Sunday, August 23, 2009

Manifesto: Sonoma County Library Tour

Inspired by Michelle Panik's project 36 Libraries 36 Days, I've taken up the challange to visit each branch of the Sonoma County Library System and post a review of it. Although mine will be titled 13 Libraries 13 weeks, since I pretty much only have Saturdays for visits.

I've adopted her Book Mark system (1-4) in evaluating each library on these qualities:
Book Selection--variety and depth, the essential element of a good library
Seating--comfort is important in being able to lounge, read, do research
Staff--they can make or break a library
Ambiance & Architecture- once again, comfort and style encourages browsing and lingering.

A perfect score would be 16.

I'll include photos and note the book I check out --or books; I can never just check out one and with a week between visits? I'll have time to read. I think.

And in the spirit of solidarity with Michelle, I'll also note if I get lost, though I do seem to have the Locator Gene. I'm pretty good with directions and I'm really good at reading maps (I love them in fact--maybe I'll add Maps & Atlases to my review). Plus my first job when I moved to Sonoma County was tooling around the county for a real estate magazine taking pictures of houses and property for sale, so I've been on almost every road in the Sonoma County, except the newest ones. Since there are quite a few of those, the possibility does exist for "taking the scenic route". In fact, now that I've just jinxed myself, the odds have gone way up. Drat and dagnabbit.

and so the Tour and Challenge begins.

5 comments:

  1. How fun! I look forward to the reviews.

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  2. Kewl! When you are done with Sonoma Co. will you do a few Mendo libraries? Come up to Ukiah and we can go to lunch after the library (I hesitate to say you will not want to spend too long in ours ...)The Sonoma Co card works for Mendo too.

    Fun project -

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  3. sure! That would be no phun at all, Doris! Didn't know the card was so versatile, but I do remember getting books from Mendo through the ILL. Whether we library or not, I'd love to lunch with you...( I mime getting out our wrist calendars, a la Dick Tracy)

    ND...the first one is up; tell me what you think. I think it's a bit long. But then, that's me!

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  4. I was just in Sonoma County over the weekend! The Santa Rosa Library would be my ideal place to work, the Russian River Brewery is right across the street! I look forward to reading your posts!

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  5. neato! I'll be at the Santa Rosa library pretty soon, maybe two weeks? hmmm. that might be the weekend of the Sonoma County Book Festival. A good time to visit ... for readings and authors (heard Khaled Hosseini one year in the Santa Rosa Library) but not for the more normal library experience.
    well,I checked the site:
    http://www.socobookfest.org/
    it's on Sept 19th, so it's all good. And if you're in the County that weekend, it's a great place to be. Books, authors, poets, readings.

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Noise makers!