The grass is aways greener...

Given my voracious appetite for books in the vacations, amplified by my lack of a computer for the first week or so, I felt I better join the public library before I blew all my funds on literature. I visited the Central Library, a modern monolith of literature (pictures below), expecting to purchase a visitors card for the sum of $25, a bargain from my perspective given how much I might otherwise expend on books. The librarian however, upon recognising my address as being that of the university, kindly registered me as a visiting out of state student, so I was able to join for free! For the past 6 weeks I've been able to indulge myself with Pratchetts and Cornwells to my heart's content as well as a guide to help smooth my transition to Mac.
The library building itself is a truly splendid place.

It has a lovely airy reading hall with periodicals of every genre.

The Gates Theatre for author readings and presentations.

A huge fiction selection with an extensive catalogue to summon books from peripheral libraries with the click of a mouse.

Moving between the library's 10 floors requires the use of a variety of lurid escalators and stair cases

There is ample provision of IT facilities: parades of computers which you can reserve or just turn up and gamble on grabbing a free one. And plenty of desk space with power points and free WiFi for bringing your own machine (as many do). There was even a brilliant audio centre with free audio books and podcasts available to download direct to your personal media player via these terminals:

Above the fiction floors is the "reference spiral". This topographically confusing section contains all the reference works in a continuous room looping up several floors. Finding the required shelf, or even a stairway to the appropriate 'floor' was quite a challenge.

Unfortunately it seems all this comes at a price: due to budget cuts/limitations all the public libraries in Seattle are closed this week . For me this meant I had to return all my books at the weekend and I am left stretching out a solitary Asimov I picked up in a book store and a Private Eye I have been saving for a rainy day. In some ways it shows that while the recession may seem bad in the UK, at least for now we can afford to keep our libraries open, and I really hope it never comes to this!