There’s a spacious second-floor room at the northeast corner of the new downtown library, with big windows on two sides that offer interesting urban views, but Des Moines Public Library Director Kay Runge said no, she didn’t want that spot as her office. Instead, she took a boxy room with only a north-facing window. So we have to assume that all of this moving and worrying and tour-giving has made her kind of loopy.

You can see how that might happen. All those months of construction, those thousands of books, newspapers, magazines and CDs to move, all the while thinking about the Dewey Decimal System and remembering the alphabet in the exact right order. And now, every so often, she has to stop what she’s doing and tell the whole story all over again.

Just the other day, she was giving a tour for some women librarians from the far reaches of the state — clearly priming them to go back home and stir up trouble — and I tagged along. Runge didn’t seem to mind at all, unless it’s a bad thing to be constantly referred to as an “interloper.” It’s certainly more respectable than “newspaper reporter,” judging by the polls.

The old downtown library was like Barry Bonds – great-looking on the outside, forbidding and unfriendly on the inside. The new place is a tribute to copper and a reminder that Iowa is a big place and we can wall off a lot of cubic feet without really missing them.

We kept going and going, and Runge kept telling me that I was seeing parts of the library that most people don’t get to see. I kept expecting her to open the door on a torture chamber for people who bend page corners.

But the main secret I learned was the access point to the famous roof.

I’ll never tell. Only federal agent Jack Bauer of Fox TV’s “24” could wring that secret out of me, and he would have to shoot me a couple of times or slam me against a really hard wall. (He would do it, too. Jack gives new meaning to the word “assertive.”)

All in all, the librarians and I got a great tour of the new landmark, although I missed out on the women’s locker room. Again.

We saw vast stores of information that are available to the public. We found lots of computers ready and waiting with Internet connections. We sat in comfortable chairs and enjoyed the views.

My only complaints – if architect Channing Swanson has read this far, it’s time to start crafting an e-mail reminding me that I don’t know anything about architecture – have to do with the dim, depressing fluorescent lighting and the idea that poured concrete is a finished surface. Apparently I’m the only one who knows that after the concrete sets, you’re supposed to cover it with a material that’s actually attractive. They’re still cutting down trees, aren’t they?

Pulitzer Prize-winning architectural critic Blair Kamin of the Chicago Tribune noted that our new library was pretty darned nice for being done on the cheap. I worked with Kamin long ago, and I think I recall trying to teach him how to tell the difference between a cornfield and a beanfield. But when it comes to architecture, I’ll defer to his experience.

It’s as if your little hometown Carnegie library had grown up, gone to a fancy college and landed a white-collar job with a solemn title. It’s an impressive building and an eminently useful one, where you can find everything from the Congressional Record to sheet music for your autoharp. Maybe a little more money could have made it charming.