How Libraries Are Boldly Innovating to Meet the Needs of Changing Communities
More than a decade ago, the city of Lafayette
in the greater San Francisco Bay Area did some soul-searching about the fate of
its library. With a population of just a little more than 25,000, the city
had outgrown the tiny 1960s building within a decade. The library's
structure was falling apart, which was especially problematic in
earthquake country. As the conversation about building a new library ramped up,
Steve King, a longtime resident and small business economy researcher, wasn't
so sure a brick-and-mortar library was even needed -- not with the Internet
seemingly taking its place. The way he saw it, you could find much of the same
information online as you could at the library -- anytime, without even leaving
the house.
Since then, King has reversed his stance on
the subject. He and his wife helped fundraise for a new library. He
attends concerts and lectures in the space, and he can often be found coworking
there. He likes to settle into a nook overlooking a landscaped area -- a
"nice, quiet place to surf the web," he says. King is not alone.
The new library is packed from morning till night, the crowd turning over by
the hour.
The facility is now far more than just a
traditional library. When it opened in 2009, the space's
name was changed to the Lafayette
Library and Learning Center, which alludes to a mission that goes
far beyond book lending. For starters, the library moved to a busier, more
centralized location in Lafayette -- it's within walking distance for
schoolchildren and seniors -- and, quintupling in size, the center now has
ample room for performances (complete with a Steinway grand piano),
presentations, meetings, classes, studying, and hanging out. "It was
organized around being a community center and learning center rather than a
library only," says King, adding that the project has been
"hugely successful."
Even the City Council meets at the library,
which lends transparency to its members' deliberations. The place
gets plenty of foot traffic, with a cafe, bookstore, the Lafayette Arts and
Science Foundation headquarters, and the Lafayette Historical Society all
housed in the center. It demonstrates that people "still feel the need and
want to be around others," as opposed to just Googling things at
home, says Steven Falk, the city manager who describes it as a "shared
learning experience."
The Lafayette Library and Learning Center is
one of many libraries around the U.S. and the world that are reshaping
themselves, inside and out, to meet the changing needs of their communities.
Although the idea hasn't quite gone mainstream yet,
libraries are becoming increasingly important in cities, both
as physical spaces that are open to all and for the wide-ranging
resources they offer. Literacy and books haven't gone by the wayside, but
libraries are also tackling other types of learning, and in some cases, even
taking alternative forms: becoming "learning centers," going
"bookless," creating tool libraries and Libraries of
Things, providing other types of materials to check out or access,
and "popping up" in unorthodox locales.
For example, in Santa Monica, some public
library staffers headed to the beach with a load of books to set up a
temporary pop-up library that
included an assortment of beach reads. At the Cleveland Heights–University
Heights Public Library, staff deliver free books via bikes as part of
their Book Bike program. The bikes are used for "outreach to
schools and community events where we give away free books and other
materials," says the library's spokesperson Sheryl Banks.
The Challenges of a New Era
As libraries work to reinvent themselves,
they're up against the challenges of aging infrastructures, shrinking budgets,
and shifting public perceptions about the necessity of libraries in an
Internet age. Over the past year, the American Library
Association (ALA) has ramped up its Libraries Transform
campaign to spread the word about how libraries are rising to the occasion.
As library systems recalibrate themselves --
each at their own pace -- they typically need more communal space and better
technology. But old buildings may not be ideal for setting up broadband access.
Sari Feldman, the ALA's president and
executive director of the Cuyahoga County
Public Library, in Parma, Ohio, says there's a trend to renovate or
replace library buildings, but this is dependent on taxes from cities or
counties. "It's not an easy change to make -- to offer 21st-century
library services using digital tools and space for innovation and content
creation," Feldman says.
To keep pace with the times and to figure out
how best to serve their users, library administrators are zeroing in on what's
happening in their communities to determine community strengths and how they
can nurture and leverage them. "That's where learning becomes so
critical," Feldman says.
A Big Idea
In Lafayette, the state-of-the-art library is
a modern-looking structure of stone, wood, and glass gracefully blending into
the hillside. The $50 million facility, nestled in the heart of the city, feels
like a spacious campus, with several interconnected buildings. But the
impressive layout is not the whole story, King says.
