Burnaby Public Library, Bob Prittie Metrotown Branch — Attraction in Burnaby

This is a huge place with poor management and terrible technology. My car broke down. I took pubic transport and explained to library staff that I had an important zoom meeting with a neurosurgeon regarding my brother. I asked for a private study room. They called the manageress Jarvis. She printed a list a facilities that were renting out conference rooms. I explained I only had one hour left and no car to move around. Rooms in that library were sitting unused but because of construction they would not allow anyone to open the rooms. I saw no construction inside those rooms. I was guided to the far corner of the library surrounded with people to hold my meeting. I connected to the WiFi but it kept getting disconnected. I ran for help and said the renowned neurosurgeon was waiting and I had connection problems. Jarvis was paged and she came and tried to help, without success. The internet had low bandwidth. I had turned off the video but even the audio wouldn't work. The Zoom kept getting disconnected with the wifi doing every 2 minutes. I was in disbelief. The meeting I had waited for so long just got wasted. This library is of standard that would make third world country leaders angry and yet it's sitting in the heart of Metrotown district in Canada. ...

My friends and I (a group of 7) decided to go to the burnaby public library to study for the final exam together. We kindly asked the lady at the front desk (with the bright orange hair) to book us a room. When we arrived to get our room, we were told that she had accidentally booked us for the smaller room with a maximum of 4 people. I looked next door and there was one guy sitting alone in a bigger room (max 10). So i knocked on the door once and waited. He came out and I explained the situation and the guy was very nice about it and was willing to switch rooms with us. The same lady that had booked us in for the wrong room came and aggresively yelled at us saying we can't switch rooms. We calmly explained to her the situation and she became hostile and more aggressive after the guy told her that it didn't matter to him and that we didn't bothered him. Seeing the situation is getting heated, we didn't want to stay anymore and said "ok, we'll leave now" and the lady raised her voice and said to us " don't play games with me". This was very unprofessional coming from a staff, we are very disappointed and won't be coming back...

I come here almost every day to study for my Law exam. One incident happened recently that really got me thinking, do the staff really need to be this up tight?. I needed to create a case-law formula sheet and I did not have any on me. I did not want to walk home 20 min each way to grab a piece of blank paper, so I asked one of the full-time staff members for a single sheet of printing paper and she said that she cant. I offered money and she declined. I get that its policy, and the paper is only for staff, but do you really need to be that uptight about it?. If I was repeatedly asking for paper or wasting paper, that's a different story. (I know she did the right thing, clap clap, but seriously though). Anyways... conclusion, bring your own paper to this library, cause there exists no kindness in here. Never the less, the library location is great, the environment is pretty quite (most of the times) and its pretty clean. Theft happens quite a bit, dont leave your valuables unattended.

To the librarian, lighten up, smile and enjoy life. I hope karma...