Most of my semi-annual projects include an initiative to visit three places I've not been previously. Sometimes this entails travel, as a few days in Leesburg VA for spring break. Sometimes places right nearby have slipped under my radar. My home library branch needed some major construction revisions. As a frequent user, I was directed to order my preferred books through the online reservation system but pick them up at one of two designated branches, one near my home, the other near Osher Institute and my synagogue. My first reserve book, for which I waited about six weeks, arrived at the one near my home. The message instructed me to pick up the book at the drive-up window, which I did. I then parked my car, walked around their beautifully landscaped grounds, and sat on their porch while I finished the bagel with cream cheese and coffee purchased at the nearby WaWa a few minutes earlier. I did not go inside, just drove home.
But on Pesach late afternoon, services completed, lunch a bit overeaten, computer off limits until sundown, I afforded myself a repeat visit, this time to go inside. Despite living in my house for more than forty years, voting in the primaries just a few blocks away, and often donating to and shopping at the Goodwill outlet just blocks away, I had never been to the Claymont Branch of the New Castle County Library. I had no reason to. In my early years, I went to the local branch library, which was small, and occasionally to the Wilmington City Library downtown, which was much larger. I would even sometimes drive all the way to the Morris Library at the University of Delaware, some fifteen miles away. I had attended a meeting at the Woodlawn Branch, the other location for picking up books while my branch undergoes renovation. But for the most part, the Brandywine Branch, greatly expanded to a campus with an adjoining park quite a few years back, has served my needs. It became a place of escape. While I took a few classes after retirement, mostly I would go there to browse books, read their magazines, use their computers, and sit in quiet space to outline ideas or projects.
Now I found myself at the alternate branch, Claymont. This serves a suburb, perhaps best known for another campus, the high school alma mater of the President, where I have also only been one time to transport my daughter to her SAT site. Despite its prestigious Catholic prep school, the town is considerably less prosperous than the neighborhood where I live. The library, however, must have had its turn at renovation not long ago. It sits on a small campus on a hill overlooking two ponds with professional landscaping. While my branch serves a population of scientists, engineers, medical professionals, and lawyers, the Claymont branch's capture area serves a different group, people not often holding advanced academic degrees. Its parking lot was ample, though smaller than my branch. Surrounding the library was a cluster of townhomes, blocks of it, likely planned as subsidized housing, with attractive common spaces. Despite glorious weather in the late afternoon, I saw very few people outside.
After parking my car, sitting on the library's porch a few minutes, I went inside. The posted hours on the front window would have only given me fifteen minutes until closing that day, but with the need to absorb the users of my branch, the hours have been expanded to 8:30PM most nights, and some hours seven days a week. It differed from my customary library in many ways. Their front door entered into a foyer with a few chairs and the restrooms. While my branch occupies two floors, this building has its entire collection on a single floor. Its organization seemed similar to mine. Children's to the right, then fiction on the right, non-fiction on the left, audio-visual to the rear left. In the back center were three tables of computers for patrons to use. Nearly all were unoccupied. I did not see a section for games and puzzles. The magazines were on shelves in the far rear of the library. The collection, both size and variety, was far smaller than the racks at my home library.
They did, however, have a subscription to MAD Magazine, which my branch does not. I picked it up from the rack. Cover price $5.99, though CHEAP in caps remains under the amount. It now has a theme, this one the modern aspects of dating. Spy vs Spy still appears. Comic format had longer balloon entries than what I remember. I found it juvenile, but my own attraction to it was when I was a juvenile. The few pages I read seemed less funny, less witty. I don't know the trajectory of their circulation in the fifty years since I last sought out an issue.
Signs in various places indicated features targeted to different community segments, from a weekly Tuesday afternoon social for seniors to children's events. I did not encounter the breadth of presentations that my home branch had, from movies to lecture series to children's activities.
I sat down on a few chairs in various places. They seemed to have the seats placed lower than those at my home branch. Some had swivels. What seemed sparse were study tables and reading nooks. There was one quiet room. Mostly it lacked the sense of spaciousness that I had become used to.
My library expects renovations to take a year. Its surrogate, while pleasantly appointed, seemed less inviting a place to escape to. Fewer private corners, fewer people milling around in central areas, far fewer magazines to browse through.
There remains a second library alternative, one farther away, but in proximity to the Osher Institute where I have occasion to drive nearly every weekday. It is clearly more spacious, obvious on my one visit. Its amenities await exploration.
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