Head Tale

I had a meeting in Regina this morning so took the rest of the afternoon off to do various “only doable during a weekday” errands in the city.  One of the things we did which isn't necessarily a weekday-only activity was to stop at the Cornwall Centre which is Regina's downtown shopping mall.

During the course of our shopping, we had occasion to use their family change room which is, I am pleasantly surprised to say, nicer than some hotel rooms I've stayed in in my life.  (Seriously!)

You gain access via a security buzzer so the great Mall Security Gods know that you're a legit user of this service.  Once the door opens, there's a main room that has a change table, a sink, and two leather chairs. Beyond that through another door, there's an ante-room that has another sink, a toilet and what, on first glance appeared to be a bidet (“how continental!”) but upon closer inspection (but not too close) turns out to be a miniature toilet for kids!  How fricking cool is that? 

Loyal reader Jill B. trained her wee bairn to do his business within like two weeks of being born but Pace isn't quite that advanced.  Still, I'm pretty sure that the Cornwall is going to be a destination of choice when he is potty-trained, simply to use that cute little toilet.  Who knew that investing in toilet facilities would have such a positive impact on the mall's bottom line? (er, no pun intended.)

Actually, that's a pet theory of mine – I think any business can improve its bottom line by having very clean, accommodating facilities.  Gas stations tend to be society's default “away from home” rest rooms but to bring this around to libraries, I think we, as libraries, also have a role (again, no pun intended – god, it's hard to be serious about this topic.  But I really am!) in providing these types of amenities to those who want to use them.  In fact, I think it's a natural extension of our position as a public institution where information flows freely for all (okay, I give up!)  

I was HUGELY disappointed to go into the new Montreal central (?) public library last year which, if I remember correctly, had recently undergone a grand redesign – except it appears that they completely forgot to redo the bathrooms as part of this upgrade.  Each floor had very small, hard-to-find facilities with walls painted institutional (aka “puke”) green and none of the features of today's modern bathrooms – touchless faucets, paper and soap dispensers, bright lighting, unique colours and designs throughout.  I mean, I'm not saying libraries should suddenly dedicate 95% of their budgets to the cans.  But they shouldn't dedicate 0% either. 

The link to “Great Tits” a couple days ago was something I saw on Reddit and found quite funny.  But, inspired by this entry, here's one I came up with myself that's actually pretty informative.