had that warehouse feel and bright colours of an IKEA store. There were high windows, letting lots of light. I would call that the only plus. The only entrance I saw was a revolving glass door.

The different sections of the library were named after various donors, so you had to ask the front desk where, say, periodicals section was. "Oh, that's the Mrs. Wealthy Widow room, next to Bill Gates hall..."

There were computers everywhere and hardly any books in sight. The bookshelves in the main atrium (which felt like a hotel lobby) were waist-high display cases. Many of the Seattle Public Library books have to be warehoused off-site because the new "library" doesn't have space.

Going up the bright florescent yellow escalator, there was a plexi-glassed hole in the wall with some TV screens showing a close-up of wrinkled lips moving, with an overly loud voice-over, and a close-up an eye opening -- giving this bizarre Big Brother feel.

After being thoroughly creeped out, we emerged onto the next level. The floor was made of a kind of uneven, loud metal plate. This section was dark, with eerie red overhead track lighting. Again, there were no books in sight, just computers. It had the effect of a slightly unpleasant internet cafe, designed to make sure people don't get too comfortable.

And that's when I saw it. The railing overlooking the "hotel lobby." Only four feet "flip-over" high, this flimsy metal was the only thing between you and a splattered watermelon head on the floor below.

Your only route to the upper floors? A glass elevator, not fully enclosed, with a similar railing.

That was enough for me. It was my first, and likely last visit to our new multi-million dollar "library." I will be visiting the smaller branch libraries instead now, and (since they'll have to order the books from off-site anyway) order books from there. I hate it that they destroyed our library, in which I spent many hours, for this. Who are they kidding?

Today's Seattle Times has a detailed article about how inaccessible this library is to the disabled.

Uhm-hmm.

Comments

[mark356.livejournal.com]

Wah! Money to libraries is generally a very good thing, I love it when libraries get large sums of money, and I wish that every library in the world had unlimited money, so it's excruciating to read about this library that got all the money it wanted and turned from a pleasant, functional library into that monstrosity! It's a travesty!

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I knew we were doomed to something amazingly impractical when they said "Seattle's a world-class city, and deserves a world-class library." Glk. Every project here headed with "world-class" has been an over-sized behemoth in competition with New York and Chicago -- yet Seattle is not really urban, so these urbanizations are out of place (see the convention center). Yet this is much worse than I imagined. I'd figure it would at least be safe and contain books.

I miss the Library of Congress...

Icarus