Clearwater Main Library

Awesome I love that place. So organized. So jam-packed with books and knowledge. Its mindblowing. ud83eudd2f

Clearwater’s libraries & librarians are the very best in the Tampa Bay Area. Thank y’all for all you do!

The new library building is very attractive. Functionally, it seems to be better than the previous incarnation. The view of Clearwater harbor from the upper level is breathtaking.nnThey have an excellent collection of books on the state of Florida and it's history in general though I was not able to locate three recently published books on early Florida history that are from well known and respected authors. Ironically, I found all three of these books for sale in local book stores and at a small public library in New England.nnUnfortunately there are some negatives.nnKeep in mind I am comparing the current library with the previous incarnation and with main branch libraries of similar size cities.nnI was extremely disappointed with the periodical collection. If you want to read a paper you have to go up to the reference desk and request the paper you want by title. You can't browse. Not much in the way of out of town papers except for a few of the major titles. They only have one copy of each so you have to wait in line if there is a crowd. There are about a tenth of the periodical selection they had 30 years ago.nnThey used to have a genealogy and local history collection. I could not find it.nnI have to say that the biggest disappointment is the computer lab. Their internet connection is excruciatingly slow. I did an online speed test and the five tests I did from three different websites showed a range of 0.65 mbps to 1.10 mbps. They claim to offer Ancestry dot com library edition but it is useless since their connection is far too slow to connect with that website. I used up my allotted time with multiple attempts to download documents from Ancestry and I was unable to down load a single document. Most of the time I got a pop up message informing me that the webpage download had timed out. The times this did not happen the attempt crashed the work station. They spent millions for the new library building but didn't have enough left over to pay for anything other than a dial up connection shared by 20 people at a time. In this day and age that is unacceptable.nnThis is an update since I originally posted this review. Not much has changed other than the usual COVID 19 adjustments such as now alternating computer work stations are unavailable. Also they no longer offer access to ancestry dot com or any of a number of other popular websites.nnMostly I want to point out that this branch will be shutting down for major renovations and will not be open for some time though there is absolutely no information about re-opening on their website and none of the three librarians I asked had any information other than this branch will be closing on September 26. I am shocked that this brand new (decade old) building requires an extensive renovation. This is an extreme inconvenience to library patrons who rely on a close public library for a number of services. Worse yet, how many millions of dollars were spent on this new library building only to need a complete overhaul in only a decade. Lets hope they get it right this time and hopefully the city attorney has grounds to sue the builder/architect for a building they didn't get right the first time around. The previous building had been around for over 50 years. I know, I visited it as a child.

A ghost town.The city did their best an got it done that way

I love this place, it’s a beautiful library.on the water. Largo library is also very nice.