I Love Libraries

I have just visited my local library and it reminded me how much I love libraries: these amazing houses for books. I love that there is a whole building dedicated to people that want to read, to learn and to think. Yes, the internet is a hive of information, but a library is so much more. It is a place where you don't always manage to find exactly the book that you were looking for, but you have the opportunity to look, to flick and to discover.

Image: The house of books has no windows by canadian art duo Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller



Public Libraries: Such interesting social spaces: they offer a place to go in city which does not ask anything of you if you do not want it to. You can be there for free and if you want to read a book, a magazine, search the internet, or simply sit and do nothing... you can. Because of this there is a diverse mix of people within these spaces and the best bit is they are all there for slightly different reasons. Some there for a specific reason, others perhaps simply there as there is nowhere else to go.

I remember meeting this amazing old man in the Mitchell Library in Glasgow. I don't know why, but I really felt the need to speak to him and so I did. He was amazing; at 85 years old he could hardly walk and he was blind in one eye (you can't make this stuff up), yet he said that he went to library almost everyday as it was his place to go outside of his house and he didn't really have anywhere else. He said that he was trying to learn about different things, so read as many different books as he could... just a little bit at a time...

My favourite library to date is the library at the pompidou centre in Paris. When I lived in Paris I used to love going there to look at the books, but also to look at the people. Which from what I understood from observing the space, is two of the reasons that many of the people choose to go to the library at the Pompidou Centre.

With most of my blog posts, I start to write about something and then I google it to see what other people have written about it. On this occasion I found the site titled - Love Libraries
for people whom somewhat like myself, have a fondness of houses for books. Then I found that it links to a site called the peoples network which lets you log into the "British library Scene". Great! It made me realise that like many other things, libraries now have to put more effort into justifying their existence and therefore need to reach out to people in new ways. As of course people always want to read, but due to the diverse manner in which we are now able to access information the supply and demand that a library often reacts to may be changing.

Most libraries have websites these days (I often assume all types of businesses have websites these days) and I must admit that many of these "library" websites are very interesting. The biblioteque nationale in Paris or the British library website also states that you can now find it on facebook, flickr and twitter and even has a range of blogs to follow.

And so it seems that things have changed a little since mister bean visited the library, as he seems to believe that is is a place with many supposed rules... Yet I believe that people just don't cut up books like they used to.


*I also stumbled onto this student project on interactive furniture within a library which I think presents an interesting concept. It has certainly made me think about how interactivity and design could increase the positive interactions that could take place in these public spaces.


So yes, I have began to think about how social networks, interaction design and marketing could increase the popularity of libraries with certain age groups, improve service and make the working life of the librarians more interesting. I actually linked to this following site after finishing this post - so am going update and add it now - More than books, which is an ning social network set up around a library in america

Certainly something to think about another day.