Kendall Neighborhood Library & Community Center — Attraction in Houston

Kendall Library has always been my neighborhood library since I lived here many years ago. In fact, I still remember when it was at the old building on Memorial Drive near Meadow Wood Elementary that's much smaller and dated. When I learned that it was moving to a brand new building further down from my house, I was at first shocked but then only to be more joyed that it was right along the Terry Hershey Park Trail with an entrance to go to the library. So for the past years, I have been taking my bike from my house near Kirkwood and go on the Terry Hershey Park Trail all the way to Kendall Library, to get my books, movies, and refill my water bottle before I go forth some more on my bike ride before heading home.

There's definitely a bike rack for you to park and lock your bicycle and it's next to the drive-thru window. Yes, you read it correctly, this library has a drive-thru window for you to pick up on hold books, movies, etc. so you don't need to park and walk in. Should you choose to do walk in and browse around, it's worth it just to see the return book machine. The library is now 3 floors with the top floor being the children / young adult / babysitting area. The reason I call it the babysitting area is because there are video game consoles for kids to play video games there. This is definitely a great way for underprivileged family to enjoy some time together and during our hot Houston summer to get away with the free air conditioning at the library.

The 2nd floor is where the adult books, reference books, movies, music CDs, meeting rooms, silent rooms, and international books are. Of course both floors have lots of computers with free Internet for people to use. I usually just browse the book and movie selection but with the Houston Public Library system, you can actually go online and look for anything specific you want. If your local library doesn't have it, you can reserve it and they can send it from another library to yours for you to pick up. However, certain popular books or movies will have a waitlist as there's only so many copies out there in the system that gets checked out all the time.

Another great thing about this library is that there's a public basketball court connected to it and it runs on a different library hour as well. There's always something going on there from yoga to tai chi to meditation, and of course basketball. I only used it twice because I get my exercise from my bike ride but sometimes you just feel like shooting some hoops to keep your game up. The library overall is clean, well lit, and well stocked with everything. This is my favorite Houston Public Library only because it's convenient to...

Besides the internet cutting off (which happened a few times) and the yelling kids using the basketball court; the library is nice. The only problem I had was the librarians upstairs today. I truly DO NOT understand why the ladies were extremely loud, talking to each other from across the library and being rude.

I sat in the far back and could hear the lady at the front desk shouting at this poor old man for forgetting his password. I get it, he comes every week and forgets the password... HIS OLD!. The lady could have written it on a sticky note for him to keep instead of talking down to him. It wasn't only that older gentleman, she was snappy with everyone; including me who had ONE question. I didn't force you to apply for this job so don't "huff" as if I'm getting on your nerves. The other lady was not friendly either. When I walked towards the front desk and smiled at her, she rolled her eyes at me. You're not invisible, I can see you! I didn't even say ANYTHING to her!!! Why are you rolling your eyes at me when you're the one stinking up the library smelling like you just smoked three packs!!! I was leaving, not coming to "bother" you.

I've been here a couple times but today was just bad. I totally left and went to Starbucks, soooo much better! (^_^) Maybe I'm used to the friendly fort bend libraries were at least staff there have some type of customer service skill. Again, nice library...

The librarian at the front desk helped me upgrade my library card to a nicer one and was very friendly. The 2nd floor librarian was also really nice and helped explain how the layout of the library was organized.

I'm used to libraries being sectioned up by genre, but this one was alphabetical with genre identifying stickers on them. She also gave me recommendations for fantasy books and some YA and middle school level series. I wanted to explore the whole building, and talking about books for younger audiences made me want to browse the YA section.

As soon as I got to the 3rd floor, the librarian asked me if I was an adult. After I said yes, she told me my place was the 2nd floor and basically threw me out of the 3rd floor. I understand safe spaces for kids are important, but I was kinda disappointed at not being able to browse the teen section. I'm assuming popular YA novels like the hunger games, divergent, and uglies would be in that section and are all books made into movies that I would think are reasonable for an adult to read and enjoy. Plus, what if I were getting a book for a child or a sibling at home?

Overall, I liked the library, but I could've done without a librarian "putting me in my place." If you plan on reading any YA as an adult, don't count on it. And if you happen to need anything from the 3rd floor, bring your kids because they will ask you to leave if they are...