Calgary Public Library - Crowfoot — Attraction in Calgary

This review has two parts. First I should say that this library is a great place and I love to be there. Great place, great people, and great service.

But now I write about a bad experience I had on 23-Mar-2018. I was sitting in the library hall and reading my book. I noticed one of library workers who showed inappropriate behavior. There was another family sitting near me on another sofa. A mother with a kid of age about 9. At some point the kid moved to another sofa but still in direct view of mother withing 3 meters distance. This was the time which that library worker (she) showed up and started accusing the mother that she is not watching her kid and threatened her that she may call social service and she may lose the kid to social service. She told the mother the kid MUST BE WITHIN ARM REACH. I heard this myself and this happened in front of me.

If I was in a swimming pool hearing "kid must be within your arm reach" from life guard could make a sense but not in a library from a library worker to a mother.

To describe more that family, I can say that the kid was a well behaved one and the mother looked a completely normal, aware, and caring. Mother was not distracted with anything (book, phone, or anything else). She was in full observation of her kid.

Before this event same library worker had similar conversation with another family (A Chinese father and his +- 10 years old kid). Instead of talking properly to the father she kept threatening father with a loud voice about consequences if she calls social services and tell them that he is careless father.

I understand the importance of caring about minors in public places. But her bossy approach was not constructive and was not in a...

I will say first that the staff here is great, nice helpful and outgoing. Lots of tables and plug ins for power as well. Except in the "quiet room" However; this is not a library that is set up to get any quiet time in. It is very loud with toddlers and pre teens running around. Today, it is full of 8th? graders running around like it is recess! I am totally down with having kids in the library and not at 7 - 11 but there needs to be some boundaries. At this moment it sounds like a school gymnasium before last day of school announcements. Yes they have a quiet room but the walls are only partial so not much help there either, and like I said only only long table has power so not much help in that respect either. So normally I would go out to my car to take a call but it seems that is not needed here, people just gab on their phones, run around, yelling... two boys are at this moment wrestling in a "quiet" room So...

I love this library. I first started coming here right after it was built, around 2007 or so, and it was the best. They had a fantastic selection of books, the staff were super friendly, and I got my fill of all the books and genres I possibly could wish for. This library is the reason I can still read Chinese, how I learned to read traditional Chinese, and it's where I found my love for biographical non fiction. The institution has been a tremendous part of my life and who I am. After traveling all across the country and living in Burnaby, Vancouver, Toronto, Oakville, Ottawa... None of those libraries fully captures the feeling of running your fingers down the plastic covered spines of a random numbered aisle, sunlight flooding in from the massive windows, and learning about a book purely from its covers and heft. Perhaps I'm just nostalgic, but this library will forever be one of my favorite...