Brooklyn Public Library – Windsor Terrace Library

The children’s section is a lot better than the Ditmas Park one. Parents are conscious enough to put unwanted books back in the shelf’s and the sing a longs are great. Besides one bitchy librarian the rest of the staff seem fine. Overall, a clean and well run library.

It’s super convenient that I can order books from anywhere in the Brooklyn Public Library system and pick them up right here in the nabe. The hours are limited, and I’m obviously not the main target audience (lots of kids around mostly), but they’re clearly serving lots of people in the community. If I want a place to study, I go to the main branch. I appreciate this location for what it is. The librarians have always been helpful when I needed them.

I think that there is no control. Noise everywhere, it looks like a KG not a library.

Where do I start? Do I start with the noise level that’s louder than Grand Central when the kids get out of school from across the street, or the creepy guys that hang out there during the day to either take a nap or use the computers, or the women that work there that totally get a bug up their asses when you ask them for help or a question??? WHERE OR WHERE OR WHERE!!!

Kids corner with PCs for toddlers with great software. They also have several study desks, computer desks and PCs available. I’m not too familiar with the automated checkout, but there is always someone to assist.

Now this branch has the automated system where no clerks assist patrons check out and return. You use the self-​service system when in checking out items and return them through a drop hole in the wall where a clerk behind it scans them accordingly.
I always found this system quizzically primitive – and why the scanning manual laborers are hidden – while they seemed to boast the self check out as some miracle invention. Compared to NYPL and Queens system, however, even this self check out method’s accuracy is questionable; the system should require the card holder’s password at least for him/​her to access it, but this Brooklyn machine doesn’t. It does not even make sense when it comes to this regression of returning method; the service is now more backward than the previous stage of clerks’ scanning items (in front of you) as you returned, one by one. I wonder if they are kidding patrons by letting us count on nothing more than a hole in the wall or this is just a make-​shift for another transition – whatever toward something more reliable, because otherwise, how can we know the reason the scanning clerk is hidden from our sight? Isn’t it because they don’t want to be seen while they slack off? Queens now has the automated service that issues a receipt for each returned item, and some locations have it outside working ²⁴⁄₇. The reason that I am vigilant is because I can’t tell you more just dropping items in the hole does not mean they are checked in right back to the system; you can never get relaxed until it is reflected in your account.
A testimony; an item that I had returned was still listed in my check out account even after 24hours from my use of the hole in the wall. Since it was not supposed to take more than a couple of minutes – and they had no other means to return, no off hour slot, etc. – I found it unsettling. It was already the item’s due that day and I was doomed if it would not be processed in two hours. They close over the weekend; I would be fined. This was such a disaster that I called the branch to inquire on the item that I had dropped the previous day. After some investigation, a clerk found the title re-​shelved in the ready to check out lane without being processed for check-​in. Thus the item was database wise still ‘checked out’ by my name but it was physically back in their DVD shelf. Now I am too traumatized and scared of these people’s incompetence and unreliability. Good thing I was vigilant enough to track the item down and called but I am not sure how many patron possibly feel responsible for –or obsessed with – what they already returned as I did. Just a simple question: if they only have one drop hole to attend to with relatively less volume to handle – they have no off hour slot or patrons to assist as I already mentioned – how come this sort of error possibly occurs unless they are too dumb even to scan the items they are sitting all day for?
Added to it, this branch is famous for not having titles the data base claims they carry in shelves. Meaning? They can’t care less their performance as a branch in the system. Those people who sit behind the information desk are some unfortunate and deplorable cases in one way or another and you can’t expect any decent help from them. One major hazard of this automated system they brought in is a branch runs practically librarian-​less; those renovated and automated ones only have clerks. Even if th