Browsing the new library

TEST DRIVING SAN DIEGO

Four hundred computing devices and 1,250,598 volumes. Snazzy 3-D printers and vintage opera librettos. An eye-popping video wall and bound copies of Good Housekeeping magazine. From 1885.

In addition to being huge, the new San Diego Central Library at Joan and Irwin Jacobs Common is all-encompassing. Whether you are a gadget fiend or a dead-tree hugging Luddite, the library probably has what you want. Even if all you want is a cushy chair and killer view.

Our $196.7 million library opened for business on Monday. Here is a little chapter and verse on what I found when I dropped in earlier this week.

Great expectations: Just as you can’t judge a book by its cover, you shouldn’t judge the entirety of the Rob Wellington Quigley designed library by its looming entrance. With its dramatic arch, three-story high ceiling and mass accumulations of concrete and steel, the lobby is a stun-gun statement that will leave you gasping. It may also leave you wondering if there is room in this epic edifice for a little bookworm such as yourself. Don’t worry. While the indestructible lobby looks Grand Central Station-esque, the rest of the library is full of sunlit reading nooks and literary extras that were clearly designed with the hearts of book-lovers in mind.

Up, up and hooray: Between the brassy acoustics and the crowds surging around the customer-service desks, self checkout stations and banks of public computers, the ground floor has a busy communal buzz that can feel both invigorating (“Community engagement! Yay!”) and a little nerve-frying (“Man, it’s loud in here.”) For a more serene experience, head up and out. During my visit, much of the ground floor was a swelling sea of lookie-loo humanity, while the upper floors (particularly 3 and 5) had oodles of seating, many open computers and no lines at the self checkout kiosks. (Maybe the narrow staircases and pokey elevators were keeping people away.) And as you get closer to the windows, the lobby’s echo-chamber hubbub fades mercifully away. Ahhhh.

"A" is for amenities: For a building that is so much about the Big Statement, there is clearly a human touch at work here. From the deep, wicker-like chairs used throughout the library to the beanbag chairs in the Pauline Foster Teen Center, the seating choices are generous and ridiculously comfortable. There are board games in the teen center, a California Oak tree in the courtyard, a large homework center on the second floor, kid-friendly restrooms in the cheery children’s library and electrical outlets everywhere for your many device-charging needs. Designed for posterity, built for people.

Best refuge: The high-ceilinged, sun-filled, view-engorged Helen Price Reading Room is the library’s dazzling crown jewel. This eighth-floor showcase is also destined to be one of the most-visited, perpetually-photographed spots in the whole building. If crowd scenes are not your thing, head for the far end of the third floor, past the map drawers and the bookcases filled with many volumes of “Decisions and Orders of the National Labor Relations Board” to the under-the-radar oasis that is the Sidney Lerner Window Alcove. With its quiet cubbies, under-occupied tables and surveillance-worthy view of J Street, the alcove is a little piece of meditative heaven. With free Wifi.

Best of the rest: Best time capsules? The third-floor periodical section, where you can find copies of The New Yorker from 1932, Hot Rod magazine from 1951, Ebony from 1960 and Oil and Gas Journal, which is timeless. Best grab-bag? The ground-floor Donald C. and Elizabeth M. Dickinson Popular Library, for those days when you need a “Hunger Games” DVD, a copy of the “Follies” soundtrack and about 30 pounds of James Patterson. Best fresh-air option? The ninth-floor terraces, where you can have a picnic at one of the red cafe tables and drool over the view. Best good-news indicator? The long line of people queuing up to get the must-have item of the day — a library card.

A few footnotes: With just 170 spaces in the underground garage and metered street spaces at a premium, parking is going to be an issue, particularly during Padres games and when Comic-Con is in town. As for the garage itself, it could use more directional signage. The same goes for the library, where more floor-by-floor guides and some You Are Here maps would be a big help.

The verdict: “What a great place to find yourself, whether it’s spiritually or intellectually,” said Karen Plummer of Coronado, who was taking in the ninth-floor view with her father-in-law. “If this can’t encourage people to open a book, I don’t know what will.”

Copyright © 2016, The San Diego Union-Tribune
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