Wake up and smell library’s new addition

Published 9:00 pm Tuesday, January 27, 2004

In the movie "You’ve Got Mail," Tom Hanks’ character tells his employee not to worry about public reaction to opening a mega-bookstore in a quaint neighborhood in New York. They’d draw customers with "cheap books and legal addictive stimulants," Hanks says.

The Everett Public Library now has one up on Hanks’ fictional store — its books are free.

After more than 10 years of wanting and waiting, the library finally has a cafe operated by Espresso Americano. It fits so naturally in the tall-ceilinged room once used for local art exhibits you’d think it had always been there. Isn’t this the way every library should be?

Libraries, by their very nature, are gathering places for community members. Small children under the watchful eye of their parents stop by for story time and the chance to talk to the fish in the tank. Students of all ages claim a cubbyhole and wade through piles of books and papers for hours on end. Avid readers find a comfy chair, kick off their shoes and pore over a novel, oblivious to everyone around them. It only makes sense for that kind of atmosphere to spill over to an adjoining cafe — one that will very soon host book clubs, chess clubs and even music.

Library officials and community members deserve praise for working so hard and creatively to make this happen and to open up the library to more of our community. A recent talent show for young people is just another example of how the library is reaching out to the public.

And the public is responding. Just because you haven’t stepped foot in a library for awhile, doesn’t mean everyone else is staying away. In Monday’s Herald article about the cafe’s opening, one Bothell woman told a reporter she planned to stop by the library cafe on her way to Bellingham when she visits her mother. Since when was Everett a place people dropped by to visit on their way to somewhere else?

Downtown Everett is still in a phase of major change, but it already has plenty going for it (including some other fabulous coffee shops. Hey, there’s room enough for everybody). And people are beginning to see it for themselves. Now when out-of-towners drive through Everett along I-5, instead of holding their noses, they can stop, take in an event and smell the coffee.

Free books, good coffee, community. We’re addicted.