This weekend the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh opened a satellite offfice in the "Strip District". The event was covered by print (the Post Gazette and Tribune Review) and television (WPXI and KDKA TV).
Here is the article featured on the front page of today's the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:
It's the size of some New York City apartments and smells like chocolate and lavender, but there was no mistaking that what bloomed near the entrance of the Public Market in the Strip District Friday morning was a library.
A shoebox branch, this experiment in outreach is the Carnegie Library system's first effort to bring a presence to the people where they gather. The initiative -- called "the library in your community neighborhood and school," or LYNCS -- is a partnership between the library system and the University of Pittsburgh.
Sarah Loudenslager, a master's student in library information sciences at Pitt, is a project manager at the micro-branch and was part of a team that spent February snagging Public Market shoppers to ask them what it should offer.
Besides its tiny browsing collection, it offers pretty much what any branch location offers. Whatever book you can't find you can reserve at this location for delivery to your local branch. You can apply for a library card and use the library's data base and the Internet.
You can even sit at a little table and read -- but here you can read while munching on slices of smoked duck, a Greek salad or pulled pork sandwich.
Molly Krichten, the LYNCS coordinator, said she relished the location "in the best smelling part of the market."
Flanked by a Sustenance Bakery and Third-Day Luxury Soaps, the market library is just inside the entrance on the right. It got pretty crowded at one point before noon yesterday, when Paula Taggart's almost-3-year-old Mary was doing laps around a display of craft books.
Ms. Taggart said that while some library branches have limited weekend hours, this one's Friday-Sunday schedule fills "a great need." The hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Friday; 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday.
Besides being handy for people who live and work in the Strip, she said, it could come in handy in all sorts of ways, say, to a tourist in the Strip who might want to print out his boarding pass back to St. Paul.
Several vendors said a library on the scene has exciting potential for them.
"It already has helped my business," said Cynthia Hill, owner of Third-Day Luxury Soaps. "Fridays are usually kind of slow and already" -- an hour after the grand opening at 10 a.m. -- "I've made a few dollars."
Business has been pretty good for Clarion River Organics, said Shauna Frantz-Deppe, the booth manager, "but I'm excited about the library and the mix of vendors that have come in. And soon, the farmers will be here with produce."
In the cafe area at noon yesterday, a group of librarians performed book reviews in opening-day ceremonies. The "30 books in 30 minutes" show is one of several special events planned for the weekend.
LeighAnne Vrabel held up the Alex Horne book, "Word Watching," and touted its lively contents on word play and word coinage: "If books were food," she said, "this would be a dry white wine."
From 9 to 11:30 a.m. today, the library has scheduled a drop-in storytelling session and Sunday from noon to 2 p.m., library staff will show visitors how to use an eReader and MP3 player with the library's downloadable services. If you don't have a gadget, you can use the library's.
The 235-square-foot space belies the scope of the project and the mission, said Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh spokeswoman Suzanne Thinnes.
"It was a lot of work to figure out how to be as comprehensive as possible in the space we have," she said. "It reminds me of what the Genie said in "Aladdin:" 'Phenomenal cosmic powers! Itty bitty living space.'
How exciting to see our hard work come to fruition...
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