Library Review: Carnegie Library (Glen Eira)
Carnegie Library, is a part of the Glen Eira Library Service and is located just meters from the Carnegie Station. Not one of the largest libraries that I’ve seen but certainly not the smallest, it has it’s pros and cons like many of the libraries that i have visited over the years. One of the first things that I spotted when I entered the library was their take on the ‘blind date with a book’. Instead of doing just one book wrapped up they had a bag for each genre.
To your right, are the self serve stations that have just recently been installed as well as the selection of new books. The library is on two levels with the adult fiction, movies and magazines on the top level. Down the bottom are the computers, coffee machine ($2 a cup and Chicken Soup is provided too!) and the non-fiction and biography. The biographies are cataloged and shelved, not by dewey but by the author (or the person about in some cases). Truth be told, I’m not all that sure about that as I’d prefer to go to say 940 for Europe and the War etc than find the author especially when I’m just browsing. The non-fiction is categorised by categories as well as the dewey but that is something it seems more and more libraries are doing these days.
Hidden behind one of the catalogs is one of my favourite things: The purple chair!
One of the other things that I thought was a nice touch was in children’s area where there was a parents room. The wall clearly labelled that breast feeding was allowed in this room. Next to it were child sized toilets too – something I find a lot of places lack!
As stated before there were some bad things about the library. One of the more annoying things in my opinion are the lack of efptos facilities, which is something that is across all of the Glen Eira libraries that I have visited. As someone who doesn’t carry cash this can be rather annoying. You also cannot borrow if you have a fine (though this seems to vary from librarian to librarian but I’ve encountered it a few times). Also supposedly you cannot renew an overdue item due to a glitch in the system. In these cases they can return and reloan it to you. All in all the loan/renew seems to be rather clunky and just not useful. I haven’t used the self loan system yet so we’ll see how that goes.I do like how they allow multiple renewals despite that. They also allow renewal reminders if you are contacted via email.
One of the more interesting things that they seem to do loan Kobo ereaders out to patrons as well as the ability to download ebooks on your own which many libraries are starting to do. As someone who isn’t big on ebooks I haven’t tried this out yet though.
I probably give it a 6/10 overall. It’s not bad but it could use some improvements. No library is perfect though.
