Kaitlin Starosta

Review of Royal Oak Public Library

Have been here multiple times. Most of the staff i...

Have been here multiple times. Most of the staff is rude, snarky, looks unhappy to work there. I ve encountered two librarians that usually work in the kid section who are extremely nice.

Today, I asked to use a study room in the adult section (mostly because i was telecommuting and needed to hop onto several conference calls without disturbing anyone and not being at noisy Starbucks). This was the first time I ve ever inquired. The librarian snipped and asked well do you have more than 1 person? The tone was super unfriendly and implied that i should know not to even ask. She explained the rules (completely fine) but suggested i go downstairs to the kids section and those rooms could be used for single occupants. That was in fact false. But the kids librarian was nice enough to let me in so i could hop on a conference call. After the conference call, i unfortunately revived bad news. Another individual that worked at the library (male) barged in with two teens, saw me crying at the desk, didn t address me at all, and told the teens to go in since I wasn t supposed to be there. It was complete disregard for a human who would have had no problem packing up and moving out (which i did immediately). There was zero attempt to address me even with a hi i understand they let you in quickly but we have someone else with a group. Could you vacate in the next 5 minutes. I hope you are okay.

At the end of the day, it s a library. There are books there. It s a small but decent space. I honestly have never been treated so rudely and will never take my kids there again since that s the energy and environment the institution breeds.