Last Thursday I took the Broadview streetcar from downtown to Riverdale Library. Although I always enjoy visiting this wedge of historical architecture, last week I found its red-brick solidity an especially welcome contrast to the uneasy atmosphere leading up to the G-20 Summit.

Heavy wooden doors opened to the spaciousness of the lobby, inviting patrons to breathe freely. A soaring white ceiling, skylight, columns, and wide aisles all worked together to create a sense of freedom and possibility, exactly what a Georgian Revival edifice should convey! I felt my own spirits revive when I gazed at the skylight, and I sent a silent message of thanks skyward to Andrew Carnegie. As recorded in A Century of Service: Toronto Public Library 1883-1983, Carnegie provided the initial funding for this library and three others in 1903 (Penman, 16). Ultimately, he would finance ten TPL branches.

My window seat antennae led me to the northeast side of the library, where I found a wide curving bench. This lovely piece of reading furniture was an integral part of the children’s area, which also boasted a double-sided hearth and a Children’s Program Room with a matching window seat on the west wall. When I went inside this room, I found a puppet theatre and a leafless tree with a sign that read “Riverdale Tree: Do Not Remove.” (What was the story behind that stern note? Had dissident stagehands from a rival library been caught with the unwieldy object under their cloaks?)

Back in the main section of the kid’s wing, I noticed a substantial pirate ship on top of a central shelf and a Paddington Bear high overhead. Someone who was hopefully not a hostage-taker had taped Paddington to a wooden chair swing with a massive quantity of packing tape. Were staff concerned that the bear would fall onto the hapless heads of readers below? Lawsuits have sprouted over less, so it’s just as well that this bear is staying put in his lofty seat.

The central section of Riverdale contained a corner reserved for teens to flop on some pink and yellow cushions, a computer bay, and the magazine racks. Along the curved west wall, rows of tall shelves fanned out in a radial pattern. Following the curve to the southwest corner, I saw a sign which said “Quiet Community Room.” I opened the door and was surprised to find that it wasn’t quiet at all in there. About ten women were sitting at various tables with big thermoses and some snacks. When a couple of them gave me a half-smile which conveyed the question “What are you doing here?”, I realized that I was the one who had surprised them by disturbing their study break. I apologized to the teacher and retreated from what appeared to be an ESL class, judging from the vocabulary words written on the flip-chart.

To support the class and other learners, a strong ESL collection was only a thirty-second walk from the classroom. Vietnamese was represented, too, but the largest holdings were in Chinese. Multiple shelves offered Chinese fiction, non-fiction, DVD’s, and more.

From the multilingual collections, I moved further into the interior and sat down between two high shelves. With my head resting just below a classy wooden windowsill, I surveyed the materials available in my temporary domain: French dictionaries, self-help books, SAT preparation texts, mathematics books, and fashion guides. I enjoyed my bookish retreat for awhile, leafing through some sale magazines I’d bought and pausing to admire how vast the overhead space appeared from floor-level.

After my floor visit, I returned to the window seat to experience it in more depth. I took off my shoes, nestled against the wall where it formed a right angle with the seat, and rested my left arm on the upper ledge. It was the perfect place to journal about a recent trip to Missouri. I felt so fortunate to inhabit a quiet corner of this beautiful old library, enjoying the trees outside as well as the rumble of passing streetcars on Broadview Avenue. I also felt connected to the lucky Torontonians of a century ago who welcomed Riverdale Library into their lives.

Similar to Evelyn Gregory branch, Victoria Village Library fit right into its neighbourhood setting, taking its place among the generous number of trees along Sloane Avenue in Scarborough. With  pale green walls and leafy views from its high windows, Victoria Village’s interior was like a cheerful and well-stocked treehouse. Although built on a modest rise, I felt a generous sense of elevation when I looked out the big glass door in the west wall. From there, I could see high rise apartments in the distance and trees in the foreground between the library’s parking lot and that of a local school. Loads of fluffy clouds and blue sky further expanded the view.

