Round Lake Area Public Library - part 1

I have a cord again now for transferring pics off my phone directly onto the computer -- so it's back to reviewing public libraries!

Usually I work with libraries closer to home, but a while back I was up north and visited the Round Lake Area Public Library for the first time.  It's a small library, but packs a lot into that space! And here, you can already see that it has something I like -- circulating practical realia. In this case, circulating bike locks (I was so glad when Poplar Creek Public Library started doing that too).

Other libraries (Gail Borden, Schaumburg) have fish tanks, but nobody else I know puts their tank up front and center like Round Lake. This is just inside the entrance!

This really surprised me. Just across from the circulation desk -- so one of two desks one passes first when entering the library -- is a passport desk. I was training to do this at PCPL before I left, but they just planned on making this one of the services you could ask for at the reference desk. I have never seen before or since an exclusively dedicated passport service desk.

And nearby is this -- so full of government documents! They have a citizenship corner, like PCPL does. Round Lake even put theirs in an actual corner (point goes to them, PCPL!). I'm suspecting Round Lake has a lot of foreign-born citizens in it.

This is between the passport desk and the citizenship corner. Again, I've seen pay-with-donation coffee bars in other libraries (Geneva, Town & Country), but not one that featured it so prominently. The kitchen-style cabinets and the old-timey chalkboard with menu items adds to the ambience.

 Round Lake has a great book collection. This is the largest assortment of Star Trek paperbacks I've seen in a public library in years!

And this is, bar none, the most comprehensive Fantastic Four collection I've ever seen. And this is in the YA area. They have some very well-read teens!

The teen area has this corner where they can share their artwork, and see ads for upcoming teen-specific programs.

But perhaps best of all is this one shelf at the end of the graphic novel section of YA, where stands this lone action figure (what is it? It looks a lot like IG-88 from Star Wars, but the details aren't all right on it). Why? There are no other action figures on display elsewhere in the library that I noticed. But I love that there's this "Easter egg" to find if you look through the collection closely enough