Alford Branch Library, Wichita, KS

OH YOU HANDSOME THING.

The Alford Branch Library is a newer library--completed not that long after Evergreen--that actually looks like a new library. I would not begin to assume why Evergreen was placed in an old facility to serve a denser population, while Alford was made from scratch out in the southern boonies, but it is what it is, as some chill philosopher once said. Proximity to airplane manufacturers on the southside is just as good a guess as any.

Once the new, main library goes up, Alford will no longer be the baby of the family, but for now it is the youngest of all of the Wichita branch libraries, born in 2003. Their intention of creating a space that evokes instant associations to aircraft is an undeniable success. You can see it in the soaring angles (wings) offshooting from the edges of the building and the awe-inspiring "engine" roof suspended over the main part of the interior. It is a beautiful library and a lot of thought and care went into its creation.

Wichita is known as the Air Capital of the World due not only to McConnell Air Force Base, but the many aircraft manufacturers that have set up shop here over the years, like Cessna, Learjet (Bombardier), Beechcraft, Spirit, and, at one time, Boeing. The library is named after the late Boeing executive, Lionel D. Alford, who was responsible for keeping the Wichita Boeing plant open when it was in peril back in the 80s. As many longtime residents of Wichita know, aircraft manufacturing is only a semi-stable business. Thousands of Wichitans have spent entire careers in the industry, but sometimes the bottom falls out, and it is a sad irony that Boeing's biggest hit--the closing of the commercial division in Wichita, eventually leading to complete closure in 2014--occurred just two years after the Alford branch opened (source).

The Alford library was busy on the day I visited, with most of the computers constantly engaged and the seating areas at a premium. I ended up sitting at an awkward desk right next to circulation, which basically put my back to the whole world, but it didn't matter. That's the lovely thing about the Alford branch: wide open spaces and high ceilings. Even with plenty of people around, it was impossible to feel crowded.

There were a number of workspaces, including those "desk" lounge chairs, where the desktop can be swiveled in place above your lap once you've settled in. I've tried these chairs out at several libraries throughout my travels and must say that while you could sit there for days (comfy), they are in no way useful for laptop writing (or handwriting for that matter). The desk swivels, after all, so you're constantly pushing and pulling at it as you write.

When I was a teen, I could write anywhere. On my bed, a slumped C-shaped humanoid, furiously writing my "notebook novels" by hand, or typing away on my Bad-ass electric typewriter--usually a midnight term paper, sometimes a midday story or poem. I could write with no other desktop but my knee perched on the back of a theater chair as we suffered through the obligatory drama club in the NHS auditorium. I could write in the grass, on my stomach, or in a moving car, wedged in the back passenger's seat, bolting 70 mph through the rain.

Not today, folks. I want a chair. With support, too. And I want a stable desk, preferably with outlets nearby. I can still do the slumped-C writing, but I pay for it. Ah, Youth.

Speaking of youth, the front lawn of the library made me smile. I've encountered other libraries that have tried to create a whimsical, colorful "path" to knowledge (reading, wonder, etc.), but this is the first one I've seen fail so obviously. First, there is an actual, non-warble-y path (called a "side walk" or "walk way") right next to it. But kids will be kids, and the mosaic stepping stones are fun, so they've chosen instead to walk next to it, where a very conspicuous beaten path has taken shape over the years. I am sure kids do use the stepstone path--especially the very small ones--and can imagine the indulgent adults plodding alongside them (omigod) as the tykes diligently hop from one block to the next (for what seems, on a steamy July day, to be roughly a mile long no doubt)...and it occurs to me that maybe kids and adults both created this dirt path for that very reason. Management of tyke wonderment knows no bounds.

I hope those same kids stop to look at the man for whom this library was named and wonder just how he got lucky enough to have a whole dang building named after him, especially one so Aeronautically Boss. They'd see his bronzed likeness--a technique perhaps better left to the non-smiling, premodern era in light of the fact that it renders all participants saying "cheeeese" with either blackened or banana teeth and an unintentionally ghoulish glare (ask Han Solo, he knows)--and would know there is some permanence in the world...though who knows what will happen in fifty years, or seventy.

I believe the Alford Branch has some lasting power, if for nothing else than the architectural nod to Wichita's Air Capitol identity. I hope they keep the name, too, Boeing or no Boeing, since it sounds like it was aptly and honorably named in the first place, regardless of how things turned out in the end.