"I don't think that's the magic of
it," King says. "You could do this in a much dumpier
building …[even] a converted warehouse, and it would be every bit as
good."
King attributes the project's success to the
Glenn Seaborg Learning Consortium -- a mix of public and
private sector partners that frequently draws marquee names to the
suburban center: master gardeners, Pixar animators, famous authors, and
well-known jazz artists. The collaborative approach makes for a strong, diverse
lineup of programs throughout the year.
The consortium came together organically
while the library was still in its conceptual stages. As is the case in so many
other cities, the Lafayette library was always susceptible amid funding
shortages, according to Falk. Every time there was a budget crisis, the easiest
thing was to cut back on libraries, including both their maintenance and
services. "They were viewed as nonessential compared to courts, police,
and fire [departments]," Falk says.
In the 1990s, a budget crisis rolled through
California, and county government was hit hard. Around that time, Contra Costa
County, where Lafayette is located, “decided to get out of the business of
owning libraries,” Falk says, adding that it didn't want to be solely
responsible for all the branches countywide. The city agreed to support the
Lafayette location, knowing that it needed a major upgrade. This sparked a
larger conversation with the community, and the city began estimating
redevelopment costs.
As the city explored ideas for a new library,
officials knew they needed a "big idea to capture the imagination of
potential donors," Falk says. "The idea that it would serve as a
repository for books wouldn't cut it -- not in this day and age of Barnes and
Noble and Amazon and the Internet, with almost instant access to
anything."
Early on, physicist and library board member
Roger Falcone brought up the Lawrence Hall of Science in
Berkeley, California. It had a basement full of interesting relics, such as an
astronaut suit and an insects collection -- paraphernalia that Falk says
"might make for great traveling exhibits at the
library." Library planners asked the museum if it would want to
partner. When administrators agreed, the team brainstormed other organizations
that might want to join.
Eventually, the Lafayette Library and
Learning Center signed on a dozen science and cultural institutions that now
comprise the consortium. The consortium provides programming, publicity, and
other forms of support to the library. "Every single institution we
contacted thought it was a good idea," Falk says. "I think
that's the biggest thing we could learn from it -- the whole idea of nonprofits
working together through a region to leverage assets to benefit each other is
very powerful."
As proof of the appeal of the project, one in
every four households in Lafayette contributed to the library's fundraising
effort.
The Center of Experience
The Lafayette library's rustic-looking
interior, which features wood rafters overhead, was inspired in part by
the renowned Ahwahnee Hotel at Yosemite. Designers had fun with it in other
ways as well. They installed a constellation of circular windows
in the children's area that looks like the Big Dipper. Elsewhere
there's a solar fireplace, display space for "Old Betsy," a
Model T fire truck dating back to 1962, and an artistic nod to the Periodic
Table of Elements that honors the late Glenn Seaborg,
a Lafayette resident and chemist who discovered 11 of the elements, including
plutonium.
Amy Garmer, who heads the Aspen Institute Dialogue on Public Libraries in
Washington, D.C., says the revamping going on in the physical space of
libraries, including that of Lafayette's, is a testament to how the homogenous,
Carnegie Library-style layout -- with a reference desk here, copy machine
there, and so forth -- is on its way out.
Examples of forward-thinking libraries run
the gamut: The Southeast Branch of Nashville Public
Library, which is in an old
J.C. Penny Co. store shared by a community center, has a
24-hour lobby. At the East Roswell Branch of the Atlanta-Fulton
Public Library System, a covered bridge leads visitors to a space
that seems to blend in with the trees. And, Denver's Rodolfo
"Corky" Gonzales Branch underscores sustainability
themes with a three-story "plenum wall" that "acts as a
light, water, and air filter for the building," according to Madden Constance
Design Studio, a designer on the project. Each of these libraries
has been featured by American Libraries magazine as a part of its annual design
showcase.
Despite the flurry of activity in libraries
today and their historical importance, administrators are still
struggling to convey their relevance to stakeholders and secure funding.
Libraries are routinely on the chopping block. Working hours are
often limited -- evening and Sunday hours can be especially tough to come by.
