Not all places have a public spaces. But for a big city like Surabaya, I think its not that difficult to find a few. This public library is one of them. Located in the center of Surabaya and very easy to access, local people often time called it Perpus Balai (cause the location is in the city hall area).
The place is quite spacious with a large collection of books. They have textbooks on various subjects, novel in Indonesian or English, comics, and other types of books related to hobbies and interests. The bookshelves used to be arranged by genre. But lately, I found that their system has been improved—they group books by series or author. If there are some books that have more than 1 quantity, they also also put them in the same row. This is very helpful for visitors because its easier to find the book they are looking for.
This place also has several different areas. There is a children library room with colorful decorations and lots of children book selection. In the middle of the room, there is a workspace as the main area used by visitors. I often sit for hours in one of these chairs to do my work.
There is also a really cool Korean Corner and Learning-English Corner. This public library is often used by elementary school students to study together. The staff is very helpful and can create fun activities for them.
Overall, this place is really suitable for everyone, from all ages. From childrens, students, workers, to the elderly people can come and have their good time. All book collections also can be borrowed if we have a membership card—its free without any fees, with easy T&C.
But like most other public places, the atmosphere in this library is unpredictable. I mean, sometimes its not easy to concentrate on work when there are dozens of kids making noise at the same time or someone is talking on the phone loudly or something like that. Also, the wifi is not really reliable as it sometimes works very slowly hehe. However, whenever I stay long enough in Surabaya, this public library is still a place that I will visit at least once a week.
Its quite new for me to try to describe places through long-form words and English isn’t my first language so I hope it can come across clear enough to the reader with some pictures I included as well. Thank you for reading this, upvote for more Library Trip content. Reblog is also appreciated!