cristen smith Review of State Library of NSW
I went to the library 2 days this week, one of the...
I went to the library 2 days this week, one of them happened to be the first time i had been there. Signing up was fairly easy but then requesting the book was slightly confusing, i was confused by the process but eventually got the hang of it and requested my book. The lady informed me that i had a 45 minute wait until i recieved my book as there was only 2 staff members working? only 2 and it is a state library!? When my friend and I had returned we were walking down stairs to collect our book. My friend had her hand in her pocket and the man asked her what she was holding in her pocket as it appeared she was holding a gun or something?!!!! which she clearly wasn't! I then got my book which happened to be a very old book so i had to read in the special materials section.
The second day i returned, my book was there waiting for me and the staff in particular one lady were being very nice to us. The lady had mentioned to us that we perhaps shouldn't photocopy the book as it was very old and fragile (which we completely understood) so instead we were allowed to take pictures of it on our phones. The day went well until 10 minutes before we were about to leave when we started to take a few photos of some of the images in our books on our phones. This other lady walked past us and said in a really firm voice, "You should probably ask before taking pictures with that book!" and i replied with "We have, another lady gave us permission to take pictures with our phones" and she said, "Well the book is really old so you need to watch how you handle it!" By this point a few other people in the special materials section were looking at us as this lady had called attention to us. I then proceeded to stand up, return the book and leave! The lady then had the audacity to go and bother another fellow reader, which again brought attention to this poor man.
As well as that, throughout my experience the staff members at the service desk were obnoxiously loud which confused me as I thought I was in a library!!
Overall, nice interior and exterior design and most of the staff were kind however this lady really pushed my buttons.
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