Park Branch Library

Nice quiet space to get some work done, they have big tables and lots of chairs plus a computer station. Clean and well-​kept, a lot better than some other libraries and not crowded at all when I went (around 1:30 on a Thursday). Most people are there to get work done (as was I), didn’t see a lot of people reading. Staff was a bit chatty on occasion which was a bit annoying since I was trying to work, but it wasn’t for very long. I didn’t take too long of a look at their books, but they seem to have a nice selection of various genres. They also have bathrooms that are big and clean. Located one street away from Haight so I could walk around there for food to take a break. Nicely lit, will definitely come back again to get some work done, a good energizing atmosphere.

I came here because Google told me, it would be a library with parking. No parking at all, only blocks far away.
I don’t like this library at all, MANY homeless people are sitting on the stairs. Moreover, inside are also weird and some smelly people.
It’s all in all a very small library, SF offers way better ones. The only good thing was the nice lady trying to find a specific book, which was unfortunately lost though.
Definitely not coming again…

Small,
Good light,
Open late on
Tuesday-​Wednesday,
And has single so so public bathroom.

It’s a small branch library in a homey neighborhood with sun-​dappled streets, conveniently located by Golden Gate Park. I love all the honey walnut wood inside the building; you couldn’t afford to build a public library like this in our generation.
Parking in this Upper Haight neighborhood can be very challenging so either be prepared to hunt — or walk and take a bus home which is our preferred way.
The library staff is solicitous and they’ll order any book you want from the Main Library or other branches; I saw a lot of books waiting for pick-​up. Selection at this small branch is limited.
That said, it has a decent children’s book selection, a very service-​oriented staff and a small children’s play area in the back of the library.

I like the Park Branch Library, though I think that’s more of a reflection of my liking the city’s library program than anything specific about this particular branch. I live closest to Park Branch, so I pretty regularly put books, DVDs, and CDs on hold there; it’s a great resource to have. There is a pretty decent selection of books at this branch, though it is a tad limited. (That’s why I put so much stuff on hold.)
There are some downsides. The employees range from polite and competent to completely rude and unhelpful. The homeless situation is not the most ideal thing in the world, but it’s understandable; libraries are a good, safe space, and though it can be a tad unpleasant at times, it’s not too bad in the grand scheme of things. All in all, I like this library, but beware the limited number of items and the few abrasive employees.

I *love* our Park branch of the SF Library! I love the convenient drop off box out front. I love that the ceiling is so beautifully painted — it’s always inspiring. My kids and I love the cozy children’s area, with its excellent selection of books and music.
The staff here is really super — they care a lot. For example, one of the staff members called our house yesterday to tell me that my kid had left his favorite baseball hat at the library and we could retrieve it at the Lost and Found. Where else in the City would anyone take the time to do that?! Thanks, whoever you were — that was super awesome and we appreciate it! The staff picks are always good, too, and I almost always leave here with something good that I wouldn’t have found if left to my own devices.
Some other reviewer complained about the homeless folks and/​or hippies who frequent the library. Um, really?! Have you noticed this is a PUBLIC library, not your own, personal living room or a private country club?! Give me a break. As reviewer Tony T said, «It’s a ‘Public’ library — deal with it.» No one has ever bothered either me or my kids here: on the contrary, I’ve only had safe and friendly interactions here.

The Park Side library branch sucks. There are other SF library branches to go to. Why this one suck is because you are greeted by some homeless people sitting on the stairs outside the library. Inside you see some hippies here that you should not side next to because many of them smell. Also the bathroom smells disgusting and nasty. The only thing I like about this library is that there is free wifi here and I also can find some really cool children’s DVDs. Try not to come to this SF branch if you can. Go to another branch.

Book return dropbox outside is convenient!

Not a fan of this library due to the homeless situation. You can’t really sit down because there’s either someone nearby that stinks or the seat you want to sit in stinks. It’s e closest thng to a branch of the Main Library a.k.a. Main Homeless Shelter.
This city has so many libraries that it’s easy to skip this one.

How can you not like any of the San Francisco library.
yes there are sometimes homeless people, but it’s a ‘Public’ library, deal with it.
I love browsing the video section to find random movies, pick up magazines and sit down for a hour to read.
Browse the staff picks and take leap of faith and try a book someone recommends.
I often walk out with 10 books. Love any of the local branches

Tuckey away behind Haight, this has become my local library. While I’m not keen on its limited hours (Tuesday and Wednesday being the only days the library is open later), I like the location and general look of the library.
Bonus: It’s equipped with self-​check out machines and the holds are kept out on the shelves. Maybe most of the libraries are like this, but when you’re used to the North Beach library, these all seem luxuries.

