Broad Audit

The Central Library: circa 1996, mike

i remember going to the central library in virginia beach from my early school days pretty much until i graduated high school… my family was always one step behind on technology. when other kids had Nintendo i had the board game Othello. when other families had DVD players we had a VCR. so naturally when other families had computers and the internet, we had a typewriter and the public library. i swear to Jah, we had a fucking typewriter that i had to use. not that we were poor, just behind the times. so the central library was a HUGE tool in my education. it was clear on the opposite side of the city that we lived on. so it had to be serious to go out there, something that you couldn’t just look up in our set of encyclopedias. i LOVED going there… for 3 reasons.

1. Uncle Harry’s Ice Cream & Yogurt. it was the best ice cream shop in town and it was right next to the library, i wonder if it still there? i need to check into that. me and my life-long friend, Jamie, would seriously make up reasons that we’d have to go to the library just so we could go to Uncle Harry’s. true story.
2. one of the millions of times i was at the library, i met a girl… she was a 37 year old librarian named Cheryl… she was beautiful. i was prolly about 14, but believe me, it was something special. so i always loved going there just hoping that i’d have to check out a book and i was lucky enough to go through Cheryl’s line.
3. free music. i took home sooooo many tapes from that place. yes, tapes. when other familys had CD players, i had cassettes. anything from Genisis to Phil Collins to Brand X(phil collins’ lesser known band)… i was a kid, with no money and a love for music of all varieties and i took full advantage of their collection.

now it’s 2007 and i cant think of one single logical reason that a library should still exist… with soulseek, youtube and iTunes you can download any and all the phil collins your little heart desires. theres millions of free porn sites to satisfy your lust for librarians. and ice cream… well, i guess we still need ice cream. lets go to the library.

The Central Library: circa 2007, alicia
Like Mike, my youth experience with the central library revolved around the computer lab. Until by way of my 12-year-old-britpop-loving-nerd nagging, my family acquired a Packard Bell computer (It was beigy, and the modem would get fried by lightening every summer.) As a result, I hadn’t been to or thought much about the public library in over a decade – except to compare it to the bum filled rotten ass downtown Public Library of Richmond.

This week I needed quality reference photos for a calendar I am creating. It’s been a real hassle finding the high quality photography I am looking for online, so off to the Central Library I went – my notes:

1. There are not enough books, but, I mean I get that, digital age, etc. The shelves in places are 1/2 empty.
2. There is a coffee shop!
3. Self Check Out – like the grocery store, only you don’t even need to scan the books. I put my heap on the table and it knew how many and what books I had. This baffled me, must be something to do with magnets. I held up the line trying to figure out what the hell was going on and how it knew.
4. No “Due Back” stamps here, instead you get a receipt with a list of the books you’ve checked out and their individual due dates.
5. This place is so much more high-fi than the VCU library.
6. And, I didn’t even check out the music collection – here’s hoping for mp3 lending.