Phoenixville Revisited!

Two years ago I blogged on the public library in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, the first library I ever worked at (2004-05). This year I made a return visit and met up with some former colleagues. Despite budget cuts, they seem to be busier than ever (pretty much the same story everywhere!). Here are some pix I snapped during my visit.

Don't you just love these houses that Carnegie built?
Well, he didn't build them but his money did!

Entrance to the "new" addition to the original Carnegie building.

Choose your route...upstairs to the adult library or down the stairs to the children's area.

The stacks in the old part of the building.

I think I know this woman!

A few of the library's workstations with the bulk of the DVD collection in the background.

Yours truly with the man that started it all, Phoenixville Library Director John Kelley.

Stadtbibliothek Unterschleißheim

I've always been a heavy library user, and it was no different when I was living and studying in Germany. This month's post is a library I had stopped by during a trip I took in 2000. This was of course 10 years ago, so I don't remember all the details, but I do recall checking out a few CDs using a relative's card. Their music collection was quite impressive for a library this size, although it does claim to be one of the largest public libraries around Munich.




You can find their website here. Back in 2000, I
remember it being a free service, but I see on their website that there is an annual fee of 15 euros, which is approximately 30 dollars. I have no idea when this went into effect, but perhaps there is no library tax imposed on its citizens?

Elting Memorial Library

This past summer I was visiting a friend in upstate New York when I came across this library in the heart of New Paltz. I used to spend summers in my early childhood in this area and haven't been back in nearly 20 years. The Elting Memorial Library is part of the Mid-Hudson Library System which consists of 66 libraries in 5 counties. The library was founded in 1909 and the building itself is on the State and National Historic Registers.

I try to remain incognito when visiting libraries, but I forgot what shirt I had put on in the morning. When walking past the circulation desk, the library worker said very loudly, "Oh my God, look at his shirt! I want that!" It was last year's "Express Yourself @ Your Library" summer reading tee. My cover was blown and I had to reveal myself as a librarian!
Yes! As much as I hated using a card catalog as a kid, one cannot deny the nostalgia surrounding these monstrosities. Back then, libraries were much quieter, civilized places!

Bibliotheek in Philipsburg

In my opinion, St. Maarten is one of the most interesting stops in the entire Caribbean. Half Dutch, half French, I had the opportunity to stop by the Philipsburg Jubilee Library located on the Dutch side a couple of weeks ago. Originally founded in 1923, the current building occupied by the library opened in 1984 and on its 75th anniversary in 1997, the library became fully automated.

From what I saw, this was definitely one of the better efforts in the Caribbean region, which so often neglects its public libraries and has little to offer in the way of materials and reference services. The staff was very accommodating and their collection not only included a decently sized section on the local history of the Netherlands Antilles, but also AV materials, a rarity in these parts. They even had a bookmobile!