| rev:text
| - That hint of re-trendy mid-mod design in the edifice is a refreshing departure from the buildings at Spring Valley or Enterprise, the two closest branches until we here in the southwest were lucky enough to finally get a library branch of our own.
Parking is ample, the roundabout dropbox access and passenger dropoff is especially well designed, and until you walk inside, you're going to be hopping in anticipation over what appears to be an enormous, two-story library. Expectations raised!
Don't do that, or you'll come down with a case of the coulda-shouldas right quick.
Everything from the middle of the building to the right? Offices and facilities that the general public doesn't care about. (I should have paid more attention to the "Service Center" part of the title and not gotten my hopes up.)
And that second floor is just the high ceilings of the first. Sorry.
But don't get me wrong; this could be a bookmobile and I'd still be grateful. (Pausing to think of how bookmobiles and food trucks need to collaborate on some next-level hotness.)
The Windmill Library has the cool return system and the now-ubiquitous improved self-checkout. The space - the very, very rectangular space - is technology friendly. And the one employee I've talked to was helpful and friendly.
(Said employee was also more than a little anti-Kindle, which was unfortunate since the library system at the time was promoting its new availability on Kindles. As an e-reader owner, I kind of wanted to say, "And this is just another reason why I let my library card lapse for two years, something that never happened before in my life." I know people get very partisan over how they read books electronically, but really every e-reader has its strengths, and every consumer has their preferences. This employee also claimed that taxpayers aren't the library's main source of income, so I think it's just a case of maybe don't engage certain staff members in any discussion beyond the immediate task at hand.)
I've examined mostly only the adult fiction and non-fiction on my visits, which I realize is just one slice of the 21st century library experience. I have to say, and I hate to say, that the book selection for adults seems comparatively poor. Oh, the greatest hits are all there, but you could tell me we just stepped through a time portal to 1995 and I'd believe you.
I'm sure that's just my perception, though. (Maybe.) Perhaps the library staff could find ways to better showcase themes and new books in the non-kiddo areas... like how it's done in bookstores. I do like the book display around the corner from where you enter the actual library (past the giant hallway), but that display is easy to miss in the current layout.
The aforementioned employee said that there wasn't enough money to complete the library with the economic downturns, but it would've cost even more to restore the BLM land, so they had to go ahead and finish it. Assuming this is all true, maybe the library had to cut corners somewhere and therefore really does suffer from a selection problem for people who've been visiting libraries for 40 years. With more funds, perhaps this will be solved in time. Or perhaps, per a recent article on the LVCC library district, I shouldn't expect them to be budgeting for more books when apparently it's the DVD collection of mainstream movies that keeps people walking in.
Anyway. As a fan of libraries in general and of the Las Vegas-Clark County system in particular, this is a nice branch. It's airy and light, and you can always get books from another library sent over through the online request system if you have something specific in mind. It's a start. It lacks a sense of identity or a sense of coziness or a sense of being the gateway to hours lost in new discoveries, but it's a start.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)