Little Village Branch

A warm winter day to visit the new (2011) library in the Little Village neighborhood on South Kedzie.  This library is spacious and bright inside, with a fairly large one story footprint with windows all around.  It is right next to a fire station that was also newly designed along with it.  Small local store fronts across and down the street at Cermak.

This is a gold LEED certified building, with an outdoor area of benches and plantings right outside.  They have a parking space for low energy use vehicles, and one for electric cars only.
This is the first library I have visited with Rahm Emanuel's name on the plaque in the doorway,  it's an end of an era of library expansion with the former Mayor Daley now out of office.

Library staff seemed laid back and relaxed, and I heard spanish being spoken by staff and patrons to one another.  Lots of spanish books and materials for check out, but the shelves are still not filled.
The new book section only had 5 or 6 books available.  The newer libraries seem to take a long time to fill in their collections.   This is the first I have seen of the new computer set up, with many available and most used by patrons.  I saw an accessible computer with a large specialized key board too.  Nice children's and teen section, seemed filled with kids reading and chatting.
Nice vibe here, and well used.