I visited the brand new Karl Road Branch Library on Sept. 13, but this visit was like none of my other library visits. This time I was accompanied by Dennis Biviano of the Spectrum One News Channel to do a story on my retirement project visiting libraries. He was with me for about an hour and a half interviewing me and taking video. The story and video he produced can be found HERE. He found out about my project when the Columbus Metropolitan Library (CML) posted on their Facebook a photo of me following my revisit to the South High Branch (see blogpost).
This new branch library had been dedicated just 4 days earlier on Sept. 9, replacing the building I visited in August of 2019 (photo below and see blogpost).
This new building replaces the old branch which was built in 1988 and located much farther back from the Karl Road. That part of the site is now a large parking lot, while the new branch stands out when seen from the street. At 40,000 square feet, the new branch is twice as large as the old. As with the other CML new libraries, there are lots of large widows to visibly connect the library with the surrounding community. People driving by can see the actual inside and be tempted to stop in. Dennis Biviano met me in the parking lot, and he accompanied me as I took some photos of the building as we walked from the parking lot to the street.
Then we entered into a large open-air atrium just inside the front door that is filled with natural light. Shelves for reserved material line one wall, and there are displays for new books in the center and along the other wall. A glass wall under the orange band of light sets off the children’s area of the library.
Before setting off to explore the library, Dennis and I sat down in the Homework Help Center, which was unoccupied at the time, so he could interview me. The room is immediately to the left upon entering the library, and is well equipped with tables, chairs, and computers, and college banners hang from a wall as in other CML Homework Help Centers.
After the interview, we proceeded to the entrance to the Children’s Area. Dennis and I were both attracted to the smaller children’s entrance way and made sure to get shots of it and the fish tank. Looking back from here, we had a view of the circulation desk and library entrance, and to the right there’s a large reading/study area with meeting rooms off to one side—I’ll get back to this area later.
The Children’s Area is a wonderful wide open space filled with natural light and bookshelves upon bookshelves for kids from toddlers to 5th & 6th grade.
The Ready for Kindergarten space with its play school bus has a prominent place. And there’s a large reserved area for story time in one corner.
There are plenty of tables for kids as well as computer stations for different ages.
I always check out a few of the children’s picture books on display, because I love the creativity in them and have something of a collection of my own. But my wife and I were looking forward being—and as I write this are—new grandparents, I have an even more important reason. I especially loved finding a new Mo Willems book I didn’t know about, Time to Sleep, SHEEP the SHEEP, that might come in handy with a new baby. And Little Dandelion Seeds the World by Julia Richardson taught me somethings I didn’t know—namely that each dandelion seed is a perfect clone of the parent and that while dandelions are originally from Europe, they now bloom on all seven continents, even chilly Antarctica where they bloom on the shoreline of South Georgia Island.
Having checked out the Children’s Area, Denis and I headed up the stairs to the second floor, and the first thing we stopped to see and photograph was the huge, colorful quilt.
The views from the top of the stairs are really quite stunning—back down to the circulation desk and library entrance and to several study rooms and a conference room on this level.
The nonfiction stacks and a brightly lit seating area are to the right.
And to the left are the computer stations for library patrons as well as yet another seating area.
Straight ahead from the top of the stairs as a very large dedicated Teen Space as well as a Learning Lab. Both have glass walls as well as a wall of windows looking out on Karl Rd. to the west. The Teen Space is particularly inviting, with blue and green decor and plenty of comfortable seats, a half dozen computers loaded with games, and a good selection of books and digital media for teens and young adults. The Learning Lab has ten computers for offering a wide range of classes.
The adult collection of books, periodicals, and digital media is also upstairs along with conference rooms, numerous small study rooms, and a quiet room. The nonfiction and reference books are to the south, and the digital media and fiction section is to the north, with a wall of windows facing north.
Several study rooms are to the left, and the quiet room is to the right. There’s comfortable seating along the wall of windows. There’s an elevator in this section of the library along with a pair of restrooms. A second elevator is near the library entrance, with a pair of restrooms on the ground floor.
Besides the very large quilt at the top pf the stairs, there are lots of various art works throughout the library—of which a few are shown below.
Downstairs there is a large reading/study area with a variety of chairs and tables. To one side are doors to the Homework Help Room and to the other doors and openings to a very large meeting room that can be split into three different meeting rooms (along with a small kitchen).
In the course of exploring the library I picked out two books to take home—one to borrow and one to purchase. (My kids used to laugh about how I’d take them to the library, but where they’d check out armloads of books, I’d go home with books I’d bought at the Friends of the Library sale. I borrowed a 5th/6th-grade fantasy, Shivaun Plozza’s The Boy, the Wolf, and the Stars. I bought Bill Schelly’s biography, Harvey Kurtzman: The Man Who Created Mad and Revolutionized Humor in America. (I loved reading "Mad Magazine" in high school, college, and grad school.)
As Dennis and I walked through the library, I picked out my spot for sitting and reading for 45 minutes or so before leaving the library: a comfortable chair on the second floor with a view to one side looking SW toward Karl Rd. and a view looking down into the entry atrium to the other.
All in all I was at the library about 2.5 hours, so it was time to find somewhere for lunch. I’m still not eating inside restaurants during the pandemic, so I ended up getting a takeout Italian sub sandwich from a nearby Massey’s Pizza on Dublin-Granville Rd. I took everything to the nearby Walden Park and enjoyed some more reading in a shady spot. A fine ending to an enjoyable visit to Columbus' newest library (for about the next 17 days—as the new Hilltop Branch will open Sept. 30).
