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Back in 2008, Downsview branch was my 50th library, a large and self-contained building with an enormous main floor and smaller basement level. As I entered the library, my head tilted back to appreciate the wealth of light and space above the shelves. It felt like inhabiting an extraordinarily spacious white tent.
As I paced the aisles, I noticed large Spanish, Italian, and French collections, as well as smaller ones in Gujurati, Hindi, Punjabi, Tamil, Vietnamese, Bengali, and Chinese. A group of teenage boys were playing cards in the magazine section while a much more sedate stuffed parrot supervised a display of books about the outdoors.
In the southwest corner of the main level was the children’s zone. It was defined by a low wall with a special entrance in the form of a tall red cylinder with a circular opening for a gate. Inside the gate, a librarian had posted lots of chicken jokes high on the walls, such as “Why did the turkey cross the road? Answer: To show he wasn’t chicken.”
When I finally returned to Downsview with my camera in 2012, the wall and portal had been removed during a mini-renovation. The chicken jokes were also absent, but the windows shimmered with a springtime scene that had been painted by the library’s youth group.
On my 2008 visit, I had to finish looking at the library quickly because it was almost four o’clock, and there was another branch to see before the Saturday closing time of five o’clock. Picking up the pace, I strode over to the staircase that led to the basement.
Just at the point where the landing curved to meet the first flight of steps, there was an open space between the landing and the set of windows spanning both floors. Two blue butterflies hung from the ceiling of the main floor in this open space, releasing strings that dangled all the way to the basement level. Paper cranes in red, pink, yellow, blue, and green clung to the two long strings, creating an origami cascade down to a book display of summer reading below. (Alas, the cranes were absent in 2012).
The basement level communicated a businesslike tone with its careers section, shelves of adult non-fiction, and extensive ESL and literacy collection. I selected a pronunciation book for one of my classes and scooted past long rows of dark green bookcases for a quick check-out. Thus endeth my fiftieth library encounter!
