Hooray! Temporary quarters!

Thanks to Karen Marcus, the Commissioner for northern Palm Beach County, space has been found for the NCR branch when it closes for expansion.

Personally, I like the arrangement. It is utilizing space vacated by another county department, at the end of a hall on the second floor of the North County Courthouse. Second floor, with a spiral staircase to climb, or a small elevator to ride in. At the end of the hall, a long walk from the stairs/elevator, even longer from the parking lot. North County Courthouse, with the virtual equivalent of airport security (it has been pointed out to me that people don't have to remove their shoes) at the entrance of the building.

Now this particular branch is pretty surburban, with a fairly upscale patron base. But we do get a healthy mix of the socio-economic strata, including immigrants, non-English speakers, homeless, mental/emotional cases, visitors/tourists, and kids. Occasionally we have patrons who require some reminders about appropriate social behavior, but genereally they are not a problem.

Obviously in our new quarters the noise level will go down (no more story time, with loud toddlers and preschoolers), which will make some of our patrons very happy. With much more limited space we can only stock the most popular books/cds/dvds, which will satisfy many of our patrons. And with the location at the end of a long hall on the second floor of a government building with "airport security" we probably won't have to worry any more about accommodating certain handicaps. With the high security, we probably also won't have to worry about anyone who doesn't like, or is afraid of, police, such as immigrants and the homeless. But since we will only be stocking the most popular items, we probably won't have what they're looking for anyway. And with limited computers likely to be available, their absence will mean less competition for those resources.

So it's looking more and more like it will be a nice, small, corporate library (read: limited user base) that happens to be part of a public library system.