From the South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Best Library

October 18 2006

Broward County Southwest Regional Library
16835 Sheridan St., Pembroke Pines, 954/538-9996, Broward.org/library

Like all Broward County libraries, the Southwest Regional branch boasts an impressive collection of fiction and nonfiction works, periodicals and resource materials. Located in an expansive, two-story building in an educational complex west of I-75 in Pembroke Pines, this library is especially proud of its magazine selection. Dubbed The Periodicals Café, it includes a host of publications catering to interests as diverse as aviation (Aviation Week and Space Technology), astronomy (Sky and Telescope), the outdoors (Florida Sportsman) and business (Journal of Accountancy, which is surely riveting). The library's real draw, however, is its startlingly hip collection of CDs, which number in the thousands. A recent visit uncovered such titles as Pavement's indie-rock classic Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain; The Beach Boys' seminal Pet Sounds; Mobb Deep's hip-hop opus Blood Money; the eponymous debut by Audioslave; and even the latest Korn CD, See You on the Other Side. Anyone with a Broward County Library card can check out -- for free, of course -- as many as 49 CDs at a time. Let's see iTunes or Best Buy match that.