Jessica's+Pics


 * These pictures were taken at two of my local libraries: the Angelo M. Iacoboni Library and the George Nye Jr. Library, both located in the city of Lakewood and both branches of the County of Los Angeles Public Library system.

|| There was a children's area in another section of the library, so I assumed this was the teen area since there were some books, comics and graphic novels that might appeal to teens in this area. There were no signs indicating that it was the teen area. ||
 * [[image:no_hours_(2).jpg width="320" height="456"]] || There weren't any hours posted outside the library. How is someone supposed to know when the library is open? If they don't have a computer at home, they would have to go to the library, get on the computer, and look at the library's website to see the hours, or ask someone who works in the library. This would only work if the library was open.

This leads to a related problem, here are the library's hours from the website:

Monday CLOSED Tuesday 10 - 8 Wednesday 10 - 8 Thursday 10 - 8 Friday 8 - 6 Saturday 8 - 6 Sunday CLOSED

I don't think it is acceptable for the library to be closed two days out of the week, especially on a Sunday. The library is usually busiest on the weekend, so it really doesn't make sense for it to be closed on Sundays. || In the fiction section, several of the books had stickers on the spine, indicating whether the book fell under the genre of romance, adventure, mystery, historical fiction, or another classification. I found these labels to be distracting. The library used to shelve all the mystery and science fiction books separately, but I think all the fiction books should be shelved together without these stickers. There were two large sections of the library that were completely closed to patrons. I'm not sure why these areas were closed, but they had large signs that said "Staff Only" and "Authorized Personnel only". I could see maybe a small area (maybe one or two rows) being closed, but there were at least 8-10 rows closed off. || ||
 * [[image:sideways_books_(2).jpg width="398" height="187"]] || Boooks were shelved sideways. If books were too tall, the shelves could always be re-adjusted. The way the books are shelved now does not facilitate browsing because you canot see the titles and authors on the book's spine and it does not make it easy to find the book you're looking for because the call number is not easy to see either. ||
 * [[image:no_gov_services_(2).jpg width="320" height="424"]] || Under this sign that said "government services, there was just a book cart, and the books had nothing to do with government services. I did find a government publications section somewhere else in the library. ||
 * [[image:empty_shelves_(2).jpg width="320" height="424"]] || Some of the shelves were either halfway empty or mostly empty. This was a problem throughout the library. They should re-organize their books to maximize shelf space and maybe combine shelves to get rid of empty ones. ||
 * [[image:completely_empty_shelves_(2).jpg width="320" height="424"]] || There were also some shelves that were completely empty. ||
 * [[image:johnny_carson_(2).jpg width="471" height="227"]] || [[image:jack_benny_(2).jpg width="408" height="230"]] ||
 * Outdated items like these video tapes of the Johnny Carson and Jack Benny shows are at least twenty years old and should be replaced with more current items that would be used more. ||  ||
 * [[image:mysterious_ms_(2).jpg width="475" height="223"]] || There was a whole section of books with a bright yellow M on the spine, without any indication of what the M stood for. I figured out that M was for mystery. ||
 * [[image:labels_2_(2).jpg width="471" height="300"]]