Emma

Review of State Library of Victoria, Mel...

Large areas of the library are closed & inaccessib...

Large areas of the library are closed & inaccessible at the moment. It gets busy & it not the quietest place to read or study. No lending of books. Free WiFi, sometimes the connection or speed is not great. Toilets are ok, not great. No drinks apart from water allowed inside, except they have a cafe selling tea, coffee, food etc inside & another cafe is attached to entrance on the other side, so this makes absolutely no sense. Don t see why a cup of tea/coffee is not allowed when in other libraries it is without any problem. The staff are also not very friendly. They stand around in random places staring at people whilst on their walkie-talkie as if the place is going to get bombed. It doesn t create a calm & relaxed environment conducive to study. You can book to use a pc for 30 mins for free, which is good. However when I was making a booking it gave a time when a computer would be free, I checked my phone to check the current time to make sure that the suggested booking time would be ok for me. A member of staff came up behind me without me knowing & pushed my hand out the way, clicked to accept the booking & said just accept it . I felt this was really inappropriate, because I was checking I could make that time before accepting & potentially blocking the pc from someone else s use for half an hour. But also because the staff member (who was also of the opposite gender) touched me without my consent & pushed my hand out the way. I was in the state library of Western Australia last week & even though they had a WiFi problem it was much better than the state library of Victoria.