Please get a library card.

When I was in college, I was flat broke. When flat broke, the best thing you can do for yourself is get a library card, especially if you enjoy books and third spaces. In Arizona libraries, we have this wonderful resource called “Culture Pass,” provided by Act One, which is pretty much exactly how it sounds. Free entry, free tickets, free access to the arts and cultural sites around Arizona. 

Not to get personal, but the Sunset Library and I have been on and off since 2012; we’ve quite recently separated again due to me moving to midtown Phoenix. People always say long distance relationships never work out, and they were right! After any breakup you absolutely must do something drastic, so let’s walk through the process of getting a library card at the Burton Barr Phoenix Library - the flagship location for the Phoenix library system. Conveniently, I live only 7 minutes away (by car).

First off, the entryway is insane. I only have the picture below to show the side of the hallway. I was too embarrassed to take a picture of the front while so many people were going in and out. Sorry! Just imagine huge glass doors and then a wide hallway with frosted glass walls that opened up into a massive ground floor with a nice medium sized water feature. 

Side of the entrance hall to the Burton Barr Phoenix Library.

After I got over the shock of a water feature being in a library, I took a left to the librarians on duty to open up a card. Now, if you’ve never opened up a library card, here’s what you need - photo ID and proof of residence. The proof of residence can be on your ID, a piece of mail, or a copy of your lease if renting. The rest of the sign up process is boring, so we’ll skip to the fiction section since I’m a freak for reading. The signage in this section was incredible, and dare I say, accessible.

There were also CDs and DVDs available to check out, which is so old school. For some odd reason, I only have this photo of a Macklemore album. 

I wandered the halls of fiction for a while, then wandered myself right over to the stairs to check out the other floors. Right before I got to the stairs, I ran into what I had initially come here for, the Act One Culture pass stand. It’s right next to the water feature by the way, you really can’t miss it. 

Now, I haven’t personally checked one out yet at the Phoenix Library but in Chandler, it’s a very similar process. You approach this stand pictured, and select a pass to take to the front desk. The librarian will trade the physical pass for two tickets to whichever exhibition or place you have chosen. Last year, I used a culture pass to go to Arcosanti (as seen below), an experimental town/bronze bell forge located in central Arizona. Some other places you can check out are the Phoenix Art Museum, the Desert Botanical Garden, the Heard Museum, and much more. 

Once you use the culture pass, you can also fill out this form to win tickets to a local exhibition or show! 

Something so wonderful about this particular library is that there is an art gallery on the first floor and often various little exhibitions around the different floors available for to peruse. On the second floor, there was a cultural exchange photo exhibition called “Through Each Other’s Eyes,” where two Japanese photographers and two American photographers swapped cities and took photos of anything that piqued their fancy. The Central Gallery can be found on the first floor to the right of the water feature. Right when I was going to go in, I overheard the security guards talking about how they were going to lock up since it was near closing. I got nervous and decided to leave instead, as one does. 

To wrap up this beautiful experience, I was asked to sign an Elon Musk funded petition as I was leaving. Not really how I thought this would end, but an accurate representation of Phoenix. 

I did not sign it.