My Library Experience

The library I visited is the Cerritos Library. Before I start, I would like to thank Ms. Padmini Parbhakar the librarian who helped me a lot and patiently answered all my questions.

The Cerritos library is located on the corner of Bloomfield Avenue and 183rd Street. The library building has an area of 88,000 square feet up and has three levels. The library has a seating capacity of 575 and 135 of those are computer workstations. When you enter the lobby of the library, a big salt water aquarium will welcome you. And there are also miniature sculpture and art exhibits in the lobby. On the ground floor of the library is the Children’s Library, the Young Adult and Multimedia section, A reading Room, the Magazine and Newspaper section, and the Circulation Desk. Also on the ground floor is The Friend’s store where you can buy something like coffee mugs, books and other souvenirs. Next to it is the Local History Room where you can see different arts done by different artists. Outside the Local History Room are the pictures of the First Ladies of the United States from Martha Washington to Laura Bush. On the second floor of the library is the Reference section, the Fiction and Non-current Periodicals, Language Section and the Computer section. There are also Study rooms on the second floor where you can use it as a conference room. On the third floor of the library is a big function room called the Skyline Room.

The library has a collection of almost 300,000 books from children’s book to carefully selected business materials. With this extensive collection of library materials, the Cerritos library uses the Library of Congress Classification System. Some of the library services available are reference, online resources and the interlibrary loan. The library is a member of the Metropolitan Cooperative Library System. The MCLS comprises of cities from Alhambra to Thousand Oaks. The cities that are not member of this cooperative like Artesia and Bellflower will pay for membership at the Cerritos library and will also pay for the books they will check-out. They also have the Interlibrary Loan Service where they send books to other library if some books are not available in that library. Their online resources are also extensive. They subscribe to online databases like Auto Repair References which provides assistance to auto mechanic, the Business and Company Resource Center where you can get information about businesses, the Reference USA database about contact information on business and Physicians and Dentist and many more. Librarian with headsets and handheld computers roam throughout the library to provide users hands on assistance. My Clio is the Cerritos’ library new generation computer system. It connects users to many of the library’s services and resources from any workstation in the library. The library also has the new Checkpoint Intelligent Library System. It uses radio frequency identification technologies for automated library materials return, track inventory, security and self check-out.

It is a wonderful experience visiting this library. So far, this is the most beautiful library I’ve ever seen. The only thing that is missing here is a Starbucks. Try to go to this library and you will always go back. The library is open from Monday to Sunday with library hours varies. It is located at 18025 Bloomfield Avenue Cerritos CA 90703 and their phone number is (562) 916-1350 or you can visit their website at www.ci.cerritos.ca.us/library/