Sunday, October 12, 2008

More Changes in the Largo Library

Here are some changes that are occurring in the library that you may be interested in. First, all of the St. Petersburg Times and New York Times microfilm that used to be located by the second floor reference desk are now located in the Genealogy Department. Since it turned out to be genealogy researchers who used that collection most, the change makes sense. On top of that, we will now have room to put out several years of the Florida State census that we have not had cabinet space for. It will take a few days for the film to be loaded in the cabinets, but the process is underway.

Second, the two CDRom cabinets that were stacked one on top of the other have now been unstacked. Because of that, the safety issue of the top cabinet falling over no longer exists. As a result, both cabinets are now kept unlocked and a genealogy consultant no longer has to provide the key to allow researchers have access to the resource.

Third, the old, large, hooded microfilm readers and the three old microfiche readers that were located in the back of the Genealogy Department have been removed. They were not being used any longer and have been replace with newer equipment. That area will be used for table space for researchers to spread out. That is a great improvement to my mind...and as proof, those tables were already being used by two researchers when I was working in the library today.

Last, most if not all of the office space behind desk in the second floor reference area (not the genealogy area, but the REFERENCE area) are going to be removed and the space will be turned into quite study areas...that probably means tables and chairs. That seems to me to be a good move since the staff is not using all that space, and we find more and more conflict for table space...even in genealogy.

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