Clerkmanifesto goes to the library

 

I do try to add subject tags to my posts here. And looking into my statistics, I have now written 4,912 posts that include the tag "Libraries".

This sounds like the kind of confusingly exaggerated joke I occasionally make here, but I assure you, that is the number as I assume it is accurately reported in my blog statistics, with more than two thirds of my already copious missives from over 13 years of clerkmanifesto featuring libraries in some way.

And then I retired.

Libraries don't figure into clerkmanifesto quite so much anymore, though we have a long way to go before, say, "France" surpasses "Libraries" in the tags totals.

Nevertheless, I went to the library yesterday. A French library!

It's a slightly famous library because it has a giant head building that is currently the administrative offices for the library (and once was an active library that had shelves of books!). Here is a picture I took because I had a feeling you'd want to see that.

The path in front is the one heading to the entrance of the library. 

They have been doing updates and work on this library since we got here, and it just reopened. Years ago we went here and the entrance was far on the other side of the building/park, under a kind of fancy bridge/park complex that smells of pee and always had quite a few homeless people hanging about it. I think this is a universal library issue in the Western World, and I seriously suspect that more than half the motivation for moving the entire orientation of this library was to solve the unpleasant situation at the other entrance, which besides an everpresent homeless contingent, gloriously had a modern museum opposite it and stupidly ran a high traffic road through the center of it.

This new entrance is better; bright and sunny, and taking advantage of the elaborate gardens, paths, and parks that is functionally the library's roof. The downsides are that the entrance is now oriented away from the center of the city, and, as it is buried under a park, it is a little windowless and charmless inside the large library.

We didn't have a lot of time for this visit, which we snuck in while waiting for the bus to Eze, a medeival village nearby, which is a story for another time. My dear wife found the periodicals and a rather amazing looking ceramics magazine, while I checked out some very nice jazz albums and a rather tiny English Language section I would describe as vaguely random. We didn't have time to look into getting library cards or anything like that and went off in a bit of a hurry as our bus time precipitously approached.

Here are a few more pictures of the entrance area. I left them as is except for adding some cats, which improve them unreasonably. 

If you find yourself thinking "Hey, I've got to get to this library! It is the greatest thing I've ever seen!" that's mostly the cats.