Charlotte Mecklenburg Library South County Regional — Attraction in Charlotte

Beautiful building and had a kind staff member help me sign up for a card. Unfortunately the children's library area was disappointing.

I have a young child who cannot read yet, he can pick a few books and then wants to engage with other library activities while I browse for age appropriate stories for him and his sibling. At our previous libraries this involved Legos/duplos coloring pages, a white board with letter magnets and markers, computers etc etc. Here there was absolutely nothing for him to do the whole time. The computers were turned off for screen free Friday. There was a very fun looking play area that was closed and locked. There was a sign saying to put toys back but no toys aside from a few puppets and a board puzzle. No acknowledgement from a scowling librarian.

The only thing to do was play outside which I had to be outside with him and then could not browse the books. I have been to many libraries but never been to one with so little to do! Modern libraries should be a warm and fun place children look forward to visiting and then came home with armfuls of books. Not a boring place with all the fun locked off. If they are going to turn all the computers off and lock the play area they should be providing a variety of other activities in plain sight...

I don’t know if I came on a bad day, but as a former library assistant, I was really disappointed. The people who worked there were nice... to their coworkers. They seemed uninterested in helping the public, and I had to point out how one could use the non-resident card (you CAN check out regular books with it, no matter what they say) to the staff at the circulation desk. Customer service was nonexistent, which surprised me, because it was everything at the small rural library system I worked at. Their books were poorly shelved, which was disappointing for such a large library. The children’s area was nice, but I really didn’t feel comfortable with the children’s librarians scowling at me. If I felt that way as a 37 year old woman, I can only imagine how the kids must feel. No one feels approachable here. Honestly, I bought the non-resident card to get access to a larger amount of books, but from here on out, I’ll only visit the library to pick up holds. I won’t come here to spend some time, we’ll go to our own dinky library for that. At least the people at ours seem...

Took my 4 year old and infant to the library today to get out of the house. We went to the children's section and my daughter quickly found other kids to play with. There was about 5 of them. They were having a good time playing with the hand puppets and got a little too excited and started chasing each other in a circle in a small area- again in the KID'S section. An older woman who worked there quickly came over and started scolding the kids for running and saying "if you need to run so bad have your parents take you to the park" mind you it was about to storm outside but that's besides the point. Basically, yes they should not have been running and yes a library is not a place for that kind of play but the librarian could have at least given them a warning first before the harsh words or picked a nicer approach to her message such as letting the parents know they need to settle down. These kids were all under the age of 5. Will not...