Franklinton Branch - Columbus Metropolitan Library

Deciding this morning to visit the Franklinton Branch of the Columbus Metropolitan Library (CML) gave me the perfect excuse to stop at Tommy’s Diner on W. Broad St. for a late breakfast. The first time I ate there was in early December when I visited the Hilltop Branch. Out of all the diners I’ve eaten at in five months exploring the areas libraries so far, Tommy’s is my favorite. It’s a classic, old school diner. and in several visits since since December I’ve especially enjoyed their “Big Breakfast,” their Franklinton Burger, and their peanut butter silk pie. Yummy!

The Franklinton Branch library is at the corner of Town St. & Dakota Ave., approximately 3 blocks west and two blocks south of Tommy’s. (The photo below is from a Google street view.)

After visiting several other CML branches, I felt the library design seemed a bit odd when I entered and found myself in a small area with a staircase and an elevator. The library itself is on the second floor. (Apparently, there’s a meeting room as well as a study room on the lower level, but I did not see them.) At the top of the stairs is an information display with shelves of books for sale. There are also restrooms and a glass doorway that leads to the library.

My immediate impression was that this library seemed rather small. And indeed, the librarian who welcomed me said she thought it was the smallest of the CML neighborhood branches. Small it may be, but the brightly lit computer area to the left was as busy or busier than any I’d seen in a library so far, with only one of the workstations not in use.

 

To the right just past the circulation desk there is a small teen area with table and chairs, some computers, and the shelves for teen fiction books.

Farther into the library and on the right is a large area for younger children. The stand in the center of the photo below displays pairs of books—a children’s picture book is paired with a nonfiction book on the same topic to provide further information when parents share the books with their children.

The books shelves in this area are nicely laid out to appeal to younger children.

On past the children’s book shelves and across the library are book shelves for adult fiction and nonfiction. I headed there to search for books to borrow.

The collection is small but fairly varied. After picking out a couple, I also looked on the teen fiction shelves, where I found the one below that I’d been searching for for several weeks.   Since I’ve been falling way behind on the pile of to-be-read books I’d checked out over the past several weeks, I decided to limit myself to just the one book this week. (It’s a good thing that the library system automatically renews my books no matter which library they come from.)

After I picked out the book, I discovered that all of the various cushioned chairs in the library were occupied. So I headed to an empty table in the homework help area to read for a while.

From there I could look back the length of the library toward the glass entry doors. And on a shelf in front of me I spotted an intriguing children’s picture book about Columbus artist Aminah Robinson. It turned out to be an amazing book designed to introduce children to the artist’s life and work—with gorgeous foldout illustrations and murals as well as ideas for crafts and other activities to engage children.

After I returned Aminah’s World to the shelf, I read for another hour or so. Then it was time to check out my book and leave this nice little branch library. I really enjoyed my visit. But I found myself wishing that the CML system could invest in something more than this to serve the Franklinton neighborhood. (In my December blog entry about the Hilltop Branch I noted that only 2 out of the 23 CML branches are located in the southwest quadrant of the city of Columbus—west of the Scioto River and south of I-70.)

Grandview Heights Public Library

Even though I blog mostly about libraries, people do seem to be following my restaurant adventures as well. As I have noted, I generally try to eat lunch somewhere relatively close to the library to get some feel for the neighborhood. And sometimes the restaurant leads to my choice of a library, as it did today. I’d thoroughly enjoyed a breakfast at the DK Diner in Grandview a couple of weeks ago, and today I really wanted to go back and try something from their lunch menu. So this week’s library is the Grandview Heights Public Library.  But first, and early lunch at the DK Diner.

It’s a rather unassuming place viewed from the street, and inside it’s a bit of a cross between a diner and a bar, since it offers a selection of craft beers. It also makes really good donuts. I had an excellent BLT with a side of home fries.

  

The Grandview Heights Public Library is on First Ave. in a building that was built with WPA funds in 1936 and has been extensively expanded and remodeled over the years. It can be entered from First Ave. to the north or from a parking lot to the south.

Both entrances open onto a long, bright atrium that cuts through the building, with tables and chairs and a circulation desk on the lower level and various stairs and ramps leading to the upper level. The north entrance (below left) is at a slightly higher level than the south entrance (below right). A poster near the north entrance announced an upcoming concert in this atrium space.

A bridge spans the atrium, connecting the upper floors of the east and west sides of the library. Signs on both sides of the bridge provide directions. Looking toward the north entrance from the bridge offers another view of the tables and chairs in the atrium.

I introduced myself to a number of the librarians over the course of my visit, and all were most welcoming. A couple of them especially noted the teen space on the lower level that they call “The Basement” for 7-12 graders. It frequently serves as an after school gathering space for students from a nearby middle school—often as many as 40-50 or more. I headed that way to check it out, but first I got distracted by the book sale racks (although I didn’t find anything to purchase).

“The Basement” is an open and inviting space that offers computers, a common study area with tables & chairs, shelves of books and other media, a number of comfortable chairs, a flat screen monitor, and lots and lots of room. Near the entrance is a sign that explicitly sets aside the customary library direction for quiet. One of the librarians told me it can indeed get pretty noisy when the kids gather after school.

Across the atrium from the teen space is a community meeting room (which I did not photograph due to a Red Cross blood drive in progress) as well as a very large Youth Services area devoted to younger children.

There are several large open areas with plenty of room for books, story time, and play time, with lots of natural light coming from windows to the east and large glass block windows to the atrium. Along with books and other media, various games are also available.

As I looked out the windows to the metal sculptures outside, I recalled there were also sculptures near the north entrance of the library.

From the children’s area, I proceeded to the library’s upper level to explore the areas devoted to computers, nonfiction, and periodicals on the west side of the atrium, and areas for fiction, audio books, movies, and music CDs to the east. First, I checked out the computer area.

Then I explored the several large rooms to the north for things like periodicals, music, comics and graphic novels, along with comfortable places to sit and read. I also came across a few quiet study rooms. I loved the spacious open feel of this part of the library.

The nonfiction section is to the south, with row upon row of shelves that reminded me of just how much I loved to wander deep in the library stacks during my many years as a grad student doing research surrounded by walls of floor to ceiling books

On the east side of the atrium bridge I found the media section with a large selection of recorded music, TV shows, and movies. But I did not expect to find that guitars could be checked out or reserved. That seems a little different for a library.

Having explored the rest of the library, I was ready to dive into the fiction stacks and search out some books to borrow. The selection was amazing, and I soon had an arm load of possibilities. Finally I settled on a couple of books from my Amazon wish list along with a graphic novel I’d picked off a shelf earlier.

With these in hand, it was time to go sit and read, so I headed back to the far north west corner of the library where I had spotted a cozy Quiet Reading Room with a fireplace (even though it wasn’t lit).

A comfy chair between two windows with a view toward the fireplace struck me as the perfect place to spend a couple of hours reading and enjoying the library on this vernal equinox afternoon.