Project 1 Library visit

For my library visit I chose the Main branch Library of the Long Beach Public Library, in downtown Long Beach.
It is located at 101 Pacific Avenue, Long Beach, CA 90822. Phone number 562-570-6744
The website address is www.lbpl.org.

As I made my way on Friday, 20th, the first impression on walking towards the library, was one of a modern building, with interesting angles on the exterior walls. The outside design blended in with the surrounding architecture. In fact, the whole complex had a futuristic feel to it.
Once inside it is very spacious, and there’s plenty of room to work, or study, on the tables. There is also plenty of room between the tables themselves. As I sat and looked around the library’s first floor, I got the impression of a well planned, and laid out environment. The book stacks started at 000, and progressed around the floor up to 999, which made it easy to follow.
The front desk had free Dewey Decimal classification guides to help you understand the system.
There are basically three main sections in the library: An Adult section: a Teen section, and a Children’s section.
The library has an extensive collection of multiple materials to choose from. They have books, periodicals, WPA murals, books on tapes, and cds amongst others. They also have dvds and videos available for renting. The library also has a very large selection of sheet music, which is something different in today’s digital age.
They also have two very large sections concentrating on Arts, and also Business.
They even have art displays, throughout the first floor, that change every two months. Members can purchase the art.
The library offers a variety of services, three of which are: an Information Center for people with disabilities, located on the lower floor of the library. An Inter-library loan service which enables the library to loan books for the members receive books from other libraries within the country. Also, a programming service that includes authors coming into the library to read excerpts from their books. This also includes a story theater, where children’s books are sometimes performed and acted out. The room has actual steps in it, giving it the feel of a real theater.

The Dewey Decimal classification system is used in the library. The library is a Public City library.
There are four segregated reference sections within the library. The first is directly behind the head librarian’s desk, and contains the instantly available books. Secondly, there is a section called the Central reference, which is off to the side of the Librarian’s desk. This section is accessible through a locked door. The third section has reference books dispersed throughout the regular book shelves of the library. The fourth section is downstairs, and has Government publications, Presidential papers, California codes, and tax forms, to mention but a few.

Also, downstairs is the Miller special collections room, where they have a room furnished similar to an old fashioned reading room. It is only open on certain days.
There’s also an auditorium meeting room downstairs as well.

The online resources are very extensive. I asked the librarian for the most popular ones, and she said there are quite a few. The Bizconnect website gives information on businesses including number of employees, product output, location, anything that someone who was interested in about a company, large or small, could want to know.
One of the other online resources is called the A-Z List. This has links to 57 databases, covering subjects such as the American Civil war reference library, Ancestry library, Chilton’s auto repair, CQ researcher (Social issues / current events), Reference USA.
There are a few databases that can only be accessed within the library itself. One of these is the Ancestry library. This has information on genealogy within the United States and the United Kingdom, covering census, vital, church, court, and immigrations records.

There were several things that I liked about the library, one being the friendliness, and cooperation of the librarians. The fact that there were specific areas for Teens, and for Children, was a plus for me. The children’s area even had a cloth covered bath tub. How cool is that for a kid !!
Another positive for me was that the internet access computers weren’t just in one area. You could go to several different areas, and use the internet, for either library online catalogs, or the world wide web. The only negative was the parking, which really is a small thing compared to the wealth of knowledge that’s available inside the library.