The local library makes me feel very upset

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I just visited the local library. I moved here a few weeks ago. The thing is huge and ugly and cold, and waaaay too modern. it doesn't smell like a library. It feels all wrong. and I couldn't find any of the books I wanted, and it has this freaky new checkout system. It's only about a year old, and it feels evil.

I wound up having a meltdown, because my mother wasn't being very nice about the fact that I dislike the library. and I feel awful.


Does anyone else dislike modern libraries?

I think I know what you mean about the modern checkout system. A lot of libraries are switching to electronic checkout. At the library I used to work at, patrons got a receipt instead of getting the book stamped with the due date. A lot of people complained, but us library workers were powerless to do anything about it. All the decisions were made at the Central Library, and they had to answer to The City Of San Antonio. The mayor was the one who really had control over the libraries. Or the City Council, or whatever. The goal was just to make the libraries more financially efficient. I'm sure the new checkout system generated a lot more money in late fees, which went directly to The City Of San Antonio, not the libraries.

I avoid all libraries. My poor reading comprehension, makes reading anything more that a magazine article, very frustrating.

Hmm, maybe there are some different methods that I should try....

The library in Cold Lake, where I live, has spoiled me for all other libraries. It's beautiful, warm and roomy. You're hit with that wonderful library smell as soon as you walk in the hallway. There's a fire place and comfy chairs where you can read, and the librarians really like me. I love my library.

Growing up, the local library was like my second home because my mother was the "head librarian", which seemed like a big deal (in that time & place). I hung out there alot, and enjoyed hiding under tables & in back of book stacks. Of course, in the years since then, even that library has been changed a lot so it's probably no longer how I remember it being.

Now I live elsewhere, and while I'm glad there's library, it doesn't feel comfortable to me. It is old building, but it's too "open"-there's nowhere to hide/retreat/disappear. Huge window along the front checkout area, and the stacks don't recede far enough back to allow me to be far away from others-it's not "cozy" (psychologically safe). Am agoraphobic & don't like seeing people or being seen !

I don't really mind libaries, mainly because none of them are that modern where I live, and I don't mind libaries as long as they have books in them, and I order the books I really want from the internet.

I don't like the idea of being on a timer to read whatever it is you take out of the library... or the fact that hundreds of people have pawed the book before me.

...it's the bookstore for me!

I sympathize, our Library was 'modernized'. Which is to say it was 'uglified'.
It's all steel and concrete ! ! Gleaming stainless steel, and such.
Hideous ! !
It takes an architect to make a really ugly building, I know I couldn't.

I love my local library. I feel especially fortunate to be able to work there.

I don't go to the library for the one reason, that they're sending a collection agency after me for a lousy 40 bucks in late fees, I mean a collection agency I lost a book I didn't embezzle company funds or something( and the stupid payment keeps going up everytime I don't pay it last time I checked it was up to 60 dollars.)