Nor is it my son’s library. The following generation will certainly benefit from Hamilton County’s Building the Next Generation Library project, but it is the one after that which seems poised to take advantage of the full range of library advances being made by the project. For a guy who once saw weekly bookmobile visits and encyclopedia yearbooks as state-of-the-art information access, what I saw Saturday at Symmes Township Branch Reopening was pretty mind-boggling.

The Symmes Township Branch is the one closest to where I live. It was closed and demolished about a year and a half ago so that a new building could be constructed on the site. During that period, this storefront was rented to provide physical access to the branch. Even though the temporary location was even closer to me than the permanent one, I was never inside. To be honest, I haven’t visited the library all that often, but I sure do appreciate it being there.

This is the new library building. I believe it is bigger than the old one, and they seem to have added quite a bit of parking, too. Maybe they bought more land. I’m not at all up on the details. When I arrived around noon, the parking lot was nearly full, but there were a few open spots, and people were coming and going regularly, which kept it in a steady state. Apparently, that had not always been the case because quite a few cars were parked at the nearby school with people walking over the grassy area between the school and library.

Here are some indicators that this is not a normal day at the library. Although it was not all that loud, Richard Goering was playing live. Additional entertainment was scheduled throughout the day. And refreshments were available in one of the side rooms. There was also a table filled with snacks, but the room was filled with people, so I skipped more photos. As I sipped some lemonade, I commented to a staff member that this blew a big hole in the “no food or drink” rule, and she replied, “Oh, we dropped that a long time ago. We trust people.”

I was familiar with the MakerSpace concept from the main library in downtown Cincinnati and knew that MakerSpaces had been established at a few of the branches. Now my branch has one. A MakerSpace contains various creative tools that patrons can use for just the cost of materials. These pictures show a photo printer, 3-D printer, flatbed scanner, and vinyl printer.

The place was really crowded, which made me reluctant to take many pictures inside, especially since children made up a major portion of the crowd. But I did grab one picture to show that lots of digital media is available in addition to rows of old-fashioned books with paper pages. And how about the cool outdoor reading room? The other exterior photo is an attempt to offer a glimpse of the children’s play area without actually showing the children

I think this Next Generation Library is going to be a hit — even for some whose generation is decidedly previous.