Magna Library, Magna, Utah

Magna Library was the first of the Salt Lake County libraries I visited during my stay in Salt Lake City. The online photos are striking and the library was recently built (2011), so my hopes were very high as I headed out to Magna, Utah.

A little background, which I picked up from Wikipedia last evening as I tried to learn more about the area in general: Salt Lake City itself is actually quite small. The city proper is only about 200,000 strong, but the outlying burbs make up the majority of SLC's size (about 1.2 million estimated). When you look at a map of Salt Lake City, it looks like the little hat on top of an acorn (and a little hat tip to Google Maps for the image).

My AirBNB is in the southeastern quadrant town of Sandy. It is fully incorporated with SLC and the surrounding suburbs. In order to get to Magna, I had to take the highway 30 minutes northwest and effectively "out of the city." From what I saw, Magna is really only connected by the thinnest industrial string of businesses lining the highway--otherwise it appeared to be an entirely separate little town. It is within the county, however, so is part of the county library system.

When you read about Magna's library, it is easy to see the pride people had in it, especially in its energy saving design. This is certainly a valuable and necessary initiative, and it is impossible not to admire the forethought and effort. Exterior and interior photographs of the library are also an obvious point of pride--the aesthetics were forward thinking, innovative, and striking.

Magna is nestled in the northern foot of the Oquirrh mountains. While the whole drive north up I-15 is lovely with mountain ranges on both sides, exiting to head west on I-80 was my first opportunity to get a good look at the Oquirrh range. It is a stunning vista, and despite my recent altitude-related problems, I was charmed and awed by what I saw. Until I got closer, anyway.

I didn't visit Magna's main streets and only went far enough in to visit the library, but what I saw as I approached the town from the east was indicative of what I was about to see once I reached my destination. It is important now to mention that in every mountainous area I've visited, the higher you go, the nicer the houses. People want to be up high so they can look down low on the glittering town. Even in the flatlands, if there is a hill, someone's got a house on it, even if it is only 5 feet higher than everywhere else. We all love to be king of the mountain.

Magna, however, has different designs. As you approach, a hideous and huge industrial site is positioned high in the foothills above the town, with one peak featuring a big, white capital "C" on top of it. Prime real estate scarred by dirty, smoking industry and tagged with a big C for what I do not know or care. It is the first and only impression some will ever get of Magna. Mine was further decimated by my visit to the library.

At this point in my travels I have visited quite a few libraries. I've seen elderly libraries, baby libraries, and everything in between. I've seen well cared for ancients and relatively ratty youths. I've never seen a library as young as the Magna so used, abused, and in serious need of cleaning and repair. It was terribly, terribly sad.

Upon approaching the library, I saw one big difference between Magna and all the rest of the libraries I've visited: A permanent sign forbidding all food and beverages of any kind. I wonder when it went up? Certainly not at first, unless patrons have just ignored the hell out of the rule and library staff have let things slide. I seriously doubt either is the case unless the place has truly been mismanaged since opening day.

My pictures really don't do the damage justice. The tables are worn and scratched, chairs are torn and taped up, the carpet is riddled with stains. The whole place looks ill-used and beat to hell.

I am sure all libraries have special needs based on the communities in which they are located. I wonder exactly what Magna's needs might be. There was a huge bank of almost empty computer terminals but very few places for a person with her own laptop to set up shop for the long haul. I found a dirty table with a taped up, nasty chair to sit down long enough to figure out where I should go next.

There was also a very lively kids event going on in a room near the front of the library, which lent the experience and bright beam of hope. It's hard not to smile listening to tykes holler along to their favorite songs.

I saw exactly zero (obvious) homeless patrons and even so the library was not very busy other than the event going on up front. It was hard to fathom how, after a mere 6 years of service to its community, it had reached a level of disrepair I would associate with 30, 40, or even 50-year-old libraries. Perhaps it was the time of day--as I learned firsthand later that same day, sometimes this makes all the difference in the world.

Nope.

I imagined a patronage composed mostly of the monsters from Where the Wild Things Are, roaring and boring through the delicate and lovely lines of the library's most thoughtful layout, biting books and spilling venti iced coffees across the entirety of the floor. It's hard to think of people shitting all over their shared spaces, but people carve their initials in ancient and irreplaceable monuments, so what do I know.

Well...I do know one thing, and it is a pretty simple thing. New libraries are GREAT and absolutely necessary. As long as our technology soars forward, services to our communities must keep up. But I'll tell you one big difference between Magna Library (and many of the newer libraries I've seen) and an old behemoth like the J. Erik Jonsson Central Library in Dallas: Quality of Craftsmanship. The Jonsson's cubicles and tables may be outdated and ugly as sin, but they've stood the test of time. Not aesthetically, of course, but the tables are solid wood and made for this particular job: service to a sometimes unforgiving public. You can't outfit your new library with furniture from Ikea's clearance sale and expect it to hold up for long.