Barrington Area Library

Think of the Kohl’s children museum but FREE and you’ve got Barrington Area Library. I am a cardholder of Palatine Library but you can connect your library card to the Barrington Library so you can check out books. They also have a book drop box right off of Algonquin at the Willow Rec Center which is really convenient (they actually even have book pick up there, with use of a pin and box number you can pick up your books which is placed in outdoor lockers).
This place is high tech and really great for kids of all ages. I normally only come here for my children so I don’t have much to say about the adult area but from what I can see, it’s clean and stays pretty quiet.
Now back to the children’s area. The area has a lego room with lego walls so that you can play legos on a table or build right on the walls. They also have a market with play food, a huge chalkboard wall, a workshop station, 6 ipads full of child appropriate apps, a slide, puppet stage, light up wall (think light brite but a full wall!), blue foam builders, and more. The kids can play here for hours without getting bored!
The book selection is really great as well and displayed really nicely so that children can see the book titles and choose books for themselves.
Oh I can’t forget they also have a music room along with a green room and video game station.
I can’t say enough great stuff about this library, every friend I have brought to the library fall in love with it and don’t realize the amazing things that are in this little hidden gem of a library.
This place opened up January of 2014 so everything is still very new and clean.

I love taking my kids to this library! They did a beautiful job remodeling it and the kids area is super FUN! The staff is very nice, friendly and helpful.

I love libraries almost as much as I love parks, and this library from my old ‘hood in IL… I loved even more than the parks in that area.
The Barrington Library was amazing. There were big fireplaces, always burning. And cozy reading rooms with comfy seating facing the fires. I can remember being there on snowy days, looking out at the trees.
I just reviewed my local library in LA, where I was thankful today for the A/​C, but in Barrington my best memories of the library are in fall & winter.
I wish I had a photo of the sculpture garden, and the beautiful exterior of the building. It’s a very artsy place. They used to have (and still do) a gallery in the library, where local artists could get shows that ran at least a month.
When I was looking up the library’s address online, I read that they house 260,000 volumes. Their stock of books was always ample for me. At the time I lived there, I was not using a computer & was still running to the library to look up everything. Wow… the good ‘olé days (pre-​Google) were a pain in many regards, haha.
Barrington Library had/​has a homework hotline, where school kids can get help, and answers to any of their questions. I thought that was so cool. Not sure if this is a common service for libraries to offer, but it surely should be.
Barrington is a far northwest suburb of Chicago, not that far from the Wisconsin border. It’s where I had my art gallery when my son was in middle school. It was on Northwest Hwy. in fact, just up the street from the library.
We lived across the road from a nature preserve that had not only an historic round barn, but a lake with an island where egrets nested, a rare sight through binoculars. When the lake froze over in winter, we used it for ice skating.
Barrington is a quaint & charming town, with many Victorian houses. There are forest preserves everywhere. This area represents the Midwest at its finest, I think. So it’s only fitting there would be a cozy & inviting library with fireplaces.
I’m thinking I should review the town of Barrington sometime soon…

It’s too bad this library doesn’t have a drive-​thru like the library in my old town, but they do have this machine that allows you to officially return media, but you still have to park and go all the way inside to do so. I also like the self check-​out machines; makes everything really quick. I always request DVDs online & it’s nice they email you when the item is ready to be picked up & you have six days until they put the item back. They have almost every movie I have searched for. Not sure if there is an option to request new materials, but I’ll have to find out.