Pensacola Discussion Forum
Would you like to react to this message? Create an account in a few clicks or log in to continue.

This is a forum based out of Pensacola Florida.


You are not connected. Please login or register

Pensacola Discussion Forum » General Discussion » Downtown Pensacola Library staff ready for grand-opening of expanded facility

Downtown Pensacola Library staff ready for grand-opening of expanded facility

+7
Sal
Floridatexan
Yella
Markle
NaNook
Nekochan
2seaoat
11 posters

Go to page : Previous  1, 2, 3, 4  Next

Go down  Message [Page 2 of 4]

Nekochan

Nekochan

I'm not against baseball, football, etc. I just think they can be privately funded.

Off the subject of libraries but on the subject of education and free public spaces...

Nashville, TN has The Tennessee State Museum. It's a wonderful museum. Exhibits range from the people who lived in Tenn. hundreds of years ago to an ancient and real Egyptian mummy to a modern day fantastic guitar collection.....it is a wonderful place. And it's FREE!

http://www.tnmuseum.org/

Does Florida have a State Museum?

Guest


Guest

2seaoat wrote:I went to the Hoover Library yesterday. I check out audiobooks on CDs and listen to them on my travels.

A perfect example of how the brick and mortar is not serving the public. If the Hoover library had a web site which allowed you to down load the same from your home....you would have saved the trip....they would not need to support these new brick and mortar monstrosities, and everbody would be saving resources.

SeaOat, you're pretty cynical in your old age. The Jefferson County Library System up here HAS a download system, but copyright laws get in the way and make the library system do specific things to prevent copying. It doesn't work worth a damn.

You download a book and you HAVE to listen to it on the machine you loaded it on. It's not impossible to make a copy but they make it difficult to transfer it to an MP3 player or onto a chip and listen to it in your car. Also, it seems that the books I find online are checked out and I have to get onto a waiting list to download it and listen to it. In addition, there are time limitations on when you can listen to it (if you cannot figure out how to circumvent their listening system).

I'd much rather go to the Library, browse the stacks for books that I KNOW are available (right there in front of me), and check out 4 or 5 at a time, right then and there. They allow me to check out up to 50 at a time, but I don't think that's fair to other borrowers.

I'd rather check out the CDs, rip them to MP3s, and load them onto a chip that our cars can read. We have Hondas with Nav systems and they both have a slot for inserting a PC card.

I have done it both ways and I would much rather get the copy from the library.

NaNook

NaNook

I'm willing to teach gun safety at the library. For Free, I'm NRA approved. Teaching gun safety to kids will reduce violence. Guns are real; movies,video games are make believe.........

If you want to reduce school deaths to 0, then ban schools...

Parents are the problem, not all, just some....

2seaoat



SeaOat, you're pretty cynical in your old age.

Not cynical....just been to meetings when people are expanding public buildings and about 20 years ago.....we acted like our wealth was unlimited, and that our tax base in real estate taxes would continue to leapfrog to ever higher levels. I have gone to school board meetings and have asked for blending of libraries and schools.....I have asked adjacent school districts to build shared schools, and I have been a vocal critic to expansions of libraries into this monuments to greed. A small well ran library does not need 100k volumes of books which have 500 books which are frequently used, and 99 thousand which sit on the shelves for years collecting dust and mold.

The answer from the government employees who are telling us that they need all these things.....they simply have lost their way and our country is spending millions on these MONSTROSITIES .......I have spent a good portion of my life advocating libraries....but what are being built now are wasteful money pits which misdirect resources from the children who need real access to knowledge. The laws can be conformed with on digital transfers, but it requires folks who want that to work....so the slow web site is no accident.....it justifies the waste which has grown to unbelievable levels with these monstrosities and the increase in library budgets in the last 20 years does not even closely correlate with greater access by the very people these were designed for......but the Good old boys who award these million dollar contracts.....now they are happy.

If you can get a redbox movie in 30 seconds.....does it surprise you at all that the library online site is screwed up......no there are simple answers which can bring books to kids.....they do not lie in these MONSTROSITIES which are being built across the country. Why can a library in England, France, or Germany last 200 years, yet we tear down buildings less than 60 years to put up expensive crap which gives us no better functionality.

Guest


Guest

[i]..now they are happy[.


And I am happy. I am planing to go to the Grand opening tomorrow. I know I can not buy a 8 dollar beer or a 6 dollar burger but I will persevere and have a good time. All is good.