When I turned towards the north wall, I noticed that the ceiling was lower over the Kids and Teen’s Section, creating a long and narrow space illuminated by more than a dozen high rectangular windows side by side. These windows served up a vision of mystical sky slices filled with leaves. More pragmatically, this part of the library contained ESL materials as well as offerings in French, Chinese, and Hindi.

In the Teen Zone, two homemade robot friends oversaw a busy study table from on top of a bookshelf. Both robots wore pie tins on their heads and had protruding egg-carton eyes taped to their aluminum faces. Large disposable baking tins provided their torsos, and their arms were foil-covered paper towel rolls with hands made from fuzzy silver pipe cleaners.

In the northeast corner of the kid’s section, a tired coyote rested its head on a bin of blocks. I wondered how he had ended up there and hoped it wasn’t a severe case of nausea. With his tongue hanging out and head tilted back, this poor coyote looked uncomfortable at best and sick at worst.

The rest of the main level consisted of a comfortable reading lounge and shelves of adult fiction and non-fiction. Though small, Victoria Village also boasted a downstairs community room. It was locked, but I was able to take a picture of a jolly puppet theatre from the hallway. Thanks to its north windows, the basement level was almost as sunny as the upper one.

I was reluctant to leave this restful branch, so I walked slowly around the north side of the building. There I discovered the tree responsible for filling the interior window panes so beautifully. With the setting sun pausing on its branches, it seemed the perfect image to close a blog post!

I’m blogging live from Kennedy/Eglinton branch with Joan, Raymon, and a few others.  I’ve been talking about my library blog and details like the window seats and tall grasses!

I’ve just asked the participants at today’s event what they like about the library. Joan likes the smell and the feel of books, the printed page. Raymon likes the resources such as the ProTech computer lab. He also likes the self check-out. One person liked the library’s friendly appearance and the helpful staff. The lady sitting behind him was amazed by the huge collections and size of North York Central Library. Finally, another participant has encouraged me to write a book!

I really enjoyed this opportunity to share my blog with Kennedy/Eglinton patrons. Thank you for inviting me!

In my library-blog enthusiasm, I started writing about Albert Campbell branch before I even left my vehicle. It was fun to prop my notebook on the Ontario Provincial Road Atlas, which in turn rested on the steering wheel, and write as the rain pelted the roof of the car and the six trees in front of it. A mesh fence was behind the trees, marking the boundary of a local school’s softball pitch and grassy field. I noticed a natural dirt path had been created by the feet of neighbours and schoolkids, marking a passage from the playground to the library. The footpath continued between the fence and the trees.

I listened to the rain for several more minutes and enjoyed the empty field bordered by trees, but I could no longer put off the mad wet scurry into the library. After I dashed through the lot to the lower back entrance, I briefly investigated the basement level. I discovered an auditorium humming in dimly-lit calm, where a yoga teacher was leading his group in a series of shoulder stretches.

Lowering my shoulders in sympathy, I returned to the lobby, which was papered with community information. Services included a team of Library Settlement Workers sponsored by CICS, with assistance offered in Bengali, Chinese, Tamil, and Urdu. These four languages were also represented in the multilingual collection, in addition to Greek, Italian, Kurdish, Persian, Spanish, Hindi, and Tagalog.

When I walked upstairs to the main lobby, a treasure trove of used books greeted me on two tables. By the time I finished my eager rummaging, I’d scored fourteen ESL and Adult Literacy books to give to my students. What a jackpot! Toting my selections, I spent about ten minutes admiring them on a  wonderfully fuzzy window bench. I liked how my latest reading perch was covered in tan carpet and enlivened by four potted plants.

As I further reacquainted myself with this branch, I remembered why I had been so taken with it the first time. Albert Campbell is like a giant educational 1970′s rumpus room with plenty of barrel and square shapes to add interest. I didn’t feel as if I had to be on my most proper behaviour here; I could even take part in a wild rumpus like the characters in Where the Wild Things Are. With so many carpeted surfaces and such wide aisles, nobody would get hurt when the rumpus escalated.

Increasing the playfulness, a lego platform effect was created by two sets of exposed staircases leading to the children’s section on the second level. The east and west sides of the platform had rounded tan carpeted ledges from which to observe the activity on the main floor. Too bad there weren’t any massive carpeted slides!