And staffing is regularly subject to reductions. In some places, libraries
are simply closing their doors.
This is an all-too familiar saga in New York,
where, in recent years, a number of the city's libraries have been imperiled by
government defunding and real estate deals, leading some branches to
downsize, consolidate, close, or work with fewer resources. The Donnell library
was sold to a developer in 2008 and later torn down, resulting in much
hand-wringing. It was recently reincarnated as the 53rd Street Library -- a basement space
with a fraction of its former holdings.
Several grassroots citizen groups have worked
to stop a plan to rid the city's famous 42nd Street research institution of
seven floors of books. Reporter Scott Sherman described this tug-of-war in
his 2015 book, Patience and
Fortitude: Power, Real Estate, and the Fight to Save a Public Library.
Libraries in the city are struggling to
make a case for themselves, despite the fact "the city's libraries
have more users than major professional sports, performing arts, museums,
gardens and zoos -- combined," according to a 2015 story in
the New York Times.
Part of the problem is that politicians and
other decisionmakers are still operating under a 20th-century notion about what
libraries have to offer, and "that makes them seem
irrelevant," Garmer says. She chalks it up to the idea that they may
not be using the library themselves or may not have school-age children
who go to the library.
Garmer sees plenty of parallels to her
previous line of work in journalism. Just as in that industry, which is
exploring new models to redefine itself and remain relevant, there's plenty of
experimentation happening in libraries nationwide. Likewise, their long-term
sustainability remains an open question.
The Aspen Institute, which hosts forums
around the country about the future of libraries, began this dialogue back in
2013. The institute wanted to explore what's happening in libraries and where
they're headed in the long term, as well as provide support for the
ever-changing information needs of communities.
At the same time, the Gates Foundation had a
global arm focused on raising awareness of the transformation of libraries and
creating an understanding and common vision for them. The Aspen Institute and
Gates Foundation teamed up, in hopes of making an impact on libraries to help
make them sustainable. Since then, the situation has improved as more libraries
realize the need to align themselves more directly with their constituencies --
but there's still plenty of work to be done. Over the past few years, the Aspen
Institute released several reports about re-envisioning libraries and making
them "centers of innovation." The institute's latest report describes
how libraries can work with the community at large to leverage human capital or
find strength in new partnerships.
"People from different walks of life
come together, and new ideas can emerge," Garmer says. "How does
the library now become the center of experience, bring value to the community,
build on what it has?"
For Susan Hildreth, a professor at the University of Washington Information School and
former director of the federal Institute of
Museum and Library Services (IMLS), this means libraries need
to be more comfortable with community engagement. They need training on this
front. Some nonprofit organizations, including the ALA and Harwood Institute for Public
Innovation in Washington, D.C., have teamed up to provide
support.
Similarly, the Learning Labs in
Libraries and Museums program has doled out competitive grants
for the creation of "innovative teen spaces" in libraries, which
specifically relate to learning in the realm of science, technology,
engineering, and math (STEM). In St. Paul, Minnesota, a $100,000 grant from the
program paved the way for a unique partnership as the library collaborated with
the city's Parks and Recreation department on a lab known as Createch, which is housed in a community
center.
Createch, which is dubbed a "creative tinkering
space for teens," provides a space for teens to gather, access
various tools, and connect with mentors. At the lab, the lines between the
library and the park space are blurred. The roles of the staff
overlap as well. Typically, government offices are siloed and don't
necessarily work together, but Createch has changed that.
"I feel like the library and park
interaction changed how we think about it," says Hildreth, explaining
that the two offices generally have different mindsets and cultures. "This
digital lab brought them together."
This sense of reinvention is seen in academic
libraries, as well. The Shapiro Lab at the University of Michigan was
"founded on participatory design," says Justin Schell, who runs
the lab, which is focused on providing an engaging space, services, and support
for undergrads. "It's not just you building something for the user,
expecting them to use it the way you want, but instead, working with them every
step of the way," says Schell. "It's about always engaging
people every step of the way."
The old library model, where people came in
just to borrow books, or lingered to study quietly, was rooted in the 19th
century. Now, there's more of a back-and-forth happening and the public has a
voice in the aesthetics and functions of libraries. This way, users feel more
invested. Likewise, the job of librarians is to facilitate people's work, which
involves a more meaningful interaction with library users.
