St. Louis: March 16

Moving along to St. Louis - we visited the St. Louis Central Library, which is a Carnegie library. We visited the St. Louis room and Special Collections, Creative Experience & adjacent children's area, Adult Services, and ended at the café for a grilled cheese sandwich. Walking through the building is an experience in itself; the juxtaposition of the preserved carved and painted ceilings (funded in 1901; built shortly thereafter) with the vibrant and modern children's and adult fiction spaces is inspiring. In addition to the  learned about the Citizenship Corner, current services to incarcerated people, and their art and architecture areas and lecture series. 

After Central, we went out to the Meramec Valley Branch of the St. Louis County Library. We toured this new (2019) facility and learned about plans for the new Headquarters building - including their new Creative Lab. It will include an 800 person auditorium to seat attendants for their author series. We also learned about outreach services for preschoolers, the Sweet Reads program, which is like an ice cream truck (but with books!), homebound services, services for small businesses, and their GrandPad program. 
St. Louis Public and St. Louis County are merging their catalogs as I write this (March 17th) so we were lucky to be able to sneak in there before they shut their doors for some swift work today.