Advanced Learning Library, August 2018 UPDATES!

I've now spent a fair amount of time in the new Advanced Learning Library in downtown(ish) Wichita, Kansas, and have acquired a number of updates to share.

I'm in the midst of re-reading my blog, doing light editing, taking some notes...and have found that above all else the thing I regret the most is the brevity of it all. Most of the libraries reviewed in Travelrogue were one shot deals; some were visited a mere couple of hours before I had to jet off to another destination. I would have loved to have spent real time in a lot of these libraries (though Pasadena and Seattle spring immediately to mind), primarily to get to know them much better, but also to relay more broad and solid observations in my blog entries. While some libraries suffer chronic ailments (Utah's Magna and Glendale, for example), other libraries that left terrible impressions (oy, San Bernardino) might've just been suffering a seriously "off" day. In most of these cases, I will never know. I have to acknowledge that it is unfair, at the very least. And that goes both ways. For all I know, Pasadena may have the meanest staff this side of Hell and a strict late fee policy or some other bad habits I would have no way of knowing since I never checked anything out there...or anywhere else I've visited, save the Wichita locations.

So, it's nice to get to update my observations a bit, as I've already done for a few of the Wichita-area locations (see Andover, specifically--what a change of heart!). After all, the only way to truly know a place is to spend some real time living in it, right? Plenty of Flatiron workers will eagerly tell you that while the building is super pretty and obviously striking on the outside, the inside is 98% garbage. The bathrooms are teeny tiny--some hilariously so, like you have to step over the toilet and, once closed, the damn door hits your knees--and are on every other floor (boys on the evens, girls on the odds). The finishing is pure rebate, on sale, cheap-o creep-o, mismatching crap, from the white, scarred walls to the industrial, metal door frames. Don't even get me started on the nasty carpet, made of squares so that stained patches might be replaced by new squares...had they actually bothered to stock them (they didn't). Before they installed replacement windows (ugly), the old windows let all the smut of the city blow in and coat everything in a film of black dust. And the "water bugs"--so, so many water bugs, a.k.a. Big Juicy-Yet-Crunchy Cockroaches everywhere. Scurrying on the stairwells, chasing people down the hallways. Falling from the drop ceilings.

I could go on, I really could. It was, in a word, gross. But do I still tell people I worked there? HELLS yes. Because nobody cares about gritty city truth. They just love hearing how you worked in a historic building. And I did, and it was at least interesting, if not entirely...sanitary? Professional? But then what in NYC really is? I remember similar "water bugs" falling from the drop tiles at my doctor's office once, so...yeah. And the same goes with visiting NYC in general, even for a week. You don't really know the city until you live there. Sure, you're surrounded by history with a wealth of arts and culture at your fingertips, but you do have to dodge and ungodly amount of poop on the sidewalks and, if you are really lucky, you may even get to dodge random pieces of paper floating through the air, whipped by the skyscraper wind tunnels and boosted by the subway trains screaming past underneath your feet. Papers smeared with brown something, papers darting directly toward your head.

A visit filled with cab rides tells you nothing about NYC reality, when you're earning your literal dimes and can't afford more than the subway (already an outrage to your bank account) and find yourself walking, walking, walking everywhere always because it is just less of a hassle and the trains don't really go east-west in Manhattan anyway (save one, a hellish ride). Or the fact that you have to carry everything, so grocery shopping is a revolving door because you can't carry what you need in one go, so you shop more than you want, and are sometimes stuck with some pretty vile options (e.g. one local store where a fly was packaged into the steak, nicely fat and juicy all squished up in there and proudly displayed, the whole place smelling of dead blood and Pine Sol). Or just the horrors you see. And you do see them, not every day, but sometimes things can get very real, and very ugly, very fast. Sometimes it's funny (the Fried Chicken Fight being my all time favorite) and sometimes you're getting assaulted in broad daylight on a busy street and no one is even looking at the spectacle, let alone helping you. That last one didn't happen to me, thank God, but it happened to a friend.

Now, if it sounds like I'm harping on NYC, well, yes. I am. Because visiting is one thing--staying in hotels, spending money on restaurants, plays, bars, shows, taking cabs hither and thither, and every day is just fun fun fun. The day-in, day-out drudgery is quite another thing...hour-long commutes stuck in a metal can that smells of mouths and armpits, working all day long and slogging home in a downpour with your broke ass black umbrella from the bodega, feet sodden, ankle scratched from some brush-by on the morning commute so you might have leprosy now, up to your fourth floor walk-up that costs $1200/month in Brooklyn (forget Manhattan hahahaha) and is about as big as the fanciest master closet you ever saw...on television...once.

