Agave Library

I come to this library every week for baby time and to read with my little ones. We all enjoy it great in summer time to keep cool and educated. It is on the smaller scale but it’s nice employees and cleanliness keep us coming back for more. Only complaint I have is the older kids bull dozing the baby time. At 11;30 is the toddler time not really the libraries fault as it is the parents. But maybe they can enforce that policy so the littles can have fun without getting ran over

Friendly people. books are transfered quicky from other libraries in town, nice IT infrastructure to download ebooks and find information on-​line. Another great example of the services the City of Phoenix provides. Great library!

This is a very nice library! It’s on the smaller side, in my opinion, but we enjoy coming here. They offer multiple times throughout the week for children to attend baby time or story time! It’s also a plus that you can renew and check availability of books online!

I agree with Beth.
The building looks kind of cool, has plenty of snazzy neon signs and architectural «enhancements» — but it really isn’t a well-​designed library.
If you like to browse some fiction and then non-​fiction, with a trip to the computers (aka «card catalog») in between — you feel like your bouncing around a warehouse that has some bookshelves in it.
It feels as if there will be a trendy coffee shop tucked into it at any moment.

In the field of architecture, the Modern Era refers to the time period when designers produced buildings that were supposed to be timeless. Ideally these structures were to have a very functional form with their sharp angles and use of common materials. Post-​Modernism, as a design school, exists to playfully mock the «serious» designs of the Modern Era. Agave Library is the perfect example of everything that is wrong with Post-​Modernism.
Verging away from the «form meets function» philosophy of the Modern Era, the Agave library is the least functional building I have ever seen. It is all concrete, exposed air ducts, and wires which would be fine except every noise echoes like a gong throughout the «quiet» area.
The study rooms are comprised of glass walls, small round tables, and hard multi colored plastic chairs. They are laughably inadequate for hours of studying: the tables are not large enough to hold both a textbook and a laptop and the chairs are so uncomfortable for long periods of time. There are rows of tables for studying, but there aren’t enough outlets for laptop users.
The book collection is tiny compared to bigger branches like Juniper. However, I really like the interlibrary loan service. It allows Phoenix Library users to rent books from any library and have them sent to any convenient branch.
I really wish the City of Phoenix would refrain from trying to make a statement with every public structure. Modernism and even Post-​Modernism can be done in a tasteful way that is appropriate for a public building.