Unable to slide down to the main level, I contented myself with looking over the left side of the platform. From this vantage point, I beheld a pod of silent study carrels, tall shelves, and the crowns of patrons working at a double row of computers. I couldn’t see the Learning Centre, but I knew it was there directly below the platform. Then I crossed to the right side and noted the coat-hooks considerately placed at child-height on the inner side of the ledge. As I leaned against it, the check-out desk and newspaper lounge with its carpeted window perch came into view.

I found the decorations at Albert Campbell folksy and fun, from a small stone sculpture to the fanciful paper and cloth creations in the kid’s section. Four characters from The Wizard of Oz stood tall on top of a long bookshelf. On the north wall hung an enormous zodiac tapestry with paper images of scorpions, crabs, twins and so forth. (The bull looked somewhat dusty, but he was quite high up and difficult to reach). Not far from the Oz foursome, someone had propped four paper masks on top of individual high shelves. Their stern expressions seemed to say, “You better read your book or I’ll rustle my papery beak at you!”

After taking a few photos of the masks and a funky paper owl, I trotted down the east stairs. Then I settled into a private study carrel and constructed a pleasing study island with my bag of books, DVD’s, phone, and bottle of correction fluid. As I wrote in my journal, I could hear the tapping of keyboards, pages rustling, and the patient voice of a nearby math tutor three carrels to my right. It was the perfect place to spend a rainy Saturday morning.

When I finally left Albert Campbell, the rain had stopped. The sloping garden outside the main entrance looked especially fresh and rejuvenated, and I returned to my car with visions of irises dancing in my head.

I’ve visited McGregor Park Library numerous times, as I live near its Lawrence Avenue East and Birchmount location. However, my most recent trip to this branch was made with a blogger’s eye. (I like to carry a large plastic eyeball on a stick that I wave about in a technical manner). This way of experiencing a library requires activation of my detail-noticing antennae and a small notebook.

Before I entered the building, I spent a few minutes under the “cantilevered pedestrian canopy.” I really like this phrase, which I found in a website devoted to the City of Toronto’s Architecture and Urban Design Awards. In 2005, McGregor Park won Honourable Mention in the category of Building in Context for helping to “heal and mend a heavily stressed swatch of suburban fabric in Scarborough.” I had no idea my sample of suburban fabric was so stressed, but I am nevertheless glad for the successful 2004 reconstruction project which fused McGregor Park Library to a local community centre.

I advanced into the lobby, where I studied a display case to the right of the entrance. A colourful tapestry shouted SPRING in large quilted letters, and a purple and yellow butterfly hovered near some gardening books. Meanwhile, a purple bucket remained on standby for watering emergencies.

The seasonal theme continued in the children’s part of the library, where a librarian was helping a group of kids to decorate small flowerpots and fill them with real soil and seeds. It was a popular activity, and some kids waited more patiently than others for their gardening materials. One of the participants even went so far as to abandon the group altogether in favour of running and dancing on the wide window bench that wrapped itself around half of the large room. When I saw the windowseat, I understood the child’s choice. After all, the urge to jump on the windowseat was not a reflection of the merits of the flowerpot activity but rather a testimony to the irresistible appeal of high wooden expanses.

Even though they didn’t have flowerpots, the adults were equally happy to be in the library. Every last chair and table was spoken for, and the community room was also full. A film was in progress there as a supplement to the afternoon’s program: “The Aftermath of the Philippine Elections: Fiesta or Blues.” The Filipino connection to the local demographic was also reflected in the multilingual section, which offered Taglog as well as Tamil, Hindi, and Chinese.

After studying some of the beautiful scripts on the multilingual shelves, I looked up at the ceiling. I liked how it was higher and wider on the west side of the building, taking advantage of all the light pouring in from the walls of windows. The overhead space narrowed and lowered on the east side, sheltering the bookcases and tables there. The effect of the tapered ceiling was like being in the back of a scholarly cave, away from the wide sunny mouth of the opening. (For better or for worse, these are the kinds of analogies which flourish under the blogger’s eye treatment!)