Markle

Markle

We should have quit building libraries and post offices ten years ago.

I have spent thousands of hours in libraries, and more than I like to think about in post offices. Both are relics of the past. Think of the progress in the last ten years, without a dime of government money in the electronics field and think where we'll be in another ten years.

People will still line up to see a good baseball or football game.

Guest


Guest

We should have quit building libraries and post offices ten years ago.


Does that also include libraries in institutes of higher learning? Or just public Libraries? Just wondering.

Guest


Guest

Growing up, I always looked forward to my weekly visits to the library. To this day, I remember my first library card number. I cannot imagine not having the luxury of all those books to choose from. I love the feel of books, the wide variety of illustrations in children's books, the smell of a new book, and the joy of a good reader presenting a story to a group of children whose eyes might grow wide with wonder.

The library is not just a place full of books, nor are there books that sit unused and molding. Public libraries offer internet access to those who don't have that luxury at home. There are newspapers, periodicals, and music in addition to all those wonderful books. There are a variety of reference resources available, many of which will not be available on the internet. It's a place to read or to work, free of all the distractions one has at home.

The library borrowing system is a wonderful opportunity to teach children a multitude of lessons. A child has to control his behavior in a library just as he does in a classroom. He must wait patiently in line to check out books. He has to take good care of the borrowed books and return them on or before the due date. He has to pay for any lost or damaged books. There are methods of research to be used in a library, whether it's a public library, a school library or a college library. As a child grows, he will learn to use all the resource materials available.

SeaOat, I find your position here to be surprising. Libraries are a wonderful resource for children whose parents cannot afford internet access or books from Barnes & Noble. They are a great place to just wander the shelves, flipping through various books and selecting what to read for the next couple of weeks. New books are kept on separate shelves. Old books are phased out and sold at a "Friends of the Library" sale. The internet is a great tool, Google is wonderful, but children benefit from having to dig for the answers to their questions. Life isn't about getting an answer the quick and easy way.

Guest


Guest

Markle wrote:We should have quit building libraries and post offices ten years ago.

Benjamin Franklin is rolling in his grave.

2seaoat



My position is one of experience. Beautiful and functional libraries can be designed with the emphasis on digital without losing some of the illustrations found in certain books. However, Steinbeck's or Hemingway's books work quite well on digital formats. I dare anybody to got to a public library a peruse through the stacks......90 percent of the books are taking space and have not been checked out in five years. We design the space of a new library for those books.....that is bone chilling stupid. To suggest that my proposal and criticism somehow would diminish a library is wrong....I simply have been vocally against large library buildings......My experience is that the overhead costs eventually cut back hours and staffing. No we need a new paradigm for both the post office and libraries, and anybody who thinks otherwise, or wants to romanticize the stacks of unused books and the 7 million dollar warehouse for 50k feet......well they simply do not realize where the cuts are going to happen.......we are racing to fall over the cliff, and the scale of new libraries, and the functionality of the same would make Carnegy happy......but this is not 1900.

Guest


Guest

BirdyBack wrote:Growing up, I always looked forward to my weekly visits to the library. To this day, I remember my first library card number. I cannot imagine not having the luxury of all those books to choose from. I love the feel of books, the wide variety of illustrations in children's books, the smell of a new book, and the joy of a good reader presenting a story to a group of children whose eyes might grow wide with wonder.

The library is not just a place full of books, nor are there books that sit unused and molding. Public libraries offer internet access to those who don't have that luxury at home. There are newspapers, periodicals, and music in addition to all those wonderful books. There are a variety of reference resources available, many of which will not be available on the internet. It's a place to read or to work, free of all the distractions one has at home.

The library borrowing system is a wonderful opportunity to teach children a multitude of lessons. A child has to control his behavior in a library just as he does in a classroom. He must wait patiently in line to check out books. He has to take good care of the borrowed books and return them on or before the due date. He has to pay for any lost or damaged books. There are methods of research to be used in a library, whether it's a public library, a school library or a college library. As a child grows, he will learn to use all the resource materials available.

SeaOat, I find your position here to be surprising. Libraries are a wonderful resource for children whose parents cannot afford internet access or books from Barnes & Noble. They are a great place to just wander the shelves, flipping through various books and selecting what to read for the next couple of weeks. New books are kept on separate shelves. Old books are phased out and sold at a "Friends of the Library" sale. The internet is a great tool, Google is wonderful, but children benefit from having to dig for the answers to their questions. Life isn't about getting an answer the quick and easy way.

