Sycamore Plaza Library - Pickerington Public Library

 

[A note to those of you who get my new blog posts via email:  

Apparently this feature will stop in July of 2021, and I can't find a workable replacement.  You can still follow my posts by going directly to the website for this blog:  skipexplores.blogspot.com  I intend to continue making and reporting on library visits, although probably not weekly as I did for the first year and a half.] 

I visited the main Pickerington Public Library in October of 2019.  The Sycamore Plaza Library is a small (about 4200 square foot) branch library northeast of Pickerington in a shopping plaza on Refugee Rd. across from Pickerington North High School.  (The main library is across the road from Pickerington Central H.S.)  This small branch was opened Sept. 2, 2017, and it offers a full range of services to the community, including a Homework Help Center, meeting room space, wireless printing, and notary services, in addition to its collection of books, DVDs, and more, for all ages.

Like the Pickerington main library, this branch offers a bank of 24-hour pickup lockers out front for people who are unable to access the library during business hours.  Unfortunately these lockers were temporarily out of order today.

Two things caught my eye when I entered:  a June activity board and a display of prizes for the summer reading challenge.  The main activity today was dissecting owl pellets for 6-10 year olds.  The library website said the event was full, so I made sure to arrive afterwards to avoid any crowd.  However the librarian informed me that, while there were 10 children present, these events take place in a tent in the parking lot.  So my caution was unnecessary. 

When someone completes the summer reading challenge, they spin the colored wheel to determine a prize, and then they get to enter a ticket in a drawing for that prize.  Prizes range from gift certificates at places like Target and local restaurants, to admission to a trampoline park and King’s Island, to a Fire Truck Ride to School.  Behind the summer reading challenge display are the library’s nonfiction stacks as well as a copy/FAX machine and a computer printer.  Below the windows to the left is a collection of adult games that can be checked out, and through the windows is a meeting room and Homework Help area that is closed because of COVID.  A wall of windows separates the room from the adult fiction section of the library.

The circulation desk is just to the left upon entering the library.  From there I had a good view down the full length of the children’s section of the library (below left) and of the adult fiction section (below right).  A double wall of shelves separates the two areas, with children’s picture books on one side and adult fiction on the other.  I’m not sure if the tan and red things hanging from the ceiling of the children’s section are supposed to represent flying books or not.

At the far end of the children’s section are two low shelf units of books for toddlers and a tall display of new juvenile books.  The librarian did tell me they were disappointed not to be able to put out the library’s collection of stuffed animals and other playthings because of COVID.  She hoped they might be out by fall.

On the adult fiction side, a number of soft chairs line the window wall to the meeting room.  In the back of the room is a display of materials for Pride Month, and shelves of DVDs and CDs line a hallway to the unisex restrooms.

In the front corner of the library toward the plaza parking lot is a small teen area divided from the children’s area by a short wall.  Shelves holding a nice selection of teen books line the side wall and the short wall.  A tall table and one of the library computers are on t the children’s side of the short wall.

I had a lot of fun browsing through the children’s picture book shelves, and I found a couple of really funny “How to…” books that are part of a series.  I especially enjoyed How to Read to Grandma or Grandpa, since I’m looking forward to becoming a grandpa in a little more than 3 months.

After I finished reading the two children’s picture books, I spent some time exploring the adult fiction shelves.  The collection is relatively small but well organized by genre.  And I was really surprised to find more titles from my Amazon want list than I ever expected.  I ended up having to pick and choose out of eight possibilities to get my checkout selections down to three.  I’ve visited much larger libraries where I wasn’t able to do as well.  Selections in hand, I settled into one of the chairs to examine them further and to spend some time reading the book I brought with me—Arnaldur Indridason’s Icelandic mystery/thriller, The Shadow District.

My selections to borrow today:  the sixth book in Seanna McGuire’s Hugo and Nebula award-winning Wayward Children fantasy series, Across the Green Grass Fields; the sequel to Ernest Kline’s science fiction classic, Ready Player One, Ready Player Two; Tana French’s latest mystery/thriller, The Searcher; and a nonfiction book I couldn’t resist adding to my three fiction choices, The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., a companion volume to Gates’ 4-part PBS documentary.

After leaving the library I drove a few miles to a Culver’s for lunch.  After a library visit, I usually try to eat at a local non-chain restaurant, however I’m still avoiding eating inside at a restaurant because of COVID. But Culver’s is hands down my all-time favorite fast food restaurant, and it’s been over a year and a half since I enjoyed their pork loin sandwich and a frozen custard “concrete mixer” (look it up).  And at 71 degrees, I could enjoy eating takeout at one of their outside tables.  So that’s what I did to top off my 65th library visit.

Gahanna Branch - Columbus Metropolitan Library

[A note to those of you who get my new blog posts via email:  

Apparently this feature will stop in July of 2021, and I can't find a workable replacement.  You can still follow my posts by going directly to the website for this blog:  skipexplores.blogspot.com  I intend to continue making and reporting on library visits, although probably not weekly as I did for the first year and a half.]  

Yaaayyy!  I’m back!  It has been way too long!

