East Lake Library - Hennepin County Library — Attraction in Minneapolis

I love the East Lake library, and as such, have to rebut a couple of the comments I've seen.

Yes, there are a number of homeless individuals that frequent the library, but I have found most of them to be friendly and polite. If and when there have been issues with noise, sleeping at the computers, or taking too long in the bathroom, the security staff and librarians generally take care of it. I'd love to see more of a Human Services outreach effort at the library to help those struggling with housing, employment, and more.

Yes, the library charges $.10 per page for black and white and $.50 per page for color, but as mentioned, if you have a library card, you get $5 of free printing each week. That works out to 50 black and white pages or 10 color pages (or a combination of the two). There is also a free copy machine - limit 30 pages.

The book selection is a bit smaller than one might expect from visits to other libraries, but if the book you want isn't on hand you can EASILY request that it be delivered to the EL library from any library in the system that has it in stock.

What else can I add? There's a community meeting room you can reserve, a large collection of CDs and DVDs, comfy reading chairs and spacious work tables, a quiet area, and a large selection of online resources - too many to mention here. And the staff is incredibly helpful and friendly too!

Take time to check out the East Lake library -...

I have never been to this library before and now that I have been to it, I like the library and it is super quite and that is really nice. Even if the noise by the computers does rise, the staff a quick to jump in and to make sure it stays quite. The book selection is not to great, but they can order the books that you are looking for and that is great. I very pleased with this library and the staff. Staff are friendly and when you first enter, they always say hello to you. Though you do have to watch out for the homeless people as some can really stink and can off the rails at the computer stations. But that is expected...

East Lake Library has been one of my favs for a long time. Clean. Spacious. Well appointed. COVID precautions for using computers. Enter through the parking lot door. Collect a keyboard and mouse at the desk. All the stations are well apart. Proceed to your assigned location and plug them in. At the end of your hour, place the keyboard and mouse in the "dirty" bin. The station will be cleaned after you leave. I don't know what arrangements have been made for checking out books but I didn't see people browsing or reading. Some libraries are on a "Grab...