Temple Public Library

This library is located about 15 minutes from my home. We go once every few months now but when my kids were smaller, we would go every Wednesday for story time. Over the last two years, they have been doing some major reconstruction downstairs in the children's area. Our last visit was in March and they were still working. It was a nice surprise to go today and see everything finished. I LOVE it!! It has really changed and for the better, waaaayyyyy better! During the summer, they have a summer reading program. On Thursdays each week, they have a performer come to encourage summer attendance in the library. So, we got there just in time to see the magician do his stuff. He was quite amusing, he tricks were average, but he really did a great job promoting the library and reading.

There were probably 150-200 kids there and hopefully each one of them went down and checked out some books - I know we waited in the check-out line for a good 10 minutes and we were waited quite a while looking for books before we even entered the line! After the magician finished his act, we headed downstairs to check out some books and look around at the newly renovated children's library. It was beautiful! When you walk in, the circulation desk is immediately on your right. On your left is the periodical rack where about 120 subscriptions sat. These subscriptions were for all ages, not just children.

Continue walking forwards just a bit - on your left was a leisure area for anyone. There were many comfy looking chairs, a coffee pot, a sink, two bathrooms, and outside access with tables and chairs out there, too. This is brand new and a great addition to the library!!

Next to the leisure area a little further into the library, there is a teen/YA area. There were several shelves of books, ten computers that kids could access the internet from, two computer for looking books up in the catalog, and a few comfy chairs. While I think this is a great idea, to give the teens as space of their own, I am wondering which books get placed in this section vs. the fiction section. My son wanted to check out The Lightning Thief, but we weren't sure if we should look in the fiction section or in the Teen/YA section. Turns out that it had already been checked out, but we did find The Last Olympian, also by Rick Riordin, in the teen section. I wonder if another copy would have been found in the fiction section. We found multiple copies of Treasure Island in the fiction section and I would consider that to be a YA book. That would be a good question for the librarian (whom I didn't get a chance to talk to considering the amount of people present today). Outside of the teen section was a long row of children's computer to access the internet. On all computers, there is a one hour time limit in which you need to sign up for at the children's reference desk, which is in the center of the downstairs.



Behind the reference desk was the easy fiction area where all of the picture books are located. There is also the AV section where there were multiple videos and audiobooks.



The rest of the downstairs was devoted to another leisure section, the shelves of fiction and non-fiction books.
Upstairs there are more computers for both research and online catalogs, fiction, non-fiction and reference materials for adults. I have spent quite a few hours in the reference department of this library for a few other classes. I didn't go upstairs today but for just a brief moment to see if any renovations had been made. There was nothing new up there, but there are several leisure areas in the midst of all those books! I think this public library is the perfect size. It seem large to me - about 6 times the size of my local library and yet I don't get lost! :)