Libraries are awesome. The giant touch screens? Not so much.
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Family / St. Louis libraries are some of my favorite places to take my kids—except for one glaring problem / -->
St. Louis libraries are some of my favorite places to take my kids—except for one glaring problem
Today’s libraries offer everything from STEM play spaces to story times. So why is the hardest part of every visit pulling my toddler away from a giant touch screen?
by<br>Collin Preciado<br>June 30, 2026 at 8:37 AM<br>June 29, 2026
Zinkevych / iStock / via Getty Images Plus
In the early ’90s, back when eating inside a Pizza Hut was not considered a news story, the internet was a scarce commodity. If you somehow had access to it, there really wasn’t much to look at, and the sites that did exist often took forever to load.
If you needed information that wasn’t otherwise available to you, you either had to ask your Uncle Carl (who was basically an early version of ChatGPT in that he just made things up), or you had to go to the library and find the information yourself.
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Libraries were a lot different back then. For starters, people actually checked books out. And sometimes they even read those books once they brought them home. Reading was popular enough that Pizza Hut had a wildly successful rewards program built entirely around reading achievements. (Pizza Hut used to be a major part of everyone’s life.)
Lots of people still read books today, but far fewer than they did 30 years ago. Libraries have had to justify their existence as a result, which is why they now offer things like telescopes, 3D printers, and even recording studios where you can produce a podcast about pizza chains (I am so hungry right now). But my favorite way libraries have evolved is by beefing up their kids’ sections.
Even just a few years ago, the kids’ section usually consisted of a few shelves of picture books, some carpet squares, and an old dusty abacus for toddlers to gnaw on. The library wasn’t really a place to hang out. It was more ideologically aligned with the idea that children should be seen and not heard (can you imagine?). It was basically a real-life A Quiet Place, except instead of monsters, a librarian would appear out of nowhere and eat you.
Today, libraries are slowly embracing the idea of becoming alternative play spaces for kids. The Meramec Valley and Clark Family branches are among the first in St. Louis to carve out giant soundproof areas designed specifically for loud children, packed with STEM exhibits and toys like wind tubes and giant playhouses. They also host Bubble Bus parties, story times, and even a children’s book club organized by this very magazine.
And in the middle of it all, for reasons I cannot begin to understand, they have giant interactive touch screens, which almost undo all the other progress they’ve made.
Screen time can be a delicate subject for parents, but there’s little doubt that screens are a problem. They were a problem for my generation when they had to be plugged into a wall, and they’re an even bigger problem now that you can carry them around in your pocket. One of the biggest reasons parents get their kids out of the house is to escape the constant temptation of screens. Also, if we’re being honest, screens have completely destroyed parents’ own tolerance for sitting around the house. We have to go do something.
And the library is the perfect place to do it. At least it would be if I didn’t have to spend the first 15 minutes of every visit crowbarring my son away from a 10-foot touch screen.
The library says these screens are loaded with "educational" games and activities, which is a lot like saying fruit snacks are made with real fruit. Sure, technically. But we all know the fruit part is doing very little of the heavy lifting. Kids are always going to choose the fruit snacks over an actual apple.
So please, whoever is in charge of the library: ditch the giant screens. Make it a little easier to get these kids looking at the thousands of books they’re already surrounded by.
And then let’s all go to Pizza Hut.
Collin Preciado
Collin Preciado is a St. Louis-based writer who has written for such publications as The Hard Times, Polygon, St. Louis Magazine, The Riverfront Times, The Pitch, Cincinnati CityBeat, and others.
More by<br>Collin Preciado
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