Check It Out: Media Lab awaits your experiments

When the phone rings at the Newport Beach Central Library, I never know what to expect, but I always welcome new challenges and questions.

Will the wonderful customer on the other end want the new J.D. Salinger collection? Information on tonight’s Witte Lecture or the soup of the day in the café? A query about a Musicale, pajama story time, financial workshop or eBook Tuesday@2 class? Perhaps help finding a new garage door?

There’s never a dull moment.

We also answer questions about our Media Lab. Rightly so.

The Newport Beach Public Library is not just a house of wisdom. It’s a rec center for the brain.

When our Media Lab opened in 2013, things were quiet. Not anymore. Usage grows and, with bright new graphics now in place, customers are being drawn to explore what it’s all about.

The Media Lab is the perfect workroom for creative thinkers. It’s equipped with all the right tools for turning creative vision into reality. Visitors love the space. They love the potential. They love the work that they accomplish.

The question is not only, “What can I do in the Media Lab?” It’s “What more can I do?”

One of our customers landed a job after he learned how to build websites in the Media Lab. Often, someone is designing invitations and brochures with Adobe Creative Suite and the Wacom tablet.

Late one night, a customer popped in and told me what had led him to the Media Lab. His laptop was recently stolen.

Professionals rely on their laptops and expensive software, but the equipment can disappear in a flash — or a crash — and all of a sudden deadlines are approaching, clients are getting impatient and tasks are piling up.

Well, plop down at one of our Macs or PCs in the Media Lab and get to work. That’s what he did.

Our Sound Lab is booked many evenings by either an a cappella performer who beat-boxes or a young man recording a full-length album. The latter brings his guitar in and plugs into the Universal Audio interface. Within a few clicks and keystrokes, blastoff.

Customers convert old media to digital formats. Do you have an old vinyl record that is special to you? “It’s going to break, I swear,” you say. I say come convert it to an MP3, and preserve the recording forever.

So far, I haven’t met an animator or filmmaker in the Media Lab, but I’m looking forward to doing so because we have great software like Manga Studio, Maya 3D, Final Cut Pro and Pro Tools. Maybe it’s you and you haven’t popped in yet. Stop in and help our Media Lab see its full potential.

CHECK IT OUT is written by the staff of the Newport Beach Public Library. The Media Lab is located on the lower level of the Central Library, 1000 Avocado, Newport Beach. To find out about available software and equipment or to reserve a specific workstation, go to https://www.newportbeachlibrary.org/services/media. For more information on the Central Library or any of the branches, contact the Newport Beach Public Library at (949) 717-3800, option 2.