McAllen, Texas, was once home to a Wal-Mart — but no longer. When the discount superstore closed its doors, it left behind a vast empty building. The community took advantage of the space and converted the warehouse-like building into a public library.
The size of more than two football fields, the McAllen Public Library is the largest single-story library in the country, the website PSFK writes. Its conversion from vast warehouse space to functioning library has recently made it the winner of the 2012 Library Interior Design Competition by the International Interior Design Assn.
Adriana Ramirez, who teaches creative writing at the University of Pittsburgh, grew up in McAllen. “The old library on Main Street was not beautiful,” she told Jacket Copy. “It was packed with books and seemed too small for the people it serviced. Of course, that was part of the charm — always waiting your turn for the computer and spending a good amount of time finding a corner where you could read uninterrupted. The new library solves all that.”
via Where Wal-Mart failed, a library succeeds – latimes.com.
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