Thinking Collaboratively
For Bonnie Tijerina, a librarian based in New
York and the founder and annual coordinator of the Electronic Resources & Libraries
conference in Austin, Texas, the evolution of libraries is an
energizing topic. A handful of years ago, Tijerina was inspired to start
the Library Idea Drop House after
she attended the annual South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive conference.
Tijerina wanted other librarians to get a taste for what was being discussed at
the conference, so she rented a house in the area and invited the library crowd
to stop by and talk shop.
Right away, the Library Idea Drop House was a
hit. Early on, as librarians gathered, a decision was made to livestream the
salon-style talks to the broader community. It was so popular that Tijerina has
resurrected the Library Idea Drop House -- a play off the library term,
"book drop" -- annually for the past several years. The house is
about "how to start changing the mindset, a cultural change in
libraries," she says.
Although separate from SXSW, the house draws
a sizable crowd from the conference. It offers a welcome reprieve, says
Tijerina. People can settle in on the couch and participate or just listen in
as all kinds of interesting conversations take place.
"The main objective is to nurture
connections, change the conversation, and get people to see how libraries fit
into the bigger picture in terms of technology and its impact on society,"
she says.
Supporting the New Workforce
At the Lafayette library, there are a
variety of resources for jobseekers and small businesses, including a
monthly social media program about using social media platforms to effectively
market and grow a business. The series is the result of a partnership with the
local Chamber of Commerce.
Volunteer opportunities at the library, for
students aged 13 and up, give young people work experience. "The
level of training we provide, the discipline we're instilling is helpful
when they're applying to colleges or trying to nab their first paying
jobs," says the library's executive director Beth Needel.
She adds that the space "augments
learning in the community" and gives people a place to go.
"It's what libraries do best," she
says. "Being responsive and understanding who their patrons are and
providing programs and training of greatest interest [to the community]."
This community responsiveness was especially
important and evident at the height of the Great Recession: As layoffs mounted,
libraries all over the nation formed job clubs. Job seekers received help
writing business plans and resumes, and landing job interviews. Libraries
became a key meeting place for entrepreneurs and mom-and-pop shops, says Sari
Feldman of the ALA, explaining that this service ushered in a new era for
libraries wherein "learning and ideas and creativity are exchanged, not
just held." These clubs afforded (and still do) a valuable
opportunity to network.
Now, many libraries, big and small, are going
beyond job clubs, establishing business centers and coworking spaces.
Miguel Figueroa, who helms the Center for the Future of Libraries,
which opened in May 2014, hopes that libraries will continue to be seen
as important "third spaces," in between home and work,
where people have the freedom to engage in public programs, lectures, book
discussions, slow reading, and
adult coloring. "More libraries are investing in those unplugged, digital
detox activities," he says.
More libraries are reaching out to
millennials, offering special happy-hour programs at local bars and
eateries. These provide spontaneous access to anyone who happens
to be around at that moment. In general, millennials are more
open to novel, quirky experiences -- like bike or
pop-up libraries -- than prior generations who view
the library as a fixed entity. Millennials tend to
enjoy the serendipity of a library in a surprising
place, Figueroa says.
A Sense of Community Ownership
Since opening, the Lafayette community has
taken ownership of its library and the number of people who come through its
doors everyday has more than tripled. Falk explains that residents and others
from surrounding areas hang out at the library, as opposed to a shopping mall,
and that real estate agents point to the library as a selling point for
the area. This is quite a turnaround for a once-fledgling and literally crumbling
institution.
Lafayette's head librarian, Vickie Sciacca,
who has been in the field since 1986, describes the library as a vibrant place
to be every day where, previously, going to the library was a "very quiet,
isolated experience."
"When people drive through here, they
see [the library] as a testimony to what they believe and what they want to
honor -- having multiple generations participate on a daily basis, with
lifelong learning going on at the same time as storytime," Sciacca says.
Source | http://www.truth-out.org/
Regards
Pralhad
Jadhav
Senior
Manager @ Library
Khaitan & Co
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