(Let's be real in this side-side-side note: I'm harping because, quite frankly, I wasn't really into it from the start. I wanted to work in publishing and that is where the lion's share of publishing jobs reside. Ergo, if I wanted to work in publishing, I had to move to NYC. Which I did, and I worked in the industry for over 15 years. Don't get me wrong. At first I loved the new experiences--it was all very different from anything I'd done up to that point--but eventually things turned sour. The drinking was fun...until it wasn't. The job, until the very end, was always worth the price of admission, but to be perfectly honest I'd have been happier in the same job in almost any other US city. I got very tired of the "realness," too dependent on bad people, and started drinking myself into oblivion to avoid thinking about how miserable I'd become. It's not a place for everyone. And once the job was gone, and my head was finally on more or less straight, I left. And NYC, if it cared to say anything at all, would have likely brayed "And don't let the door hitcha on the way out!")

Cheese Grater = Electron Membrane 1

I don't think I'm going to experience anything of the sort during the time spent at the new Advanced Learning Library. Parking is easy (and free!), there are three different ways to handle returns (drive up window, outdoor slot, indoor slot), and checking out materials is such a breeze. I do proceed with caution whenever I need to use the restroom, making sure to check that I'm going in the right one depending on which floor I'm on, but I suppose eventually that habit will fall to the wayside. And the main artery traffic jams? I've run into them a couple of times, but more often than not I take the long way or avoid the first floor altogether. "My place" is on the second floor, now firmly set in stone in more ways than one.

I still use the study carrels, but have found that they are equally beloved by plenty of other people...most days, they are all taken by the time I arrive. That has never been a problem, since I pop over to the staff help desk right next to the carrels and ask to reserve a collaboration room. I've done it often enough that my regular guy remembers my name! And those rooms are very quiet...so long as the people in the other collaboration rooms are relatively quiet, too. One thing they maybe didn't think of was the transfer of sound from one collaboration room to the next. The sound barrier between the collaboration rooms and the library proper is solid, but it's less so between the rooms themselves. It's only been a problem a couple of times, and a mild one at that.

And when neither space is available? I set up shop in one of the many study desks available on either floor. Some of the desks are nested within the stacks, safely tucked away so that only people who are looking for those books in particular have any business being behind you. I'm in the business and job-seeking section as we speak, headphones on but nothing playing, and haven't been disturbed by anyone for hours. NICE.

I've also found solace at the very back of the Research Pavilion on the second floor. The views are limited, but there's hardly ever anyone back here and I don't have to put on headphones to block out immediate noises. And, for some reason, there is a New Friend on the study table I prefer to use...a Brother typewriter, looking all 1993 Fancypantsy. Bless its little clickity heart.

Even nicer? Things have calmed down a bit, I think. The drive for certain staff members to converse about whatnot yellingly out in the middle of the library has seemed to dissipate, thank the lordy lord. It's a generally quiet space, the electricity flows from every which way, the seating is comfortable and varied, and it is just a fantastic place to get some work done. Love, love, love it.

When I looked up the library to get the link for this entry, I noticed there were sixteen Google reviews already, all but one crowing compliments left and right, espousing all of the wonderful attributes of the new space and services, and showing the Big Big Love all around...except for one Giant Asshole who gave the place one star because "it wasn't open yet." I clicked the link and found a lot of similarly entitled, bitter reviews from this jerk, and all over the world to boot. I reported the review to Google, so I hope they take it down. It definitely qualifies as "off topic." Who gives a business under construction a bad review because they have the audacity not to be open yet, I ask you? A dingleberry. That's who. One star.

Over the month of July, signs started showing up in the foyer from the parking lot that explained the art around the building, so I've included some pictures here. Huzzah! Explanations are welcome. I'm glad to see the cheese grater better explained, but no amount of exposition is going to save the Knowledge Noodles. I am so sorry, but ugh. The execution is not successful, neither in the rendering of the bark/tree stand nor in the sizing/writing/reading of the scrolls. I miscounted the number of Knowledge Noodles in my first blog entry since I have spent zero time on the eastward facing "front" of the building. I think there are something like six of them out there. So, noodles noodles everywhere, all impossible to read without getting a headache.

