[Publib] RE: Publib Digest, Vol 20, Issue 3

[Jesse Ephraim]

>I was interested in knowing if your library shared the 
>same building with your Town Government.
>For security purposes, does that building require 
>all visitors including the library to sign in?

We are located in Southlake Town Hall, in the center of our town square.
Despite having some parking issues, it is a great location, since the
Southlake town square is the center of most local activity.  There are a
lot of high-end stores around us, restaurants, a 14-screen movie theater
(that offers hourly childcare, believe it or not), a Barnes and Noble,
the post office, a copy shop, etc., so it isn't unusual for people to
hang around the area for hours at a time, if not the whole day.  In
addition to our regular patrons, we also get a number of people who
simply want a place to sit and read while their spouses or children shop
or go to a movie.  We have free Starbucks coffee in the library, so it
makes a good pit-stop for tired shoppers.  Many become new card-holding
patrons after being exposed to the library in this way.

Nobody has to sign in or go through security gates to enter Town Hall or
our library.  During times when the rest of the building is locked up
our patrons still have access to the library through the doors at the
bottom of the building's wheelchair-accessible ramps.  Each floor of
Town Hall can be locked independently (large metal doors are set in
about 10 feet from the stairwell), so the building can remain secure
even when we're open.

Jesse Ephraim

Adult Services Librarian
Southlake Public Library
1400 Main Street, Suite 130
Southlake, TX  76092
(817) 748-8247
jephraim at ci.southlake.tx.us

"A circulating library in a town is as an evergreen tree of diabolical
knowledge."
     - Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816)