Well Said. Thank you.
I find it interesting that Mr Oats and Mr Markle state that they have spent 1,000s of hours in libraries and have obliviously benefited from doing so. Now the same people are stating that libraries are too big, too expensive and have become "Monstrosities". I would wager someone had that same opinion when the libraries that they used, were built. If a community cares so little for it citizens that it can not afford a decent place for its people to gather and enhance their knowledge base, then it is doomed to failure.
In the case of the Pensacola Downtown library there has not been a major remodeling or major upgrade in 53 years. I really dont understand. For the last few years all I have heard is how the Ball Park, gallery night, Palafox Pier and the port is going to bring millions into downtown Pensacola. We have the money to cover the city's roads and sidewalks with "pavers", build fountains , and landscape literally 1,000s of plants to improve the city. Now that money is being used to really benefit the Public it suddenly become too expensive.
I will use the library. I think it is wonderful that we have a first class system that I can be proud of. A place were will I take my grandchildren to visit. There is nothing wrong in having a large Public building that we all can be proud of. I would rather see the money spent on projects such as these rather than, bull dust such as the "Re-branding of Pensacola"

Guest


Guest

A picture worth a 1,000 words
Downtown Pensacola Library staff ready for grand-opening of expanded facility - Page 2 309141_423313561047949_12922120_n

2seaoat



So you need 51,000 square feet to have 25 adults and children listen to readings? I have seen where 3,000 square foot libraries have done a very good job of the same......there is absolutely no justification for the size of these buildings being built nationwide. If it was just Pensacola, it would not be a problem. This monstrosity scale of building libraries is a nationwide over the last 20 years which tracks with the rise of the digital age.....almost laughable in that public meeting rooms now become necessary when the community has handfuls of quite good places for meetings......what it does not have a need for is building expensive shells for storage of never used dusty books, when the world in available in unlimited form in the digital age.

This is a huge fail.

2seaoat



I am sorry.......18 people. The meeting room and reading areas at the Navarre library are quite adequate.....at 1/20th the scale......but heck ask the kids on the north end of Escambia if mom and dad drive them down to this monstrosity......nope......and tell me what they did with some of the hours of operation with other branch libraries since the cut backs?

Huge fail.

2seaoat



also note.....the book title is NO GO SLEEP.....and a mom is taking advantage of the same in this photo......and gosh....lets tell the truth......this is a dumping ground for parents to run a few errands as you note hardly any parents sharing in this reading time. Thousands of kids during this same period are playing video games unsupervised, watching tv, and not getting a bit of benefit from the resources poured down the rabbit hole of Public employee arrogance that justifies their existence by BIG instead of a shift in the paradigm to the digital world.


Big fail.

Guest


Guest

LOL That is a branch library. Just part of they system you seem to hate. Grand opening is today for the BIG one. I will have a big smile on my face as I tour the facility. I might not have went until I saw how bad you dislike it. All is good. Leaving in a few minutes to see the "fail". PS How much is just One kid worth?

Guest


Guest

..this is a dumping ground for parents to run a few errands as you note hardly any parents sharing in this reading time


More Kids "Dumped" at great expense to the tax payer. Shame Shame Downtown Pensacola Library staff ready for grand-opening of expanded facility - Page 2 18197_463370557042249_403254162_n
Day Care Story Time members at WFPL's Southwest Branch Library were given a copy of "Mouse Mischief" by Bronwen Ross and each little one read the book as a group.

Gotta love little readers

Guest


Guest

If you look close in the background you will see those are DVDs and Audio CDs, not books...................

2seaoat



Day care story tellers........51,000 square feet......how about half that size, and pay for maybe a thousand families having free day care.....but no....brick and mortar.....dusty unused books to fill space, while portals to a world of information are mishandled and not made available at the scale necessary to bring early learning opportunities to children throughout communities.....this problem is not unique to Pensacola.

Big fail.

Yella

Yella

I read quite a bit and go to the library often. My first reaction as I parked was that it must have been designed by the same [person that designed DeLuna Park since both places have limited parking but huge areas of grass and shrubbery which must be attended to by someone.

As soon as I walked in and found myself in a huge foyer with thirty foot ceilings complete with a large rock garden and a wide sweeping staircase to the next floor I became even more disgusted by the lack of planning. There is an elevator that everyone uses. No one climbs the stairs. This to me is a huge mistake since the foyer will be expensive to heat and cool. Maybe the designer thought it was all about esthetics but I just don't see it. I see a waste of taxpayer dollars.

