South Ozone Park Branch Queens Library

Loud patrons, music blasting on cell phones, burly Security guy, teenagers making out… sounds like a hot club, right? Yeah. Or a crappy library.
I’m not one of those ‘library shushers’. I get it, people talk, they read to their kids, they turn pages of books or type on computer keys. It’s a library, not a tomb. But it’s also a dumping ground for Virgil Grissom Junior High during after school hours, who are rowdy. I’ve seen an honest-​to-​God fistfight break out here.
I truly feel bad for the librarians who have to act as backup security guards. One good use for a Masters Degree; Library Referee. At the same point, they are so burnt out that they can’t be bothered helping you even if you’re nice to them. Between the fights and lack of librarian help, this place is a free-​for-​all.
Donated books used to be sold by the library, but due to security and theft concerns, libraries don’t handle cash anymore. So the easiest solution for them is to throw the books out in the trash. The good news is, I have walked by there late at night and gotten some great free books from their garbage. Perhaps I can thank Sera R. for some of them…

I hate coming here, sure its a public library, and there is a certain standard there that you just have to accept, but I always feel uncomfortable coming here, I do not particularly feel that the library is clean. I have gone to donate books and they calculate your donations based on how many «bags» of books you provide, I am just like really… The books that I have donated, never found themselves on the shelfs of this particular branch, which makes me wonder what has happend to them.
They have cut back on staff alot and I just feel that it is on a downward slope. More people go there to play on the internet, rather than read anymore.

My husband and my mother work here, so I may be a little partial ;)
Really though, overall I have enjoyed the Queens Library system my whole life. I am such a book lover and as a child my mom would take me and my 2 younger brothers to story time at the Richmond Hill branch. When I was older I would take out massive amounts of books at a time, and devour them when I got home. Later I worked as a page, a computer monitor and after-​school tutor in the Richmond Hill branch. The library is a great community resource that often goes under appreciated and more people need to take advantage of what the library has to offer.