This library may be old and out of date, but it is getting a modern upgrade! Hopefully when it reopens people will find it a great space with everything you would expect from a modern library, but still contained in the original historic architecture. Task lights, ample outlets at the workstations, secure after-​hours book drops, rejuvenated finishes, better circulation, and on and on… This was made possible by our Bond money approved by voters. Yay for libraries and yay for us for holding onto what is important and improving it for the sake of the neighborhood!

i love libraries (well mainly that they are free and offer so much) so i’m not going to give it less than four stars. the building was nice and sunny and the librarians friendly. free wifi and all that, my complaint is that i didn’t see very many outlets. like i only saw one power strip? so that makes it not ideal for a work area, which surprised me. i’ll try the main branch next time.

I love the libes! Of course, this location is no main branch, but it’s quiet and cozy, and above all neighborly. We have recently been spending more time here since our little guy Dash is into books. They have a lot of lectures, storytellings for the little people, etc. throughout the year, and I’ve found the staff to be pretty helpful as well. Best of all, and this goes out to all you naysayers, it’s free.
You’ve also got to love a system that allows you to «order» books from other branches and have them delivered to your closest branch. I recently did that with Toby Barlow’s Sharp Teeth (fantastic, by the by), and they had it for me in 2 days. Beat that, Jeff Bezos!

Positives: Easy to get to from my house, friendly staff and easy check-​out process, especially if you request books ahead of time.
Negatives: Dirty and small, loiterers in and outside of the library, weird hours (not open on Sundays and every day has different hours).
I give it four stars because I use the Park Branch library a lot and I don’t want it to close.

So I have the misfortune of living exactly equidistant from two branches of the library (each a mile away), two Walgreenses (each about a half-​mile away), and two post offices (each about three-​quarters of a mile away). How amazing is that? I know there aren’t many post offices in the city, and the library branches are in pretty weird spots, but Walgreenses? There are like fifteen Walgreenses per square mile in the rest of the city. (And yes, Walgreenses is the appropriate plural form of Walgreens. That’ll teach them to omit the apostrophe.)
So back to the Park Branch of the library. It’s an old building that’s pretty different inside from what you expect from the outside. There are posters on the walls from various Haight Street festivals and other memorabilia from the Haight. It’s usually pretty empty.
To be honest, I’ve never browsed the stacks here because I usually do my browsing at the Main Library. I basically return all my library books here, and the only problem I’ve run into with that is that they’re not open every day, so one time I got charged an extra ten cents because my book wasn’t scanned in until a day later. Big deal. More money for the library is fine by me.
I’m really glad this place is on Page Street, which really is one of the Haight’s gems. Really close to Haight but also really quiet. I guess by writing a review here, I’m alerting more people to this place’s presence, but that’s OK too.