The last time I was in a library was over 15 months ago on Friday, March 13, just before everything shut down for COVID.  Knowing what was coming, I went to the Upper Arlington Library to stock up on books and DVDs.  My last library visit for this blog was two days earlier on March 11, when I visited the Main Fairfield County Library in Lancaster, OH.  At that point I had only 7 libraries left to go to complete my initial retirement goal of visiting all 50+ public library branches in the Columbus (OH) metro area Central Library Consortium.

So, a couple of weeks ago I spotted in a news article that the Gahanna Branch of the Columbus Libraries (which was built in 1991) was going to close for the construction of a new branch nearly twice the size.  I love how Columbus keeps investing in its libraries, and I thought, “What a perfect opportunity to restart my library visits!”  I would visit the branch this week before it closed, and then later this summer I could also visit the temporary branch and then in sometime in 2022 the new library.

The first thing I saw upon entering the Gahanna Branch was a poster announcing the closure on June 19 and the opening of the new temporary location on June 28.  I was warmly greeted by several of the librarians, and we chatted for a while about the closure, the changes in new building, and about my library visits.  I then set off to begin exploring the library.  Right away it was easy to see that both the moving process and COVID safety protocols were affecting normal operations.  (Note the face masks, hand sanitizers, and the announcement for free COVID-19 at-home test kits on the table.  Almost everyone in the library was wearing a mask, me included.)

As I’ve often done in the past, I went first to the children’s section, which is off to the right from the entrance and through the archway in the picture.  There's a nice display of "summer reading challenge" books just inside the entryway, and the barrel ceiling above is painted with a wonderful mural of planets.

The children’s area is large and brightly lit, with large windows in two corners.  There are shelves of books for older children along the end wall and shelves of children's picture books fill the center of the room.  Numerous computer stations line a glass dividing wall, however all were turned toward the wall (whether because of the upcoming move or COVID protocols).  I did my usual browsing to find a children’s picture book to read and came across a wonderful alphabet book that was new to me:  Keith Baker’s LMNO Peas, in which humble green peas romp through an occupation-based alphabet.

The library’s large Homework Help area was next.  With school out for the summer, this area was being put to good use with space for boxes, crates, and carts galore to prepare for the big move over the next two weeks.

The reserve shelves still contain a large number of books and other items.  I hope people come to get them soon or else they'll have to wait two weeks to get them from the new temporary location.

Just past the library main desk is a display of books and other media items for PRIDE Celebration Month.

What joy it was to be able to browse through the stacks of a library once again after 15 months of stay-at-home social distancing!  I checked out book shelves for new arrivals, nonfiction, and fiction.  I’d already picked out a book from the juvenile section, so I also made sure to browse the teen area where there were lots of possible choices.  All in all I ended up with 4 books to checkout.

Only a few of the computer stations in the library were in use.  Many were taped off as temporarily closed, presumably because of COVID safety protocols.  Others were specifically marked as clean and safe to use.  Note the mostly empty racks for magazines and newspapers—again presumably caused by COVID protocols and/or the upcoming move.

At this north end of the library, there is a large Quiet Study room, and there’s a large Meeting Room at the south end of the building where the children's area is.  I could look into both, but both are blocked off from use because of COVID.  The librarians told me that one of the things the new library will offers is more space for multiple study and meeting rooms.

At the north end of the library is a wonderful wall of windows as well as a number of quite striking light fixtures that reminded me of the style of Frank Lloyd Wright.

Normally I would scope out a few comfortable reading spots with soft chairs and pick one to settle in to read for an hour or so.  One of the librarians had warned me, however, that they only had one such chair, and I spotted the sign above it as I walked by browsing for books—“CLEAN  In use until:”  Unfortunately, the chair was in use as I finished selecting my books, so I ended up at the small table in the foreground of the right-hand photo below.  It was not especially comfortable, but I enjoyed the time reading in this library soon to be no more.

To one side of the library entrance doors near the book return slots there's a Goodbye Wall with many remembrances posted by library patrons and staff.  I took closeup photos of a few.

I hope people will build and cherish similar good memories of the new two-story, much larger library building coming in 2022 at this same location.  The picture below is an architect’s rendering of the new building from the newspaper article.

I really enjoyed this my first library visit in 15 moths.  My four book finds this time were:  Wishtree by Katherine Applegate (from the juvenile section), Trickster (a graphic anthology of 10 Native American trickster tales I found in the teen section), and two adult mystery novels: Louise Penny’s The Beautiful Mystery and Arnaldur Indridason’s Shadow District.

I’ve always tried to combine each library visit with a meal at a local, non-chain restaurant, but I wasn’t sure I was ready to eat out in a restaurant at this time because of COVID.  For the entire 15 months of staying at home, my wife and I pretty much limited ourselves to occasional takeout from a few favorite places.  When I mentioned this to the librarians and added that I might be ready to eat at an uncrowded outdoor patio, they suggested the patio at the Gahanna Grill just up the street.  Well, it was excellent, and for nearly all of my lunch time there were only two or three of us total on the patio.  Below is my first bacon cheeseburger from a restaurant and my first order of french fries in 15 months.  (I’ll need to watch out, because after 15 moths without restaurant cheese burgers, fries, donuts, pizzas (except for a couple of takeouts), premium ice cream, and diner breakfasts, I lost more than 30 pounds.)

It's so incredibly good to be back in a library again!