Dear Washington DC public library:
Why do you continually thwart my efforts to take part in your services? Why are multiple locations closed down? Why are your hours few and incorrectly posted on your website (fixed now that I sent a note)? Why is CityCat down for hours at a time? Why don’t you have the obvious titles I’d like to check out, not only for pleasure, but for research for work? Why am I searching out accounts with Georgetown or GWU libraries? DC public library, we need to solve some problems. Let’s set up a call.
Sincerely,
tvol
I’ve heard pretty that the DC Public Libraries are in a pretty sad state, and that funding is a big part of the problem. It must be doubly hard to go from a public library system as totally awesome as the AADL to one so messed up.
You’ve probably already thought of this, but have you tried the Library of Congress? I hear they have everything.
I will look into it! I’m sure they probably do have everything. But, I doubt you can check things out there…more likely you can come look at items, under supervision, between the hours of 9:00am and 4:30pm.
Yes, as Molly mentioned, DC Public is definitely in some financial dire straits, as is the city itself. Actually, I think the library’s issues stem from the city’s, since it’s a municipal library.
They do have one thing going for them, though: Chief Librarian Ginnie Cooper. She used to direct the Multnomah County Library(/a> in Portland, which she helped make one of the best libraries in the country. I know she’s made some pretty good changes there at DCPL, but the wheels of bureaucracy sometimes turn slowly, especially in DC.
Sounds like you’re enjoying DC overall, though!