Ballard Public Library

The crop of library buildings which were built with recent bond issue funds universally share some of the biggest problems I’ve seen in public architecture in my life. None of them are really usable, with Ballard being one of the poorer designs. While not as bad as the new Central Library or the Greenwood Branch, this location still makes for a bad experience. The new libraries in this town break every rule of the Bauhaus. I’ve come to firmly believe that we need a law forcing bureaucrats to contract American firms (if not local ones) to design any building being constructed for public use with public funds. European architects, while trendy, are clueless. Although the architects were aiming for an ergonomic and environmentally correct target, the overall effect is one of emptiness. The computers at all the Seattle Libraries also have several problems, starting with the version of flash player which they have loaded. I have found some websites won’t reload, while others cause all my internet windows to close without warning. Some email sites, including Yahoo, won’t load properly, either, so you can’t delete messages or move them to other folders. These same sites all work fine on computers at the King County Library computers, so this is just a case of bad IT on the part of the Seattle system. If you can get to the KCLS, do. BTW, yes, I am a Seattle resident, so my tax dollars are supporting this joke.