Public Library Visit: Tysons-Pimmit Regional Library
29 September 2023
Wilson, J. (2023). Overlooking the Tysons-Pimmit Regional Library. [Photograph]. CC BY-NC-SA.
My public library visit took me to the Tysons-Pimmit Regional Library, located in Falls Church Virginia, and part of Fairfax County Public Libraries. This choice is yet another library I was familiar with, but not nearly as other options within the same system. The extremely obvious one, John Marshall Community Library in Alexandria, is the one where I used to work at, and thus would be extremely easy to cover even without considering how relatively small it is. George Mason Regional Library in Annandale was another likely choice, especially considering the area’s remarkably diverse demographics even within the county plus the number of staff being similar to the library I currently work at—but the latter information was given to me by an old coworker there now. Tysons-Pimmit is a library that I had only visited a few times prior to this one, isn’t staffed by anyone I know—and as I went about my visit, turned out not to be entirely what I thought it was.
Space
Tysons-Pimmit Regional Library’s current building was originally opened in 1985, after an increasing local population outgrew the original community library built in 1974 (Fairfax County, n.d.-b). Demand continued to rise with Fairfax County’s population growth over the decades; and after a referendum that began in 2012, Tysons-Pimmit was closed for renovations in January 2016, then opened two years later in October 2017 (Woolsey, 2017).
These renovations kept the single-story structure intact, and even after visiting it a few times, it’s still hard to fathom how much bigger the inside seems than it actually is. Turning off the busy Leesburg Pike into the side road, then down into the circular, sloped parking lot,1 the nondescript brick building nestled among the trees might even seem small. Passing under the sails hanging above the entryway and stepping out into the main floor, though, one will find a space seemingly as vast as a hangar. There are windows ringing around the stacked roof providing plenty of natural light, a variety of minimalist hanging lamps for darker hours, and ever-larger sails strung between pillars that almost seem to float in the airy design. In contrast, the foyer and reference desk and beginning readers’ sections before the main floor leaves the roof at a lower, more typical height, making them seem cozy for the kids and intimate for where interactions between people are meant to happen.
Wilson, J. (2023). Tysons-Pimmit's children's area. [Photograph]. CC BY-SA.
For those looking to go about their business, the layout of the floor is very accommodating. Even though the bookshelves take up most of the space, tables and chairs are set on the margins against the walls, keeping users out of view to sit undisturbed. The majority of these chairs are made of wood, though there are cushioned seats and stands congregated near the new adult and newspaper shelves in the center.
Similar to my academic library visit, signage offering guidance outside of labelling specific bookshelves was minimal. With only one floor and one direction to go for the library’s main offerings, the overall layout is quite straightforward. What signage is there is used quite cleverly, though. Upon entering the library, the reference desk is directly in front of the patron. To the left of the desk is the book return, and on the wall surrounding the slot is a large, rainbow-colored calendar displaying all the events Tysons-Pimmit is running that month. Avid library users can easily ascertain what’s happening at the library, and staff are right nearby to answer what questions they might have about events, all at the same time.
Service
Wilson, J. (2023). Tysons-Pimmit's main floor. [Photograph]. CC BY-SA.
After its renovation, Tysons-Pimmit’s shelves have space for more than 100,000 items; as a part of FCPL, patrons have access to more than 2,000,000 items through the system’s floating collection (Fairfax County Public Library, 2022). As mentioned before, the beginning readers’ section is situated right next to the circulation desk, which keeps the premier high traffic/high circulation hotspot of any public library close to those who can lend assistance. The rest of the physical collection is spread among the main floor, including juvenile, young adult, and adult materials, all organized by Dewey Decimal Number; though adult fiction has a more precise categorization with dedicated large print, science fiction/fantasy, paperback romance, and western shelves.
Fairfax County has a significantly larger number foreign-born people than the national average, nearly 30% of its population (Fairfax County Department of Management and Budget, 2021). This ratio is even higher for Tysons-Pimmit’s patrons, as reportedly "close to 50 percent of the families who frequent [the library spoke] a language other than English at home” in 2016 (Woolsey, 2017). As such, the library features a large foreign language collection, with books in Spanish, Korean, Vietnamese, and Chinese available for borrowing. FCPL also boasts a large collection of ESL/ESOL materials; at Tysons-Pimmit, these are specifically gathered on/near a “Citizenship” shelf with information about the United States’ naturalization process—yet strangely, these materials are located away from the foreign language materials on the other side of the floor.
For those who would like to check for a certain book without having to search the stacks, FCPL’s catalog is available for browsing through four dedicated computers. These are located next to Tysons-Pimmit’s public computers, which run Windows 10, have Microsoft Office software installed, and can print in black and white or in color. The computers are set near the hold shelves and self-service kiosks, which itself bridges the main floor and the beginning readers section, meaning they are almost unmissable to anyone progressing further into the library. There are also two group studies and three meeting rooms available for reservation.
