St Louis Public Library

One of my favorite buildings downtown, inside & out! You just don’t find quality craftsmanship like this anymore. The first time I came here, it took me a whole day just to scratch the surface of what this building has to offer!

Pretty great place to be! Unless you are illiterate. then you just kind of feel like the fat awkward dude at the gym. You wish you could do the same stuff but obviously you feel out of place and can’t help but feeling inadequate.
P. S. I apologize to all of the illiterate people that read this and were offended.

I love this library! The services provided are amazing, the collections are impressive and the building itself is a great piece of architecture.
I live downtown, so this is a great haven for me whenever I get a chance to go. It’s a very peaceful place and there are lots of spots to just sit and hang out. It’s true that there can be some homeless people loitering around but I have noticed that they mostly keep to themselves and do not bother the other patrons. The most important thing is that I always find what I need. I borrow a lot of books, both fiction and non-​fiction, as well as audio materials and I am impressed with how they keep their catalog up to date. They always have the newest and most popular materials. The issue with that is it may be unavailable so you have to place a hold. The positive thing about placing holds is that they can send it to the library location of your choice so when I’m feeling lazy I get materials sent to the Central Express location.
Overall, this is an awesome service to the residents of Saint Louis and a must see in downtown. The services just keep getting better and better and it seems that every year they have only been adding and improving on all of their programs. I hope that as the years go by more people will be taking advantage of this wondeful place.

This library has been newly renovated and is beautiful!
The employees are really helpful and took their time helping me get set up. I didn’t try the café on first floor, but it looks like they serve smoothies, salads, wraps, and other bites. There’s even a recording studio you can reserve, which is unique.
If you have a library card, you get $ 30 worth of free printing a month!

Very nice and helpful workers at the front desk. I had no problems whatsoever signing up for a Library Card/​Account. And on another visit, I learned about the free wireless printing (200 pages/​month) that comes as a privilege to account holders. Too cool!

The online systems are fantastic — order, renew, keep a reading list. I can check out online books on my phone using Overdrive. Based on personal experience, books are more readily available in St Louis and I can keep them longer due to no wait lists verus in Cincinnati and in NYC (two top-​rated US library systems). Beverly at the Central Express location is FANTASTIC. Makes me laugh. But SHHHhhhh… it is the library, after all.

Two girlfriends and I went for a FREE docent-​led tour of the renovated library.
Tours are conducted every Monday and Saturday at 11 a.m., noon and 1 p.m.
There is a FREE large parking lot designated for library visitors at Olive and 15^th Street.
You just need to stop at the front desk on your way out of the library to get a token to put in the box to make the gate go up so you can exit the parking lot.
The tour lasts about an hour, and you are taken through the entire library. Our guide, Penny, was full of anecdotes and «fun facts» about the original library constructed in 1912, and interesting discoveries and dilemmas encountered during the renovation.
Throughout the hallways, there are many old photos of the original library and its patrons, including much history about the initial building of the library photographically captured by a female photojournalist — quite the unusual in the early 1900s.
The library was originally built in Italian Renaissance architecture (
), and the renovation has held true to that. Based on what Penny told us, they went to incredible lengths to renovate the library to its original grandeur.
There are a lot of resources in this beautiful building, including a St. Louis Room that has so many specific details about the origin of the city and its residents, including maps created during hot air balloon trips.
And there is still a card catalog!

I took a friend from out of town to the Central Library just so we could ooh and ahh at the architecture and the redesign of the place (we were not disappointed, it’s beautiful). I ended up asking two art history librarians a random question about one of my favorite artists, and next thing I know, they are bending over backwards and doing a million searches trying to find me every book available… awesome.
If you don’t mind the smell of an occasional vagrant (there is a homeless shelter down the street), it’d be an awesome place to study. People at the front desk will apparently validate your parking for a lot one block west of the library, although the gate was open when I visited, so I’ve never tried this.
Lastly, my little secret… the St. Louis Libraries now have mobile printing, so you can send stuff to the printers from your laptop 24 hours in advance without having to make a computer reservation! It’s been a godsend for me this semester, although some of my print jobs have come out garbled in computer gobbledegook, which I’m assuming was a glitch in their system.

