Brooklyn Public Library – Bushwick Library

Tiny little library but effective. The selection is limited but still… books ya know? They have laptops you can use and a copier. If you were looking for a specific book you probably wouldn’t find it here, it was nice to stroll in and judge books by their covers.

This is a nice, quiet, clean library where I sometimes come to do work. The book selection isn’t bad, but it isn’t great. They have laptops available that you can borrow.
My problem with this library is that the Wi-​Fi is so slow that pages often can’t even load. In 2014, Wi-​Fi access is important to have at a library, and the Wi-​Fi here is agonizingly slow.
Other than that, there is a good community feel to this library, and it brings together people of all ages. There is a large area of the library dedicated to youth.

While I was upstate recently, my brother showed me how he could «borrow» library books on his tablet. I thought this was incredible. I was in awweee.
Wondering if our fair city offered the same thing, I did a little interweb searching and found that we’re in luck too. Since I recently bought a kindle, I was excited to try this.
So riding my bike through East Williamsburg, I did a little Unilocal search for the closest branch and found this one. It’s funny I ride by here every so often, and hadn’t noticed there *was* a library.
Inside it is super library quiet, with people reading at tables, or using the computers and doing research. I walked up to the desk, and asked about membership. Just need to show drivers license & address so I had all the goods. And believe it or not I asked if there’s a fee. I dunno I didn’t realize this great resource was free!
So 10 minutes later I’m walking out with my library card, and I went to a café and dialedup the
I browsed through and settled on Haruki Murakami’s A Wild Sheep Chase, which is some sort of mystery, detective, weird otherworldly book. He’s the guy who wrote 1Q84. So I clicked borrow, then it sends you over to Amazon. Where you would normally see a «Buy it» button, you see a «Borrow it» button (login if you’re not already).
That’s it, a couple seconds later it’s on my kindle. Wow!

I’ve been going here for about 7 years and have seen a lot of changes in terms of the books offered and the range of people that use the library (both are more diverse). Since the recession hit, it seems like more people rely on the computers to look for jobs and such. A lot of parents also seem to use the library as a day care after school so there’s often a lot of kids wandering around on their own. It’s not great if you need silence to concentrate but it’s nice seeing kids enjoy the library.
I can’t say that I check out too many books from this branch (although I’ve found a few good cookbooks), but I typically order books from other libraries that are then shipped to the Bushwick branch.
The hours seem to change with the season and unfortunately, they are closed both Saturdays and Sunday but they are open late a few nights during the week.

They
Have a
Copier
And a decent
DVD selection but poor work space.

When you walk into the Bushwick Library stand in the middle of it and do a 360 degree turn and you have seen the whole place. But it does pack a lot of useful stuff in its small space. They have special programs that cater to the under educated, kids and teens. But if you’re an educated person older than seventeen all they have for you are books. BOO!
I don’t really go to the library for the books. I come to check out the DVDs and the VHS tapes. The library has a wide selection of movies and since I have both a DVD player and a VCR this totally rocks for me. But now they have this new policy where you can only check out movies for a week, it use to be like a couple of weeks.
If you really want to get a book then you can look up any title using the 1 computer designated for searches or ask a librarian to help you. Man you’re a nerd. You can register to have 30min of Internet access with your library card but be warned when your time comes and you’re not there your time is lost to the next person.
During the week I would suggest you go before 3pm because any time later and school ends. Unless you like loud kids talking in your ear about Hanna Montana and America’s Next Top Model or wherever kids talk about these days. Man, I’m getting old. But seriously hardly any kids are there on Saturday check it out then.