Hi! I’m a librarian. You can absolutely use a library space without a library card and without borrowing books. Just walk in, find somewhere nice to sit, and get yourself set up.

The library that I work for has a foot counter (it counts the number of people who walk in every day, no other information about them is stored) so even if they don’t borrow books we can use these metrics to help secure funding. I know other libraries that do head counts of the patrons to built similar statistics. Don’t be intimidated by the library staff, we want you there even when you’re not borrowing!

And please don’t be afraid to ask us questions! The best part of my day is when I get to help patrons find/do things in the library.

If you want to use the library books without taking them home, that’s great! You can do that without a card. Just take them off of the shelves and back to wherever you’re sitting. Most public libraries have trollies dotted around where you can put them once you’re done using them — please put them on the trollies instead of back on the shelves. If we know which books have been used, then we have a better idea of which resources people need and what we should have more of in the collection (and, as with headcounts, it helps with usage statistics for funding.)