The rest of the library is excellent and is a beautiful asset to all of us.

http://warpedinblue,blogspot.com/

2seaoat



This to me is a huge mistake since the foyer will be expensive to heat and cool.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07Uo8Yu0dxI

Everybody is mad that I would attack this library, but do you realize that this monster facility is going to add approximately 200k additional expense every year, and budget 2013 the entire system is facing a 750k short fall in the budget because the county and the city are facing medicaid costs and the result is that the entire library system is going to be decreasing hours by 1/3......so this big brick and mortar monstrosity is spewing dollars down the rabbit hole of waste and kids county wise are having access slashed by 33%.

A small and cost efficient library which utilized digital books and more computer access would have reached children......the effect of this monstrosity is 1/3 less access to children.

Oh great....they have a coffee shop.....just wonderful for adjacent private sector business to compete with a subsidy ridden competitor who happens to be the library.......and they actually go to budget meetings and brag about this possibly bringing in some more revenue.

Big fail

Floridatexan

Floridatexan

2seaoat wrote:This to me is a huge mistake since the foyer will be expensive to heat and cool.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07Uo8Yu0dxI

Everybody is mad that I would attack this library, but do you realize that this monster facility is going to add approximately 200k additional expense every year, and budget 2013 the entire system is facing a 750k short fall in the budget because the county and the city are facing medicaid costs and the result is that the entire library system is going to be decreasing hours by 1/3......so this big brick and mortar monstrosity is spewing dollars down the rabbit hole of waste and kids county wise are having access slashed by 33%.

A small and cost efficient library which utilized digital books and more computer access would have reached children......the effect of this monstrosity is 1/3 less access to children.

Oh great....they have a coffee shop.....just wonderful for adjacent private sector business to compete with a subsidy ridden competitor who happens to be the library.......and they actually go to budget meetings and brag about this possibly bringing in some more revenue.

Big fail

I use the library frequently and appreciate the new facility. However, I signed a petition recently to keep the Brownsville library open. Apparently some kids don't deserve library services. I can remember my mom taking me and my brothers and sisters to the library from a very early age. I wouldn't trade those experiences. And I tend to meet people I wouldn't ordinarily come across. Libraries are much more than repositories for books.

Guest


Guest

Wow!!! What a nice place. A real Ego boost for me. I got invited to talk with some of the staff about the Old Library at Christ Church. Got interviewed by Channel 3. Watch the news tonight I may be in it. I thought of Seaoats while I was speaking so I was sure to say than some people call it a "" Monstrosity" LOL. It was really neat to be around so many people that have the best interest of the area in their plans.
A first class operation. I am very proud of Pensacola and Escambia co. I was able to say that in person to 4 of the country commissioners and many others. A great day for Pensacola............

My Bicycle First in the Rack woot woot

Downtown Pensacola Library staff ready for grand-opening of expanded facility - Page 2 2agrqkj
Downtown Pensacola Library staff ready for grand-opening of expanded facility - Page 2 6husxw
Downtown Pensacola Library staff ready for grand-opening of expanded facility - Page 2 29mkltw
Downtown Pensacola Library staff ready for grand-opening of expanded facility - Page 2 B7idl2

Guest


Guest

From the PNJ. Do ya see me? Hint.. Gray haired guy in the purplish shirt. LOL I am famous...
Downtown Pensacola Library staff ready for grand-opening of expanded facility - Page 2 Bilde?Site=DP&Date=20130111&Category=NEWS01&ArtNo=130111008&Ref=AR&MaxW=300&Border=0&Pensacola-Downtown-Library-celebrates-opening

Guest


Guest

I use the library frequently and appreciate the new facility. However, I signed a petition recently to keep the Brownsville library open. Apparently some kids don't deserve library services. I can remember my mom taking me and my brothers and sisters to the library from a very early age. I wouldn't trade those experiences. And I tend to meet people I wouldn't ordinarily come across. Libraries are much more than repositories for books.

Word is they will be moving that branch to Legion field. They are supposed to have already broken ground on the project. I will ride by a check it out in the next day or so.

Sponsored content



Back to top  Message [Page 2 of 4]

Go to page : Previous  1, 2, 3, 4  Next

Pensacola Discussion Forum » General Discussion » Downtown Pensacola Library staff ready for grand-opening of expanded facility

Permissions in this forum:
You cannot reply to topics in this forum