Gorgeous.
Huge selection.
Generally free of riff-​raff and loud people.
Awesome spaces to relax and read/​study/​etc.
Relatively polite and helpful staff.
The one thing that bugs me about the place: the rooms. By that I mean, the library is freakin’ GIGANTIC and on top of that, it’s cut up into a bunch of rooms, with a set number of dewey decimal numerals in each room.
And unless I’ve managed to miss it each and every single time I’ve been to this branch, there is NO place in the library that tells you which dewey decimal numbers are in which rooms. On one hand, it was pretty simple for me to figure out that the 200s and 300s where I spend most of my time (social sciences/​religion/​politics, basically) would be in the social sciences room. Duh.
But who would think to look for cookbooks in (if I remember right) the science and technology room? Or am I just a ‘lil slow?
Normally I’d be the kind of person to not want to look like a dumb ass, and just find stuff myself. However, this place is like…30,000 square feet, at least, filled with a bunch of staircases (some leading only to one or two rooms), tons of rooms to hunt around in, and then heaps of book cases to shuffle through before you can determine whether or not you’ve found the right room finally.
If you’re the kind of person that likes to bounce around and look at a ton of different things at the library, the librarians will get sick of you asking, «I don’t mean to disrupt, but can you tell me which room the 900s would be in? What about the cookbooks? What is the ‘stacks,’ anyway – half of the books I want are located there, so where is that?» etc.
I love this place. Really. But I’ve never been to a library with such a weird set-​up, and I would think it’d be seriously helpful if they’d post the dewey decimal range for each room on the directories, instead of just giving each room a name and leaving you to guess.

Gorgeous. Awe-​inspiring. Amazing. This library is my happy place and I am so glad I work across the street so I can run over several times a week to pick up books. The librarians are always available and eager to help patrons find what they need. There are numerous special events in the auditorium (former coal storage basement). It’s been updated to be completely modern and tech-​savvy.
On a sad note, the number of St. Louisans I run in to who’ve NEVER been here depresses me. Get here, people. You are missing out on one of the best places in the entire metro!

Thank you St. Louis!
Oh Happy Day! Walking through the renovated gem that is the Central Library I was mouth agape the whole time. From the floors to the ceilings, from the art that was chosen to the color palate, this building is beyond gorgeous– plus it houses my favorite thing ever– books!
Give yourself an hour at least to really walk through the spaces. Talk to the friendly staff located in every room, they usually have some tidbit of trivia about the room and the architectural work behind it! They all have theme’s and repetitive tropes that connect them together as a whole– really well thought out and executed!
Have people visiting St. Louis– Take them here! One of the many free spots to walk downtown, it should be added to your list of tourist destinations! So proud of my city!

NEWB ALERT: I did not see this library pre-​renovation, so keep that in mind as you read my virginal impression.
The Books:
Really cool selection. This is a great library to just come in and browse. I bet you $ 10 (which is coincidentally the current balance of my library fines) you will not be able to walk out of here without checking out a book. Unless you have $ 10 in fines and don’t have $ 10. Which I do. And I don’t.
If there is a specific book you want, you know the best way to use the library system in St. Louis is to just go online, reserve the copy you want, and have them send it to your neighborhood branch.
The Building:
It is puuuuuurdy. I think they did a fairly good job of keeping it timeless. In 30 years, you will only say, «What the fuck, was this place built in 2013 or what!!!» like five times while walking through here. This place was very Tara Plantation meets medieval castle meets The Exorcism, if in the Exorcism Linda Blair was puking out marble instead of green slime.
My favorite part was the entrance on the Locust side of the building. I thought the water feature was really cool. The vertical pieces of stone had the names of famous books and works of literature engraved on them. In the water were excerpts from said works. I thought it was beautiful, cool, and inspiring. Its modernness blended well with the more classic fountains around the rest of the building.
Youth:
The youth section was legit. It was divided into two rooms. The kiddie side, which featured crazy, cozy furniture, bright murals with quotations from famous children’s books, and even a restroom with child-​sized toilets, was really inviting and fun. The other room was the teen room, which was super inspiring. Dream! Be! You got it, SLPL. I’m gonna go dream and be. This room was interesting not only because of the great selection of books and details like a chess board, but also because it featured a giant TV where kids can check out controllers and play video games. I shit you not. The rest of the library was so quiet you could hear a mouse THINKING about farting. This room was filled with the annoying menu music from some guitar hero-​type game. I’m trying to be open-​minded, but I kinda just think kids should read at the library.
Other Stuff:
I liked that they had a theme going, which was «Wizard of Oz» and «tornadoes ARE going to kill you». I learned a lot. I also loved one of the rooms on the third floor with some giant pictures of the history of St. Louis, but the pictures lacked captions or dates, so we made them up. Which is how much of history is written, isn’t it? This library had a lot of rooms like «creative spaces» where you can do video editing and plug in your i-​whatever. Creative spaces = empty rooms. There seemed to be a lot of empty rooms in this place. In fact, it was the most empty library I’ve ever seen. They also had some weird collections, including one where you had to gain special permission to enter because it was a «controlled» room. I was too lazy to figure out what was so special in there.
Staff:
Fairly friendly and helpful. Some too helpful who wanted to stop and give us a five hour lecture about the composition and design of the ceiling of that particular room. Keep it moving.
My favorite parts were the little things, like the random art everywhere, and the quotes carved into the ceilings. I’m a sucker for shit like that.
As far as a space to get stuff done, meh. The labs and work spaces were really out in the open. I don’t like the modern, minimalistic feel of all that. Give me cozy, give me a fireplace, give me a dark corner in a library stack, give me a leather couch, give me a wooden desk.
This library is a great place to:
–Check out once so you can say you’ve been there.
–Browse around for interesting books if you’re bored.
–Hang out if you are a kid or a teen.
–Be creative, if you need a place to do so or be so.
–Maybe get work done, if you have to, and there’s nowhere else to go.

