Traverwood Branch to be Closed August 20-27

You just had this done and now you have to do it again because it was done wrong the first time. Words fail me. You take bows all the time on what a great library you are. Well, if this is a great library, I'd hate to see a bad one. You can't do the simplest damn thing right. You screw up everything you touch. You haven't even got the lables on the ends of the shelves so we can find what book we are looking for yet and you're messing around with the floor??.......Instead of wasting who knows how much money on the floors, you could have put the money to use on....oh, I don't know....bubble wrap so we could still get MeLs. Your incompetence is just mindboggling.
It is obvious to anyone with half a brain that no matter what you say, everything is done at your convenience. It would have been wonderful to have the book return in the garage right next to the road so people wouldn't have to get out of their cars to return items but, that wouldn't have been as easy for you, would it? You say you have our best interests at heart but, it's clear all you care about is the bottom line and doing as little work as possible. Now we have this disaster you jokingly refer to as a web site. One doesn't know whether to laugh or cry. Honestly, try....just try to do something right....Anything....I'm not picky, I'll take anything.

Josie and AADL staff, good luck with the re-finishing and adjustments for the week at Traverwood. Hopefully, things will settle down for all of you after this trying week. The new catalog seems fine (Firefox, DSL via landline), and I'm looking forward to exploring it a bit more. Your hard work on the physical and electronic facilities is appreciated.

Good morning
I would like to say that I do love the Traverwood Library.It means I do love the excellent service that this Library provides to everybody.And it is a very beautiful and comfortable buiding.I really enjoyed to be there almost every day.Thank you very much and i will wait patiently for reopening of Library again.

In my experience, accusations of incompetence most frequently come from those least qualified to speak on the subject at hand. In the meantime, I look forward to Traverwood's return! It has always been my favorite branch, and I've never seen or experienced anything but courtesy and professionalism from every employee encountered there. I also appreciate that efforts have been made to make holds available downtown (my only concern!). Thanks for the service, and I look forward to using this branch again soon.

David Cahill's comments are spot on, but they do raise an interesting question or two: What were the perceived benefits and risks of using wood?; Could we have some further explanation about his comment that the TWood branch came close to not opening on time dut to problems 'fabricating the wood structure' ?

I know that reusing the wood from the trees cleared to make room for the branch was an integral part of the planning for the branch, but is it possible that we, i.e. community and the library board, allowed form to trump function in this case ?

Amen, btw, to the several comments complimenting the staff and the system.

Steve Hendel

Regarding the comment by "messa".

As someone stated in another post, such uncalled for personal attacks usually come from people who are the least qualified to critique how the library is administered..
I am disabled, and use the Traverwood and the Main Branch multiple times every week, and I havent encountered any of the "incompetence" and the other alleged problems "messa" seems to be complaining about.

And if "messa" dislikes the Traverwood Library and the AADL system so much, I guess he/she should be encouraged to take his/her custom elsewhere. I daresay that he/she wont find a better library system.

While I think it's a shame that it was done wrong the first time around (and I'm sure that it happened to be the 2 most humid days of this summer didn't help), I think for the most part the library DOES do things well.

I'm an employee and frankly, I'm glad I am. I feel our administrators, for the most part, do an excellent job with our budget and the tax dollars of the patrons. I'm certainly glad I'm working for an organization that knows how to plan for a rainy day and for the mistakes that will be made simply because we're all human. I'm thankful that because of that planning and the general overall fiscal responsibility, I don't have to worry about being laid off in these troubling economic times.

I also happen to like the fact that my employer takes my safety into consideration as well. Would it be more convenient for dropboxes to be where patrons can pull up and not get out of their cars to throw stuff in? Absolutely, but it wouldn't be as safe for those who have to retrieve those dropboxes multiple times a day, particularly in the winter with the snow and ice on the sidewalks.

Yet, there are a lot of other ways AADL makes things convenient for their patrons. We print the lists to pull holds twice a day and have two deliveries a day during the week to try and get the holds to people as quickly as possible while still being efficient about it. And how many other library systems out there have the pick-up lockers like Malletts and Pittsfield just in case you can't get to the branch for your holds before we close?

As far as MeLCat items go, would it be nice to still get the A/V materials? Yes, sure it would. I used to get the A/V materials as much as anyone else. But, I'm grateful that our administration took into consideration not only the cost of things like the bubble wrap to wrap each item in and the labor to do it, but also things like how much wear and tear on our materials it would cause, how many of our materials would then end up being out on MeL loan at any given time, making them not available for our own patrons, and other factors as well.

So all in all, when you look at the big picture, I think our library DOES do things well, from the viewpoint of both an employee and as a patron since I was a patron before I was an employee. Sure, there are ways we can improve and things we can do better, but for the most part, this is definitely one of the best library systems I've ever seen.

Josie, you said the side book return slots were going to be open. So I assumed that meant that I could return library items and that they will be checked in. As such, I did return several items yesterday that were due yesterday early in the day. My account still shows that they are checked out. I hope I do not get charged for them.
Thanks.