For many, Free Library is 'community place'

There is a place on 40th and Walnut streets that is a collage of Barnes & Noble, MegaVideo and a grammar school library mixed together with students, professors and West Philadelphia residents. It is called the Walnut Street West Branch of The Free Library of Philadelphia and it has adorned the corner since 1905. Despite the recently added neon sign that screams "Library," Head Librarian Sandra Owens said people still walk by wondering what that building is on the corner of 40th and Walnut. "We used to have a sign that was in good taste," she said. "Such good taste that a lot of people think it's a bank." The building is certainly not a bank. Rather, it is stock full of bestsellers, children's books, newspapers, magazines, current compact discs, videos and travel information -- to name a few of the library's treasures. Although Owens described the library as a "community place" that is used by people of every age, ethnicity, educational level and economic group, she said it is also an asset to University students, professors and other staff workers. For example, Graduate School of Education students use the library's children's collection to experiment with alternative teaching methods. By tutoring community children at the library, they learn to go beyond textbook education, according to Patti McLaughlin, the children's librarian. College sophomore Jeff Chow, a an elementary education and art history major who volunteers at the library said he uses it as tool to test new teaching techniques. College senior Asha Bahatiani, who organized a semester-long service project between the library and the co-ed honors fraternity Phi Sigma Pi, said volunteering at the library introduced her to West Philadelphia's community beyond the University. "When you live on the Penn campus, it becomes the Penn community and nothing else," she said. "It was great to meet some of the kids and parents from the community because on the Penn campus you can be kind of isolated from the rest of the world." McLaughlin said that Chow, like the other student volunteers, are essential to children's programs. "There are days when there can be 70 kids here and having them here acting as an adult is great," she said. Although McLaughlin said she is thankful for their help, she complained that students usually only volunteer during the last four months of their senior year and then leave. "I take what I can get, when I can get them," she said. The library not only offers educational resources because it is set up like a bookstore -- by category not by the Dewey Decimal number system -- but the travel section is also frequently used by students who are preparing to go abroad. The "user-friendly" set-up attracts browsers and gives people a place to relax at lunchtime, Owens said. The library was not always housed in the institution-like metal and glass building that now borders Superblock. For the library's first 54 years, passers-by marvelled at the library's Victorian architecture and readers sat beneath high ceilings, elaborate plaster work and sky lights. In 1959 architectural trends changed and flat, school-room lights replaced the big brass chandeliers. In 1987, however, the city discovered that lighting was not the only new addition from the 1959 renovation -- asbestos infested the building, Owens said. "They must have just stuffed the place full of asbestos," she said. For three years, tools and construction workers replaced books and readers in the Free Library. But when it reopened in 1987, the library's appearance was not the only aspect that changed. Owens said she became the head librarian to make the library a meeting place for the community. When the library closed in 1987, the circulation was 50,000. Since Owens was hired in 1990, the circulation has risen to 120,000.