Back in ’98, I was at a writers’ conference where a dreamy-​eyed participant asked our instructor just how one goes about getting inspiration to write. Is it placing oneself before a window looking out on beautiful scenery? Is it the comfy afghan around the shoulders, or the warm cup of honeyed chamomile tea? Ina, who worked for Knight-​Ridder, replied, «Each week, I write three columns on deadline. If I don’t write, then I don’t eat. That’s my inspiration.» Well, I’m not a journalist, but my job involves writing on deadline. If I don’t write, then I won’t eat very long. Worse, If don’t write well, I may eat, but I’ll have indigestion caused by looks of disappointment or boredom.
Where to write? Offices don’t work. Too many interruptions. Notes on the door «Do not disturb» look pretentious. Holding calls or refusing walk-​in visits does not create goodwill. Home can work. But the phone rings, the dog wants out, the dishwasher needs loading, there’s laundry to do, and the grass is six inches tall. All these distractions are why, I believe, God and his agents on earth created libraries.
Today’s visit to STL PL Central, coulda shoulda been a 1500-​word session, but ended at about 600 words. Lots of kids in there today, and all that marble seemed to carry their happy voices to all levels. Lots of talking in the two spaces I tried, much of it by library staff. I’m pretty good at blocking out distractions when I need to get things done. But I don’t go to a library to block out distractions; I go to avoid them.
Still, it is a beautiful place, in its own magnificent marbley way. And I appreciate the diagonal parking spaces on Olive. It’s like pulling up to stately Wayne Manor, minus the Batmobile. Above all, STL PL Central served as the subject for this little diversion, which may be just the refreshment I need before turning back to the deadlines. Word 601, here we go.

My great library adventure!
The Central Library is pretty cool. It’s hard to get around how vast and beautiful this library truly is. However, it gets three stars for my first experience with the staff.
This all stems from a Poe documentary that was supposed to be sent to the Barr Branch. The people at Barr told me that I would receive a letter when it arrived. That letter never came. The time arrived, and I needed the doc. Therefore, I got on the SLPL website to find out where my video was.
It was still at the Central Library. I wandered downtown to see why my video never made the two mile trek to Barr. The security pointed me where I needed to go. I ended up next to the computer lab. I asked the clerk where the Stacks department was, and she told me that I wasn’t allowed in Stacks. She handed me a phone to talk to whoever was in charge there. He seemed pretty annoyed by my request and quickly put me on hold. After several minutes, he returned and directed me to another department.
The third clerk was a little more helpful, and he ended up talking to the Stacks guy anyway. He told me that they would contact me when they found my video. Luckily, I stumbled onto the music section and got to browse their large selection of popular music. Meanwhile, I could hear the clerk in that department talking to somebody on the phone about my video.
A few minutes later, the Stacks worker arrived with three different movies. Apparently, he had set aside my film to be sent to Barr, and it ended up somewhere in limbo. Nevertheless, I finally had my Poe documentary.
I’ll probably just drive downtown the next time I need something from Central, instead of assuming the system would actually work.

Spectacular, beautifully detailed and ornate
We checked out the new library (opened in December maybe?) for no other reason but to check out the architecture and renovation. We wuz awestruck the whole time and meandered through the whole place for an hour. There’s plenty of space to study or work quietly, and I spied at least 15 library workers throughout.
The kids floor is so cool, lotsa colors, artwork, places to lounge
They’ve also got a huge meeting room downstairs that can accommodate groups working on projects. It’s got a cool touch screen thing the size of the table.
Worth a trip, even if you don’t pick anything up.

Books and a Beautiful Building, who can ask for anything more.
The Grand Hall is absolutely gorgeous and I enjoyed the displays of local history.
They had the bell from the KMOV-​TV show Cookie & The Captain, which I got to ring when my Cub Scout Troop were the audience for one of the shows. Oh, the flashback of memories.
Great quiet spaces to study and do work projects, with an endless amount of references available at your fingertips. If you need a computer, they have that too.
If I lived downtown, I’d be a regular here and perhaps the Duke.

