"The library should be as they say, a third place — you have home, work or school, and then you come to the library because it is the center and heart of the community,” Ms. Caserotti said. “Our staff is 100 percent committed to hospitality, customer service and welcoming people to the library as if they were visiting our home. We need to remember it is their library, not ours, and they are paying"

Libraries have been getting lots of press recently...

(see nytimes.com and npr.org)

To me, Gretchen Caserotti's quote sums up why I'm in libraries. THE PEOPLE! What about you?

Gretchen's quote is pretty brilliant. I was happy to share it with our Library's Facebook page (note: I work at Gretchen's library) and our patrons loved it too.

I'm still not 100% settled on one specific reason I'm into libraries. At this point, I keep comparing it back to retail and my work here is just a whole lot more exciting which is great for me personally.

justin (hi) - it's an interesting dilemma for those of us who plan and design libraries. on the one hand, we see owners who are convinced they need to be more "like a barnes and noble". i'm personally convinced that this is a weak visual analogy, given primarily because they think there's more traffic there than at their facilities (could be true, could be not. largely depends on location).

what we see as the deeper issue, though, beyond connecting to people more directly and perhaps intimately, is the fact that people don't have a lot of truly public spaces they can inhabit, at least where the pressure to consume/buy isn't ominpresent. libraries are one of those last bastions.