As soon as I looked up the hours of operation for the Marion-Franklin Branch Library, I realized there was something different here. This branch is open just 40 hours per week—noon until 7 pm Monday-Thursday, and noon until 6 pm Friday & Saturday. So I waited until noon to drive down to the south side of Columbus to get lunch at a funky little diner on Lockbourne Rd. that I have enjoyed a couple of times in the past—the Golden Donuts & Diner.
This small place has a sign inside that indicates it used to be a Jolly Roger Donuts, and the donut counter is front and center just inside the door. There is seating to both sides of the donut display, and a counter with stools extends toward Lockbourne with small booths against the windows. This place has just about the lowest prices I’ve found in a local diner, and I was tempted by a couple of the daily specials posted on the white board above the opening to the kitchen. But I ended up ordering and really enjoying the double cheese burger with bacon. Rather surprisingly, the diner’s music system was playing a selection of Frank Sinatra standards with occasional songs by people like Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughn.
The library is also on Lockbourne Rd. about a mile south of the diner. It’s in a portion of a larger building that is identified as the Marion-Franklin Community Opportunity Center. I later learned that this building was formerly the Beery Middle School, and the library is in the 4000 square foot space that had been occupied by the school’s media center. It was established as a CML branch in September of 2014 with limited hours as a pilot opportunity to gauge customer usage, and its hours were expanded in 2016 from the initial 29 hours per week to the current schedule. The library backs up to the property of the Marion-Franklin High School.
I didn’t know any of this history when I arrived at the library branch. When I entered and introduced myself to the librarian at the circulation desk, she referred to the library as an “express branch.” [I'd read about a similar "express branch" in Lakeland, FL, when I was visiting there last month.] I could see almost at a glance that this large room offered many of the same services as the larger CML branches, including computers, wireless internet, a Homework Help Center, and Reading Readiness Programs. But the book selection would be somewhat limited with book shelves mostly along only parts of some of the walls.
To the right from the entrance are shelves of books for older elementary students and teens and the computers for automated check out. Proceeding counter clockwise around the room, there is an area for computer stations and then the Homework Help Center.
Continuing counter clockwise around the room, there are shelves for adult fiction and nonfiction, a bookcase for graphic novels, and low shelves for displaying new books.
Completing the circle back to the entrance, there is an area for younger children with age-appropriate computer stations.
The overall room is very open with various book displays and study tables with chairs arranged throughout the space.
Given the limited book selection, I wasn’t expecting to find much from my Amazon wish list, and indeed, I found just one, Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus. But I did pick up another of the How to Be a Supervillain books for young readers by Michael Fry, a book from the New Books shelf by Stan Lee of Marvel Comics fame, and a photo collection of Abandoned Ohio: Ghost Towns, Cemeteries, Schools, and More off one of the book displays.
With books checked out, I settled in to read in one of the comfortable chairs located at the far side of the library straight in from entrance. The blocked off glass doors there provided especially good light for reading. It was a fine way to spend part of a summer afternoon.
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