This is a beautiful space. I was never there before the renovation, but post-​renovation I can say it is gorgeous! The windows and wood work are impressive.
That said, it is a terrible place to study or work. I am a graduate student and was counting down the days for the library to reopen. I’ve tried (and failed) to study there 5 times. I’ve gone in the morning, afternoon, and evening. I have tried every wing and room. Every time, I am interrupted by staff members speaking loudly to each other or to visitors.
The library staff is oriented more towards informing tourists about the renovation and the history of the building than ensuring a quiet place for patrons to read or study. Also, there is not a single comfortable chair to be found other than in the young adult room which is off limits to adults.
It’s a sad day when coffee shops provide a quieter and more respectful place for study than a LIBRARY! Maybe once tourists stop trickling in, the library will become a decent place to work. As of now, it’s just a pretty building.

This is the best-​looking library in the entire city library system. The two-​year renovation and expansion of what already was a beautiful building has served the old dame well.
I recently toured Central Library with a docent-​led group. These tours happened just about every hour on January weekends, but call to see if the library still offers them when you want to visit. Our docent was incredibly knowledgable about the library’s history and the work that went into the renovation. She pointed out so many of the building’s design intricacies that I wish I had been taking notes. She was a volunteer, but golly, you’d think she was highly paid staff. I wanted to tip her afterwards, but it was clear that would have been odd.
I’m still getting the lay of the land on my own. The Grand Hall is a beautiful area on the main floor where you can plug a laptop into an outletted table. It gets a little noisy here, though, simply because you can hear the nearby doors echo through the cavernous chamber.
The lower level contains my favorite areas — the ones for teens and children. I’m not a creep or anything, I simply love the modern design that doesn’t condescend to either age range. The children’s area features murals and quotes from beloved books like «Madeleine,» «Where the Sidewalk Ends,» «Winnie the Pooh» and more. The teen/​young adult area boasts a gorgeous, inspiring wall of text and color, along with some modern room dividers. Both areas include furniture that encourages lounging with good reads. It’s just so damn inviting down here.
There are plenty of renovated wings and niche areas to the library — geneology, St. Louis history, science, media and more. The library also has been updated with modern meeting spaces. You can hold classes, presentations, networking events and more here now, and you’ll have all the tech you could possibly need.
This gorgeous library that’s just two blocks from my home has Sunday hours, which is extremely useful. Many areas of the library are closed off on Sunday, though, so finding a viable laptop space is a little tricky.
So why four stars instead of five? I’m still getting the hang of this place, and it’s a little intimidating. While there are signs outside each of the niche rooms, it’s not easy finding signs to guide you to wherever you’re going. Also, I’m leery of the printing system. I assume that printing documents is a nightmare here like it is at the other branches (with so many steps, no online procedural help, not-​so-​knowledgeable tech leaders, etc.), but I haven’t done it yet. I’ll let you know how that pans out.
Overall, though, this is a gorgeous gem of an institution. I wish it were on a more trafficked street to pick up additional walk-​in and tourist traffic. I feel so cosmopolitan when I visit.

The Central Branch of the STL public library re-​opened in December 2012 after being closed for over a year.
I came here last week to see what kind of renovation you get for $ 70 Million. Well, it’s pretty impressive. Anyone with an interest in historic architecture will want to see what they’ve done to the place. Much of the enjoyment comes from looking up — all the ceilings have been restored to their original glory and they are impressive. The huge stained glass windows that adorn the staircases beside the Grand Hall are also just gorgeous. The modern lighted shelves are also very cool.
The Grand Hall is breathtakingly beautiful — one of the most impressive rooms in St. Louis. My favorite spot, though, was the St. Louis room, which has about 20 very unique historical photos around the room. Be sure and get a printed guide that describes each picture (ask the librarian — they are in a rack in the middle of the room). I could probably go back to this room and hang out for hours looking over some of the hundreds of books that tell the city’s story. I love this kind of stuff.
Anyway, the restoration is amazing, outside and in. It’s a must see for locals, but also worth a stop for tourists. One of the library docents told me there are several tours daily of the building (on the hour, mid-​day as I recall). I’ll definitely be back.

Let me tell you how much I love the library… yet again.
One of my books was due today. I tried to renew it online, but there was a hold on it, meaning that someone wanted to borrow it too. So I checked the online catalog and found out that there were four other copies of this book that that someone could borrow instead of my copy. Instead of getting off my lazy ass to return this book and put a hold on another copy for them to send over, I called up the branch to ask if they could renew my book and send another copy for that other someone. They told me to call the main branch and ask for customer service.
So customer service placed me on hold for three minutes, worked some magic, and now my book is again renewed while the hold is being fulfilled by one of the other books. He also was like, «Who did you talk to at the branch? Because they could have done that too. And tell them next time to call us themselves… because that’s what they’re there for.» Aw. I don’t mind talking to you though… because you are super helpful and had great answers for me. I love people who know what they’re doing.
I wish I could say it was a lusty novella that I was renewing, but no, it was just a gardening book. Needless to say, if I ever find myself writing a lusty novella myself, the St. Louis Public Library will play a prominent role in it.