THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, October 7, 1996 TAG: 9610050003
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A9 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: OPINION
SOURCE: George Hebert
LENGTH: 60 lines
Easy, free access for the public is a must in the operation of a good public library.
This kind of access is usually a part of the design of such facilities.
But Norfolk's main library, the Kirn Memorial on City Hall Avenue, isn't exactly a model of convenience on that count when it comes to patrons arriving in automobiles, as so many of them do nowadays.
Until recently, there has been the rigmarole - a handicap, however you look at it - of getting parking tickets validated (and watching the clock to conform to the allotments of free time) for the use of a nearby pay lot run by the city.
And now, with the closing of this lot to make way for MacArthur Center, parking has been further complicated. The library currently advises citizens that the old parking-ticket-validation system can be used at various other city lots in the downtown area. But some of these are quite a hike away, a special burden on the elderly; some involve the use of unattended ramp elevators that certain patrons may shy away from or (as on one of my trips) might be on the blink, forcing the use of stairs.
Much effort and thought, obviously, have gone into the temporary arrangements. Signs provide help, and information sheets are provided on substitute lots; shuttle service operates from two of these. As with the lot formerly in use, an hour of parking is free. For those doing research, the first hour is also free, the second and third cost 50 cents each and the maximum altogether is $1.
Also made recently available is a small metered lot adjoining the library on the northwest.
The natural questions at this juncture: Are these well-meant but higgledy-piggledy options going to yield to something simpler once MacArther Center, with its parking adjuncts, is open? Is there any thought of something more convenient, and charge-free, in Kirn's more distant future?
On that first point, with regard to parking space in the MacArthur complex, Norfolk's library director, Sally Reed, seems confident that a ticket-validation system will give library patrons access. That would put them just across the street from Kirn.
As to the longer run, she sees the possibility that a new central library with its own adjoining parking area will materialize down the road.
During the campaign that led to the opening of Kirn in the early '60s (as a replacement for the antiquated central library on Freemason Street), one urgent recommendation of the experts - and we who were ``Friends of the Library'' heard a lot about it - was direct street access in the community's heart. The idea was to present an open-door invitation to downtown foot traffic (which is now a far cry, incidentally, from anything like the bustle that must have been in the planners' minds).
Somehow, automobile access became blurred over.
We're seeing the unfortunate, hodge-podge results - which need improvement wherever and whenever possible as we move along right now.
And if/when a replacement structure does become a definite prospect, there should be no blurring of visions this time. Plenty of on-site, free parking should be a planning priority from the word go. MEMO: Mr. Hebert, a former editor, lives in Norfolk. by CNB