Hot Lit: McAllen Public Library

For all my literary friends, I thought you might like to check out something Texas has really done right, and which will have you suddenly itching to visit the Lone Star state: the McAllen Public Library.

To give you a bit of the idea of the size of this space…
… this is just the children’s section. It’s frickin’ HUGE!

Formerly an abandoned WalMart, this city near the U.S./Mexico border is now the proud owner of the largest single-story library in the country. How awesome is that?

The quiet reading room in the McAllen Public Library’s adult reading section. I remember having one of these in the Elmhurst Public Library where I read voraciously as a kid. Great for uninterrupted silent reading and learning to breathe VERY quietly as you do, lest a fellow quiet reader SHUSH you!

I’m really impressed with the space they’ve created in an abandoned WalMart. The article has a “before” picture so you can see how truly huge it is. There are also lots more pix on the library’s SmugMug account here. The library’s official site is available here.

So, who wants to go on a road trip down to visit McAllen and their awesome library?