This is a branch library in one of the poorer parts of an already depressed town, so they are wanting to use it as more of a free community activity center, and the community it’s in will need it.
The library is not gigantic. It was formerly a funeral home. But they did an amazing job fixing it up.
Some of the features this library has or will have soon:
- A test kitchen with restaurant-grade equipment.
- A workshop with a tool library for lending.
- A clean-up room featuring a washer, dryer and shower free for use.
- A playground and splash pad for kids.
- A huge patio deck for reading, relaxing or whatever else you might want to do.
- Just a pleasant place to hang out.
And, of course, the expected things like a children’s area, meeting rooms, a teen area, a small computer lab and a small collection of books and DVDs.
Before you start complaining about how “libraries don’t have books anymore!” The book stacks are still a 10-minute drive/bus ride away at the downtown branch. The books aren’t going anywhere. Libraries are more than just books. They are one of the few places the community can get all sorts of resources and a place to access them for free
We really need more wholesome stuff like this in Lemmy.
Congrats.
Is Terre Haute really that poor? Not what I’d expect from the hometown of one of our country’s most premier private technical colleges. Usually a college contributes quite a bit to the local economy, and that’s a fancy one.
Average household income is ~$40,000, which is about half the national average, and there’s a lot of joblessness, homelessness and substance abuse.
Rose-Hulman is a great school, but the school is outside of town and there’s no bus from there to town either, so they don’t go. We actually have three schools here- RHIT, Indiana State Univeristy and Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College. The students of all of them rarely leave campus. And I don’t blame them because in general, there’s fuck all for them to do.
It’s a pretty tiny school. Only around 2k students.
Oh, I see. That is really tiny.
Congratulations! I love seeing new libraries show up! I hope you don’t have to deal with authoritarian jackasses trying to ban books.
Thank you.
Wow… that’s gorgeous. A real community center…
The clean up area… Amazing.
Being dirty was one of my biggest fears when I was homeless. I felt like if I passed the point where I couldn’t clean myself anymore, it would just get so much worse from there.
One of the complains she hears all the time is about the “smelly homeless people” in the library. Well now a solution has been provided.
Of course, that meant that conservatives flocked to community meetings about it and complained about how it would bring more of them into the neighborhood.
One guy said, “I have them setting up tents in my back yard!” Did you try just asking them to go somewhere else, dude?
I think the core of the problem is the complainers just don’t want to see or be inconvenienced by “those people.” Even though “those people” would almost certainly not choose to live that way if they didn’t fall on hard times.
It’s an uncomfortable reminder that many of us are closer to being in that situation than we think, and it is easier to fall into that with the more social programs we cut.
That’s exactly what is. As long as they can’t see the homeless, they don’t exist.
My god the world needs people like your wife. Man. Tell her that I said she’s amazing.
Thanks, I read a bunch of comments to her this morning and I’ll read more to her when she gets home tonight.
I really wish Imgur didn’t block VPNs 🙁
I’m sure it’s lovely - congratulations!
No issues using Mullvad
I’m using Mullvad, too. I can almost never get a response from Imgur unless I hop exit nodes a bunch.
Hmm. Maybe it’s because I’m on mobile and it just redirects to the app
Mine redirects links to a third party OSS app (ImgurViewer), although out loads and shows embedded images directly. When neither the mobile app nor the external app work, I assume it’s the VPN. It could also be Imgur refusing to serve content to nonofficial apps.
If I hop around exit nodes across the country, or overseas, I can find a node where it works. It’s just usually not worth the effort.
Is that why I see that message instead?
Very cool. Seems like it has all the things many modern libraries should pivot to offering where possible.
That looks awesome!
A few tips, based on what has worked in our local libraries:
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A story-reading space where parents or caregivers can bring infants and toddlers to listen to books being read outloud. Librarians, parents, and volunteers take turns as book readers. Hugely popular. Absolutely packed them in. One branch even built a hand-painted replica of the “Goodnight Moon” set.
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A separate, private space for nursing mothers.
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If the budget allows it, a phone charging station.
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Space for common government forms. Applications for welfare, disability, voter, and tax forms. If you can get volunteers to help, even better.
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Was going to mention tools, but see you already have it. In ours, you can check out shovels, saws, wrench sets, gardening tools, etc, to take home for a few days. It got so popular they had to move into their own space.
We love our local libraries.
The government forms are genius
That’s already generally a thing in libraries, thankfully. I used to go to get them from the library occasionally when I ran a sole proprietorship business (i.e. I was the only employee) in the 2000s.
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That is AWESOME! You both must be so proud!
We sure are, thanks!
This is incredible and is going to be such a benefit to the community. Your wife is good people and the world truly needs more libraries and “third places” for everyone in a community to use and feel safe in regardless of their socioeconomic status or education or anything else.
Tell her thank you. Awesome job. Now can we put one of these in every town?
I didn’t understand what imgur had become before I clicked the link and briefly thought the library had lots of copies of Twisters in 4k.
How many people did it take to get this done? It looks fantastic for something that is just getting started.
A large number. Construction crews, architects, all kinds of stuff. The funeral home it used to be had to be gutted and remodeled. They had to do stuff like get rid of the embalming fluid smell in the basement. Plus all the permitting and stuff. She only told me a bit about it and because it’s been such an exhausting process, I haven’t really pressed her on details unless she offers them.
I do know that there was such a rush to get it open by yesterday that my wife was out doing things like spreading gravel with the maintenance people to get it done in time.
Well a hearty well done to everyone involved. And thank you for showing it to us. It is refreshing to see examples of people building up their community when the majority of news focuses on negative events.