How strange that people seem to hate this library so. I love it. Why? Convenience first, of course, being an incredibly lazy person prone to wearing uncomfortable shoes, and this branch is right on my way home. Never take the Haight buses if you can take the N-​Judah, by the way.
Actually, no, stay off the N, it’s fucking crowded enough already and sometimes it stops for a really long time in the tunnel before Church and Duboce with the air off, giving me claustrophobic paranoid fears of running out of air and dying with the rest of these commuting suckers.
Still, it’s nice for me, and as I said, my way home takes me almost right to the library’s front doors, which is good, because then I can avoid walking on Haight at all, which is becoming less tolerable the longer I live here. One of the best things about the neighborhood, though, for non-​residents, is that Haight Street proper is really the only congested part — the surrounding streets are full of gorgeous old houses, it’s quiet, and people are pretty nice about letting you make faces at their children and/​or dogs.
The library contributes to this peacefulness, I think. It’s a very small branch, but one of the oldest, and recently renovated so you’re not afraid the ceiling is going to fall on you. No, the ceilings are high, in fact, and it’s well lit too, which as you may know is key for a place where reading is venerated.
I suppose if you are a browser, this may not be the branch for you; it really is small, although they do have a nice display of «books you should read before you die,» and the children’s section is large. However, browsing is also for suckers. What you do is, you take advantage of the systemwide «request» function. Say you’re me, and you edit a weekly book digest for a website (
), and you’re on a bimonthly new-​lit review mailing list, you come across a lot of interesting titles. As soon as you find a book that interests you, go to the library website (
), log in, find the book you want, request it, and choose the branch you want to fetch it at – usually the one closest you in, in my case, Park Branch.
Then in a little while, depending on processing time and previous requests &c., you will get an email telling you that «The material (s) you have requested are now at the library,» and then you have 10 days to go pick them up. It’s great and I love it. Of course, sometimes it takes so long to get a book that I’ve forgotten why I requested it in the first place, but I blame that on slow readers; the public school system failed you. My superior Montessori education and I have read 44 books this year, by the way, and that’s not counting all the junky, embarrassing ones that I don’t like to talk about. HEY I AM VERY FULL OF MYSELF.
Back to Park Branch: The librarians there are always polite, if a little bit weird. Yes it is strange that the older gentleman who’s always dressed in a button-​down shirt and a vest also has a mohawk; yes it is strange that another guy wears gloves and makes you take your own receipt. But, whatever. Librarians can be as eccentric as they like, because they do us a great service.
The Haight being rife with homeless dudes, there’re often a few of them taking a break in the library as well. The last time I was there, the children’s librarian spent a good 15 minutes helping a clearly crazy man find the genre of books he wanted (scifi, naturally), and no one got mad when he yelled a little bit. The other ones have been quiet; I shared a table with a dude whose face, hair, body and sack of personal belongings were all the same shade of grunge, and he was not rude or scary at all. We just sat at opposite ends of the table, me with my horrible, frightening book about how people turn evil, and him with a newspaper.
You know, I come from suburbs. Certainly not all-​white suburbs, but before moving to the city I’d never lived in a town with a population over 70,000. Homeless people still make me sad and scared and uncomfortable; I haven’t entirely learned to deal with it yet, so if the above paragraph comes off like «The homeless: Just like real people!» I apologize. I know they are real people, and I feel terrible that our society has failed them so horribly. That guilt makes me nervous around them. (I do work for a magazine that exclusively covers the affordable housing market, including many developments for the formerly homeless; I try.)
Ultimately, the Park Branch is just what I needed in a neighborhood library, and I’m happy to have it so near.

You know how sometimes when you walk around the Haight you run into insane people who talk to themselves really loudly and try to engage you in conversation when you’re clearly not interested in being bothered at the moment? Well… imagine those same people hanging out in a space that is supposed to be quiet and a type of haven from the outside world. Yeah. Not so good, right?
Really large children’s section here with dirty toys and stuffed animals. Gross.
UPDATE:
Apparently, some of the CDs that I returned in the book drop were swiped. Guess who is going to have to pay $ 20-​something for each disc? THIS SUCKER! During this whole nightmarish book debacle, the librarians at this branch have really been helpful and patient, though. I only wish that they had a camera in place outside to see who the thieving bastards are, though. I’m coming to the library to check out music … obviously I’m not one who wants/​can frickin’ PAY for it. Very disappointing.

I love libraries but…
I went to the library at Park Branch for my first library experience in SF and it made me miss libraries in my hometown– Toronto so much! The staff is horrible here and it ‘s very visible they are paid to be here. When I went to ask one of the librarians about a book, I was greeted with a sigh and a hint of annoyance. I don’t know. maybe she was having a bad day? I was feeling homesick that day, so this place perpetuated my feeling and made me not want to hang at this place. Sadly, this branch is very close to me, but I do not feel the welcome feel so I take my holds and run.

let me start by admitting i love the brary.
lately, i’ve been taking advantage of the wi-​fi and peace & quiet to do some work… recently, i thought, why not try a differnt one besides the monumental Main Library? wouldn’t the haight one be full of bliss and love and tranquility?
um, it’s a toddler paradise. ‘storytelling hour’ had escaped my mind decades ago. I completely forgot that this is little kids’ ‘happy hour.’ No drinks, but lots of smelly diapers and crying. (oh and lots of chairs sized for mini– me). All of this is perfect working conditions, no? What’s even better is the mix of the pseudo-​homeless/​down on their luck types who are visiting the brary for some reading materials (and quiet). They generally don’t exactly mix well with the kids. so then you get them yelling at the screaming kids and all of a sudden you are at a raging Tenderloin McDonald’s playground.
So much for peace and quiet. That being said, I’d go back to peruse the books/media…and the historic architecture of the place is in tact with great natural lighting. It’s not a place to study, but a place to take the kids. or maybe a place to visit before deciding you’re ready for them.