The Avian Migration piece has been installed in the atrium. I am going to have to see it at different times of day and night for awhile before I have a real sense of how I feel about it. The execution does not match the rendering, nor do the pieces move much at all, though they are meant to react to sensors in different parts of the library. From what I can tell, they might as well be moving because of various breezes throughout the library. It is quite possible that the installation is not yet complete, though, so the verdict is not yet in. When I look at it, I can't help but think of the Filament Mind art installation in the foyer of the Teton County Library, made of thousands of strands of fiber-optics, all reacting to library search engine results. It's a visually arresting piece, not to mention objectively beautiful in a multitude of ways. I would guess that there is a vast gulf between the cost of Filament Mind and Avian Migration, and since Jackson is presumably a thriving tourist town flush with cash it stands to reason, but still I hoped for more. That being said, Filament Mind is robbed of some of its glory when daylight washes out the color effects, so perhaps Avian Migration will be better at night, too. I'll have to wait for the summer to pass before I get a real crack at seeing it in a full-dark setting (though a night drive-by this past Saturday showed the interior lit up like the surface of the chain-drugstore sun, so my hopes aren't exactly up). The actual materials used look like holographic. metallic airplanes, so they might react well to laser light, something any sketchy-mcsketchballs store on sixth avenue in the NYC "fashion district" can afford, so why not the Wichita central library?

Sunny day shot, viewed from the doorway.

The outdoor tables and chairs for the reading pavilion were finally delivered just recently--they were still in boxes last week, but they've got it pretty well set up now, umbrellas and all. It's still hot as Satan's taint in Wichita, as it has been all damn summer long, so I won't be wandering out there anytime soon. Much like the majority of the first floor, I'm avoiding the outdoor spaces for now. I did witness at least one dude smoking out there, so we'll see how that space turns out when the weather gets more bearable. Reading haven for all...or smoke deck for some? Do I sound bitchy? I sound bitchy. I smoked forever so I get to be bitchy. Like, it's hard, dude. So, smoke in your car, at home, or away elsewhere, just away from me. Because cigarette smoke still smells so delicious even though I'm 3 years, 11 months smoke free SO Y'ALL NEED TO GET THE HELL AWAY FROM ME. Thbank, as we used to say in publishing.

Gray day shot, viewed from a collaboration room.

There have been some unavoidable hiccups transitioning from the old Central Library to the new ALL, but my firsthand experiences have been professional and impressive. I regularly check out a lot of DVDs (e.g. this past week's wonderful selections: I, Tonya, Space Camp, and Ferdinand, all fantastic) and some books (I checked out Ulysses because my self-hatred is a never ending river running under my soft and fluffy mantle, I am a Foole for the Ages and should stick my head in a dirty mop bucket and drown because Who, Exactly, Do I Think I AM, trying to read effing Ulysses?) and am a stickler for turning things in on time, so I was gobsmacked and ready to rumble when I saw that my account had a hold on it and a three dollar fine. EXCUSE ME, I thought, though underneath it (in the river of self hatred, whispering whispering) I did think I must've forgotten something, missed something, done something wrong. I looked into it further and determined the library was definitely in the wrong. I had the evidence of tomfoolery logged in my email (thanks to the Wichita library system's awesome notifications) and headed over to the ALL main circulation ready to make my case. The young woman behind the desk was remarkably friendly and chill, clicked through my record and said, yeah, we're behind with checking things in right now, so that's probably what happened. I'll clear your record. Like that. No argument, no pickle-faced suspicion, no static. Just NICE, under control, and professional.

I'm sure the staff has plenty of opening-blues stories, though I doubt any of them include water bugs or mismatched, half broken furniture from all the decades (ahem Flatiron ahem). I've witnessed some issues with the little iPad-type tablets they walk around with, signing in or securing collaboration rooms, for instance. And a few incidents and comments have led me to wonder about the leadership in general. People seem not to be informed about things that they should definitely know, and there have been moments where it was clear that staff did not know the proper rules and regulations for the space. There is a sense of detachment from responsibility and a disconnect from ownership. Not all the time from every person...just general and not really all that hidden. It reminds me of a time during my stay in publishing, we called it "The Regime"...and I really don't have to say much more than that, do I? I hope that's not the case here, but these less-than-complimentary symptoms are not a sign of bad staffing--the truth is that it is never the case--but of ineffective management. Whether it is due to fatigue, ineptitude, or malice, who can say. But ya knickers are showing, gorl. Get it together! Managing people is hard, especially a large staff. For this I have nothing but respect. But keeping people empowered with knowledge is paramount, especially when serving the public. I have to wonder if the draining days of drearytude in the old central library eroded that sense of purpose and drive to do the very best. The staff seems more than willing to shine, so give them the resources they need to do that! Hashtag HUGS, hashtag NOTHINBUTLUV, hashtag PEACESIGN.