I took my family on a surprise trip to Seattle for my husband's birthday this spring. Our main purpose was to see our beloved Oakland A's play the Mariners, but there was plenty of time for some other tourism, too. When I looked through some guidebooks, I was very excited to see "check out the new [ca. 2004] Central Library." So, when we found ourselves along the waterfront near Pike Place Market and my patient husband said, "Well, is there anything you'd like to see?," I knew exactly what I wanted to see, and it was only five or six blocks away!
I didn't count on it being five or six blocks up what felt like a 45-degree incline, with a clunky old stroller... but we got there eventually.
Wow. Yeah, that sure does strike me as "new," all right.
And HUGE. Tremendously big. It takes up a full city block and has eleven floors (eight of which are fully public). The soaring, cantilevered architecture helps the building feel less monolithic, but all the same, the place is biiiiig. Our entire house could easily have fit into the children's section. I think it probably could have fit into the open play area of the children's section!
Speaking of which, that's where we headed first.
Here's my son (and me) checking out some of the offerings for the diapered set. I really dug the Central Library's use of color; directional signs told us to "use the chartreuse elevators to get to the top floor," and everything denoting the children's section was pink, right down to the floor in the entire area. Entrance floor, stacks floor, activity floor: pink pink pink. Easy for a kid to stay in bounds, which I appreciate, having been a champion library-wander-off-er in my youth.
(Hmm, I just read more here, and it looks like I made an error about the everywhere-pink: "There also are two areas with bright yellow and bright pink rubberized flooring and those colors continue up the walls. The approximately 900-square-foot brightly colored areas create special places for children to stop and read. The pink area is designed to be attractive to toddlers, and the yellow for children ages 5 and up." Well, my mistake, and I like their actual plan even better than the one I thought I remembered.)
Also, super friendly and accessible! We wandered in, plunked down with the little-kid toys, and were very quickly greeted by a kind librarian who wanted to know if this was our first time here, were we enjoying it so far, could she help us find materials or interest us in some upcoming children's programs. I always get kind of bummed telling enthusiastic librarians that I am not a local, but at least it never seems to faze them.
After the kiddo had gotten his fill of wooden beads on tracks, we took the signs' advice, rode the chartreuse elevators to the top, and enjoyed the view.
Perhaps this is because I am still kind of a huge-urban-library neophyte, but I had a great time admiring how much of this space was purely architectural, allowing itself to be empty space instead of crammed full of "utilizable features" or whatever.
And I am a total sucker for any window high up enough to have a view of a rooftop green space. Awesome.
Then, after looking down over the stacks, we started our descent into them--and here is where I really started to hop up and down and mutter (quietly; my husband had to keep reminding me, "Hon, it is a library"): "This is SOOOOO COOOOOL." The top four public floors are essentially a square spiral, so you can walk through four continuous floors of stacks! It's kind of like the Guggenheim Museum in New York, except that instead of a hollow center, you walk around and around a core full of BOOKSHELVES. I mean, come on.
I am not sure if I'm explaining this very well, and I know my at-close-range photos don't help, so here is an architectural overview that is probably more helpful in visualizing how it works. The spiral section is the gold "Collections" section. (Be still, my beating heart: for this section, the diagram specifically notes "Bookshelves won't be packed to capacity, so the collection can grow substantially.")
I am always hesitant about study tables situated directly at windows--so much stimulation; how can anyone possibly get any research done?--but I enjoyed this setup because it allows folks to make use of natural reading light, and reserves the interior for the main event: the stacks.
The stacks, the stacks, the stacks. We were moving fairly quickly because we didn't have a ton of time and there was SO MUCH to take in, but I had to stop and take a picture of this aisle to establish a sense of the staggering resources available at this place.
This ENTIRE AISLE was exclusively acting editions of plays. Not "general drama," like you'd find at a small library. Not even "plays, mostly collections and other bound editions with maybe a smattering of acting editions" like at most larger libraries. No. JUST acting editions. I have never seen anything like this in my life. My nerdometer needle swung all the way over to eleven.
Dewey Decimal markings on the floor! And you can kind of get a sense of the gradual downward slope. Plus, there's my husband at the very end, observing our son, who was getting up close and personal with the cool windows.
There was a lot more to see that I just didn't get a chance to appreciate fully: the vast, busy, yet somehow comfortable and casual computing area... the amazing digitized display showing what kinds of materials library patrons were checking out across the entire Seattle system... fiction and teen sections that look to be generously large on the maps... the gigantic and kind of posh auditorium... The list goes on.
But we did get to see quite a lot, and everything we saw was an absolute treat.
