I visited the Northern Virginia Community College library on 16 March 2022. It is nestled in the center of the basement in the building closest to the parking lot which is about one hundred yards away. There was permit parking for students and staff and everyone else used the hourly parking slots. I paid for a ticket and the hours at a kiosk.    

As I walked downstairs to the basement, I imagined a dark and dreary library, but it is at a college, and I could not have been more wrong. Coming out of the stairwell I noticed a hall to my left and right that led to outside doors that were letting a lot of sunlight. The entrance to the library has two double doors and two TV screens above them showcasing library information. Upon entering, there is a long circulation desk; no one was there, but I can see a librarian giving a tour to a patron and another one shelving books. There are six group study rooms that are made of floor to ceiling glass and even the room dividers are glass so that whoever is working the front counter can see into every room. To the left are two printers, three computers reserved for the public, two computers reserved for handicapped patrons and a classroom.

Throughout the library there are twelve rows of books shelves; each are six shelves tall and thirty to forty feet long. The books are organized by the Dewey Decimal System. There is a step stool Infront of each row for the shorter people to be able to reach books on the top shelf. There are four bean bag chairs, three sofas, eight individual cushion chairs, thirty-eight individual study cubicles with rolling chairs, twenty-six computers placed in the center of the library in a huge oval shape, and eight more computers on individual desks near the entrance. There are art pictures on the walls which help brighten the library and there is a box of Kleenex and a bottle of hand sanitizer on each table and most desks. There were five book displays throughout the library, the one I really liked was “Spring into Reading” since it was almost Spring. There are five reshelving racks throughout the library and two recharging stations that can each charge six phones and three tablets.

Almost the entire back wall is made up of floor to ceiling windows and two doors that have a view into the woods behind the campus. This allowed the library to be full of natural light and the ceiling lights were spaced every three by six feet which allows for the library to bright when night falls. There are two staff rooms and a conference room along the back wall too. There is a short row of shelves that are home to magazines, newspapers, and DVD’s. There is also a small language section with Spanish, Korean and Chinese books mixed with children and adult books. 

Its website, https://www.nvcc.edu/LIBRARY/index.html is very easy to navigate through.  It has links to its missions, policy, staff items, student items, and catalog, just to name a few. The staffs’ names, their, phone number and e-mail are located within the “Hours, Locations, Staff” (Libraries) link and it also shows positions that are vacant. Rubin and Rubin remark that “Crawford (2015) describes the library as ‘a changing and organic entity, something that is constantly adapting and becoming something else’ (202, p. 99). One of the librarians I talked to for a while told me the library is getting ready for a remodel and the staff weeded through their collection and have three rows packed with free books and that I should take as many as I want. They have big boxes for people to place as many books in as they can. I found fourteen books to accompany me home.

References:

Libraries. (n.d.). Northern Virginia Community College. https://www.nvcc.edu/LIBRARY/index.html

Rubin, R. E. and Rubin, R. G. (2020). Foundations of library and information science (5th ed.). ALA Neal-Schuman.