Other than displays that change with the month scattered around…there didn’t seem to be much more to the Tysons-Pimmit? This is, perhaps, an uncharacteristically tepid conclusion for what is a perfectly sufficient public library, but given the demographics of the surrounding area—Tysons Corner is less than a ten-minute drive down the road, nearly a third of the households in the area have incomes of $200,000 or more (Fairfax County Economic, Demographic, and Statistical Research, 2022a), Falls Church is the second wealthiest municipality in terms of median household income across the entire country (Johnson, 2022)—I kind of expected there would be fancier offerings, so to speak. Of course, the households in those brackets presumably have the disposable income to meet the needs that the library provides for less-affluent folks, so pouring money into say, more recreational library of things items might be unnecessary.2
People
Nonetheless, something that surprised me at the very beginning of my visit was a sign notifying Fairfax County residents of an important government date written in multiple languages3 right on the front entrance. As gestured towards above, Tysons-Pimmit is a library that sees traffic from a wide variety of ethnic groups, and this extends to the women staffing the reference desk as well. Despite this, outside of a regular series of events for Spanish-speakers and learners, there didn’t seem to be too many signage or events or resources catered towards other minority groups. I wasn’t able to witness more than a couple interactions between patrons and staff about account management during my visit, but this was on a typical school day close to lunch time, so activity was accordingly muted. There didn’t seem to be much interaction between patrons who didn’t already know one another; which is also understandable, given the possible language barriers and design of the space described earlier. Perhaps I simply didn’t know what specifically to look for—as Rubin and Rubin (2020) remark, "the use of the American public library is not dependent on any one characteristic; it is complexly related to other aspects of life" (pg. 82). And for a library where people with wildly different life circumstances walk through the doors every few minutes, it can only work well if it accommodates for an equally wide variety of uses.
Info
Like its contemporaries, Tysons-Pimmit’s front-facing web presence is confined to a single subpage on FCPL’s website—which itself is a subsection of the Fairfax County Government’s website. While this does flatten the system’s unique identity to match with its greater organization, it also remains familiar for anyone who’s navigated other parts of the Fairfax County website.
Each page is well-organized, with contact information and/or a short introduction to the library’s services under a decorative banner at the top; while side navigation linking to all the library’s major digital services is anchored to the left of the body for desktop and tablet users. On smaller devices, this sidebar defers to three prominent buttons for staple catalog-browsing and card-registering and account-managing functions, along with smaller fields for live chat or frequently asked questions (Fairfax County, n.d.-a). As convenient as the library’s homepage is, it doesn’t seem to be accessible from the Fairfax County website’s main navigation—which isn’t as troublesome as it sounds, since I imagine a lot of people simply type “fcpl” into a search bar, where the homepage will be the top result.
Looking at Tysons-Pimmit’s homepage, this efficient organization is continued, even if it leaves a rather plain impression. The library’s information and live chat link are substituted for the central offices, along with two large banners of screenshots and the library’s weekly hours. Below that, a short biography about Tysons-Pimmit’s history, a handful of important figures staffing or associated with the branch, and information about the library’s services. There is, however, an aspect that seems almost glaringly out of place: a picture of a teenager excitedly leaning into the movement of their Wii Racing Wheel that looks much more fitting for an arcade than a library, even if video game consoles are slowly becoming a regular feature at public libraries.4 Still, Tysons-Pimmit’s homepage provides all the essentials in a simple, no-nonsense design, which fits into my greater impression of the library—that of a straightforward yet flexible public library able to meet the needs of the groups that come to rely upon it accordingly.
1 ^There are even-leveled parking spaces for handicapped patrons closer to the entrance, though parking spaces in general are located a fair bit away from the front door.
2 ^Not even a day after writing this sentence did I find FCPL's FY22 annual report (2022), where plans for acquiring more library of things items were mentioned, including "binoculars, board games, gardening supplies and tools for home improvement" (pg. 26).
3 ^English, Spanish, Korean, and Arabic, the latter three being the highest-spoken non-English languages in Farifax County homes (Fairfax County Economic, Demographic, and Statistical Research, 2022b).
4 ^According to the video released by FCPL at Tysons-Pimmit's reopening, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 consoles were set up in the teen area initially (Fairfax County Public Library, 2017), though I saw no evidence of these setups or somehow managed to completely miss them.
References
Fairfax County. (n.d.-a). Library Home. https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/library/
Fairfax County. (n.d.-b). Tysons-Pimmit Regional Library. https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/library/branches/tysons-pimmit-regional
Fairfax County Department of Management and Budget. (2021). Our immigrant neighbors. Retrieved from https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/demographics/our-immigrant-neighbors
Fairfax County Economic, Demographic, and Statistical Research. (2022a). Community profile (Pimmit Hills). Retrieved from https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/demographics/community-profiles
Fairfax County Economic, Demographic, and Statistical Research. (2022b). Languages spoken at home by Fairfax County elementary students. Retrieved from https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/demographics/community-profiles
Fairfax County Public Library. (2022). FY2022 Fairfax County Public Library annual report. https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/library/sites/library/files/assets/documents/pdf/fcpl-annual-report_2022.pdf
Fairfax County Public Library. (2017, October 19). Tysons-Pimmit Regional Library grand reopening [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/fd7aGOmQqD0?si=PpKAFVbsmpiqPoHV
Johnson, S. R. (2022, December 23). The 15 Richest Counties in the U.S. U.S. News. Retrieved from https://www.usnews.com/news/healthiest-communities/slideshows/richest-counties-in-america?onepage
Rubin, R. E., & Rubin, R. G. (2020). Foundations of library and information science (5th ed.). American Library Association.
Woolsey, A. (2017, October 13). Newly remodeled Tysons-Pimmit Regional Library unveiled to the public Oct. 14. Fairfax County Times. Retrieved from https://www.fairfaxtimes.com/articles/newly-remodeled-tysons-pimmit-regional-library-unveiled-to-the-public-oct-14/article_aae594e2-b045-11e7-b4b7-836407b7aed7.html
Wilson, J. (2023). Overlooking the Tysons-Pimmit Regional Library. [Photograph]. CC BY-SA
Wilson, J. (2023). Tysons-Pimmit's children's area. [Photograph]. CC BY-SA.
Wilson, J. (2023). Tysons-Pimmit's main floor. [Photograph]. CC BY-SA.