Beautiful Puppet Theatre

Beautiful carved puppet theatre from 1917 in its new location after renovation of St. Paul's Central Library. Note carving of face of Loki, Norse God of Interfering Architects.

Librarian's Holiday: Visiting other libraries when out of town on vacation. The Central Library in St. Paul, MN was just across the street from where I was staying, so I had to visit. I'd have visited anyway, I suppose. Please note that all comments are mine, of my opinion, written by me, from me, yadda-yaddah.
The library was opened originally in 1917, but they renovated in the past 5 years or so and the Children's Room moved to a different area. They were kind enough to allow me behind the scenes at the puppet stage when I said we were building a new library. The above puppet theatre is original to the library, but was moved and reinstalled in the new children's room and, like most puppet theatres installed by architects, it is more beautiful than useful. Of course, it is that by design as well.
There are two lower stage areas but, honestly, the outermost one would be more difficult to use. The best use for it would be set pieces, but they would also have to be ones that you weren't going to be moving during the show. Other uses are: display. There is an upper stage area, but that can't be reached by normal humans and there isn't a way in the back to get at it.
The theatre is in a corner, which on the one hand limits the storage space but on the other hand may keep some things more at hand. The storage space is already full. You know, you go to new libraries everywhere and the first thing they tell you is that they don't have enough storage. The then-new Hilton Head Branch Library said they had no storage. I was appalled by the small amount of storage in the "ginormous" Spartanburg library. You can see how this happens, though. Things need cutting back during the design or fundraising process and ... storage just vanishes.
Oh, and they have no other programming area. For storytimes and crafts they have to move the furniture around (small chairs and tables with toys).

Backstage area of puppet theatre with dangerous, eye-gouging corners.

Curtains interfere with the puppet stage area by taking up room on the sides when they are opened. Scrim was lifted out of the way to show off the (adult) eye-gouging corners. There are microphone clips poking out so they can speak live, which I don't do in my shows. All our material is prerecorded so that we don't have to follow a script along with everything else.
It was demonstrated how a puppeteer must use his/her foot to work the lights. (Wish I could have gotten a photo of that, but my guide was nice enough to take me backstage - asking for a pose would have been over the top.) Plugs are in handy position, although they don't need to be.
They have had a professional puppeteer come look at it to make suggestions for improvement.
This is one of my greatest fears: money goes into dedicated puppet theatre in our new library and it becomes something we cannot easily use, unlike the portable ones we've been using. Donor then becomes cheezed off. Hell, who cares about the donor? My blood pressure will go through the roof every time I have to use it!
Okay, calm down, calm down. They haven't done anything horrible ... yet.

Actual suggestions from the St. Paul CR staff for someone building a new facility: No sharp corners on desks, etc., at child eye level. They have had to scrounge around for those plastic things you stick on to blunt the point. And scrounge seems to be the operant word. They had enough for one desk, but not the other. Comment No. 2: Don't put ruddy great columns where children will run into them. I swear that column wasn't there a minute ago! They sneak up on you!
Other than the pointy bits on the desk just waiting to leap into a small child's eye, a good thing about the CR info desk was how deep it was. A staff member was working on a poster-sized pad copying song lyrics for a storytime and it fit! There was all this lovely room to spread out and work while manning the desk. Picture it, a huge meeting-notes pad on a desk! They had two levels (for poking different ages of child) of desk, a lower one for kids and the upper one where a mom could rest her purse or elbow. A separate table and a wall-brochure holder for displays and brochures!
They had some computers for children, some of which had games, some internet, some word processing. There was a suggestion for writing a Backwards Story. Start with The End and go from there! Their community is much more culturally diverse than ours and so their bi-lingual and foreign language collection had so much more going on!
The teen area was full of computers and there was a window into it behind the CR info desk where they could check if they heard shots fired or something. I didn't go in there because I was unaccompanied by a teen.
The rest of the library was also nice. Signage was easy to locate and interpret. I found the CR and the Adult Fiction areas with no trouble. The trouble came when I sat down with a book I found in Adult Fiction ... and read all the way through to the end. Consequently, it was almost 7 pm before I checked the time (Yipes!!!). Because I don't have a watch, I have to check my cell phone and of course I had that turned off while I was in the library! I mean, really! How long does it take to read a book? Apparently, around four hours. Time just slipped away!
The library's interior is modern without clashing with the staid and classic architecture. It's a wonderful place with such nice people as staff! I was shown all sorts of stuff, they let me wander, I was told to help myself to the brochures - they were all Garrison Keillor has led us to expect from St. Paulians.
Perhaps I will run into them again in March.