Happy Friday! It has been pretty empty at the library at work this week because the students are out on spring break. Since it was completely empty when I opened the library this morning (I officially open the place at 7:45 Monday through Friday though students have after hours access with their student ids), I thought I’d take some photos to share.
The library has four floors with the main entrance on the second floor. All but the second floor are quiet floors. And, since it is a law library, almost all our books are in the K call numbers of the Library of Congress:
We have lots of places for students to study including group rooms where they can talk with the door closed and the traditional study carrel:
On the lower level we have compact shelving. I love turning the wheels. I sometimes imagine I am opening a bank vault or steering a ship on the high seas:
The library is only eight years old and has lots of empty shelves. This does not mean we lack resources. We have more digital resources than paper ones at the moment:
This is my favorite floor of the library. We call it the Reading Room. Doesn’t it just scream law library?
When I first started working there I thought the uniformity of legal books was so ugly. Now I find there is a certain beauty in their regularity:
Back to the second floor. This is where students can talk. But most of the time they are very quiet. They sit at the long tables with their laptops and papers and books piled around them. In the distance you can see my March display for Women’s History Month: Women In the Law. Displays are not fancy because we only have foam core board, thumb tacks and construction paper:
And here is where I spend most of my day. I sit on the circulation side:
Thanks for coming. I hope you enjoyed the tour. 
Cool. Thanks for the tour! That compact shelving does look particularly fun.
It’s very nice to get a glimpse of the place you work!
What a beautiful library. I love the dark wood desks.
Lovely tour! Nice looking library.
Now, that was really cool. Thanks! …
Your library is beautiful! I can imagine myself sitting in one of the chairs and studying. Thanks for sharing.
Great to see where you work – I’m glad your library is so lovely (sadly not like the ones in my area).
This is a lovely library. I really like the combination circ/ref desk. I’m so jealous of the fact that it is mostly quiet in your library. I’m afraid mind is not. In a community college library, we have everything from 14 year olds (in the Early College program) to traditional college students to displaced workers ranging in age from 20 to 70. Let’s just say it’s never boring.
Love the pictures! Lovely to see where you spend your working hours. Looks very neat, and that reading room looks exactly like the law library where I went to college.
Nice library. Nice large “Quiet” signs. My library’s third floor only is a quiet floor. We now have some compact shelving, but it is all electric, so you push a button and they automatically open. I like those cranks, though. It looks like a nice place to work!
You must get a power trip occasionally, sitting behind such a prestigious desk. It looks like something right out of the courtroom.
I was stunned by the empty shelves. Planning a new library must be hard, much like deciding how big a tank farm to build for a refinery. At least in the refinery one knows the capacity of the facility and can predict a sales cycle to calculate the space. A library however, must continually accumulate materials. I am starting to grasp some of the complexity in managing such a facility.
Carrel is such a funny word.
Beautiful! The dark wood, the empty shelves, the SPACE! It looks like a nice place to work and you are right, the uniformity of the law book bindings is kind of like wall art. I’ve always wanted to crank open some compact shelving, too. The only compact shelving we have at my public library is shelves squeezed so closely together it’s hard to get between them!
Thank you for the tour! I really like the area where students can hang out and talk. It looks cozy.
Oh what a great tour! It looks so pretty. There’s something a little eerie about an empty library though..
I am glad everyone has enjoyed the library tour. It is a pretty library with all the dark wood. There are plenty of nooks with comfortable chairs too and I neglected to take a photo of the microform room because, well it is nothing but fiche and film cabinets which isn’t very attractive.
Lisa, the combined circ/ref desk is relatively new. The ref desk used to be off in a corner but the new director (she’s been there a year and half) combined them. A good choice because it is the first thing you see when you walk into the library. It sounds like your library is quite lively!
Bikkuri, the desk is rather imposing isn’t it? No power trip for me though. I feel rather small sitting behind it. I was stunned at first by the empty shelves too but it is impossible and not desirable to entirely fill the library all at once. Law books cost a lot and are always being updated. I choked when I found out what our budget is. Carrel is a funny word.
Melanie, LOL, that is compact! The compact shelving at my public library is electronic and has sensors that will stop the shelf from moving if someone is between them. The manual shelving will go as long as you turn the wheel. We have signs up that say look before moving a shelf but I am very guilty of forgetting to check. So far I haven’t squished anyone!
I love it! (how did I miss this post??) I love the carrells… they look so orderly and seem to invite long nights of studying. My university library had great carrells and I always wished I had the sort of bookish friends that would study with my and pop their heads over the carrells to compare notes… alas. also, the library looks so clean and tidy! What a nice place to work.
What a great tour! And I love your library – it’s beautiful. I just wish I could be there reading peacefully in one of those gorgeous carrels.
Thank you for the tour. It’s always interesting to see new libraries. The picture of the empty shelves is a little haunting, though. There’s always something weird to libraries with few books. I understand that many resources are now on the internet, but it seems like a library that has so much space needs… something.
Very nice! Love the wood. I guess their budget ran out 2/3 of the way up the columns…
Looks so peaceful and orderly. You gotta do something about those displays, though! Maybe a nice glass-fronted barrister’s cabinet?
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