[Publib] Children's rooms upstairs?

[Roberta Thomas]

Our Youth Services Department was on the ground floor (which was the
only floor) in our former downtown storefront and kids would zip out the
doors onto the street.  The department is upstairs in the new building.
It's a toss-up. Wherever kids are, the noise will filter up or down a
stairwell. Shrieking toddlers voices also carry from the Circ area and
lobby throughout much of the building. Somebody will use the stairs;
shelvers and other staff will be carting stuff up and down the elevator.
Our stairs are very close to our Circ desk and the kids do play on them
which I think is a function of the Circ desk / stair proximity, not the
fact that YSD is upstairs.

 

Our building is 2 stories but the ground floor is 2-3 times the size of
the second floor. The only things on the second floor are YSD (through
6th grade), the staff lounge and two small storage rooms. Downstairs has
Circ, Adult Services, TeenSpace (7th grade through high school),
Technical Services, Administration, Automation, Maintenance and the
meeting rooms. 

 

We have a lovely lightwell in the rear of the library that we have come
to not love. We could really use the square footage upstairs. We're
working with an architect to determine the feasibility, cost and
horrible service impacts of the process of closing it in. In my next
life, the only opening between floors will be stairwells.

 

Roberta Thomas

Library Director

 

Grayslake Area Public Library District

100 Library Lane

Grayslake, IL 60030

 

Phone   847 / 223-5313 x205

Fax         847 / 223-6482

 

From: publib-bounces at webjunction.org
[mailto:publib-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Su Epstein
Sent: Tuesday, September 01, 2009 8:29 AM
To: publib at webjunction.org
Subject: [Publib] Children's rooms upstairs?

 

Hi all, 

 

Me again, wanting more feedback from the collective mind.

 

I know the trend of late has been to put Children's Rooms on the second
floor of a building.  This has not worked out so well for the places
I've worked in that have done this. (Noise below, children playing and
falling down stairs and elevators, and children's librarians carting a
great deal up and down).

 

What's your opinion?  Would you design it this way?  Praises and
pitfalls if you didn't mind?

 

As always, thank you and I'll be happy to share responses.

Su

 

 

Su Epstein, Ph.D.

Library Director

Saxton B. Little Free Library

Columbia, CT 06237

sepstein at columbiactlibrary.org

860.228.0350

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.webjunction.org/wjlists/publib/attachments/20090901/ae684079/attachment.htm