on interest

I am sorry, Romanian libraries.  I have no interest.  Toward you.

Yes, I will come to Noaptea Alba a Bibliotecilor.  And I am sure a lot of people will.

Once.

That one night per year. Out of curiosity of what happened to the libraries they knew, out of respect to the notion of good in the books, out of noble impulse to support the libraries in this new age when “new generations just don’t read”, …  and yet a tiny percent of Night’s visitors will return any time soon.

Because, dear libraries, you wake up little to no interest.

There’s plenty of respect, compassion, beautiful memories of the past, but you seem more a fading ghost of the past then a lively public institution of tomorrow.

Let me put it bluntly: unless I am academic, or a super-responsible student, you are irrelevant.

Now, before you flood me with hate comments, let me assure you of my best intentions.

When Stefan and Natalia first told me about their initiative, I said I’ll gladly help.  A year ago I launched Sufrageria at McCann (a part a library), and has been blogging of books and related for some time, so the subject is close to both heart and mind.

I had only one itch.  “The Honesty” itch.  So I was frank:

I think you guys set out to do the right thing. I support you. There’s only one big problem. We can run a Night of Libraries every month.  And still change little. Libraries, for large audiences, as I know them now to be, are doomed. Unless they change.

And change they must.

At a page, we believe in building things.  Love, hate, fix:  give love where it’s due, pour hate where deserved, fix where we can.

So Barna, Razvan and me, creative collective behind a page, decided to open a discussion on what the library of tomorrow should be, throw in some of our ideas to kick off a debate, and gather hundreds of yours.

Guys wrote their essays, here and here, you can make your voice heard here, and this is my attempt in re-imagining.

FIRST THINGS FIRST

I am not a professional librarian or an authority in the subject. I only have my personal experience, some research and a bucket of imagination.  And to be fair, I will make a good use of Jack M. Maness’ first element of Library 2.0:  user-centricity.  That is, I will focus on me, a prototype of a user.

And it that light, I asked myself one simple question:

what the heck can bring me back to libraries?

Inspired by Monocle’s imaginative exercises with “perfect” this and “perfect” that, I thought of a “perfect” new (old) library:

how would I do it?

This is how:

Let me walk you through this mind-map.

PURPOSE

My library would anchor its existence in 3 essential questions:  why? how? what? Answered for real.   A perfect library knows EXACTLY why it exists and for who.  And it doesn’t just put these words on paper, it lives and breathes it.  Because this then sets the tone for how? (all them values and behaviors big and small) and results into what?, the final service (or product, as you’ll see later). And my perfect library isn’t afraid to break away from the pack – it asks itself more often “what would people like” vs “what would a library do”.

So once we decide whether we are

a)     dead stock,

b)     an archive,

c)     at best, a museum of paper books and documents with a random digital update to appear on-trend, or

d)     a socially vibrant and relevant space,

…I believe we’ll set sail in the right direction.

OFFERING

Reread Lady Bird Johnson’s quote.

It is still true. I don’t think people lost interest in what a library can offer. It’s just that libraries lost ways to cater to that interest.

Spend some time in Carturesti and observe what people leaf through, or walk out with. Watch Amazon top bestsellers.

Now compare it with an offering of your regular library.

In my perfect library, we’d work our butts off to stay fresh and relevant in what we carry and present and guide access to.  Contemporary fiction from around the world, self-help, travel, cooking and a million of other hobbies, comics, business books, biographies and classics, this would be a modern-day brave library “for the learner, not for the learned”.

The only person over student age whom I know for a fact attending a library in recent years was my former colleague Lavinia who was borrowing new issues of NME from The British Council (if I am not mistaking).  So we’ll give plenty of shelf space to glossy (and crisp).  An archive of Interview.  A stack of Wallpapers.  A row of Purple Magazines. A treasure-trove of Vogues in all their country issues.  Monocle, of course.  Economists and HBRs and Wireds, and all.  Dazed, i-D, all the GQs and Esquires and Vanity Fairs and i-don’t-know-whats, established and upcoming, tomes and zines, local and all the way from Japan or Australia.  Have them the first in town.  The only in town.

And we’ll dedicate a whole big room to phenomenal art and culture books by Taschen, Thames & Hudson and the likes.  Don’t we all spend hours savoring their spreads in good bookshops?  In our library, do it at your pace and on your own terms.

And then there’ll be our huuuge e-book section, including guided linking to whatever is freely available out there on the internet, so you can happily swipe the pages on your Kindle / iPad.

And it goes beyond the written word – we’ll continuously work on that music, spoken word and podcast collection, with access to excellent quality, sturdy equipment, so that you can finally play your father’s old vinyls alongside library’s own archive of the same artist;  and similar for film offering, where you can not only enjoy a rare art-house feature, or a fine documentary, or take a guided tour of the select body of work we would recommend you on Vimeo.

SPACE

The first thing a perfect library will do is lose the feel of an institution.  We will not design the space to fit a description of what a library should look like, but rather design on purpose, on why and how this particular space can be best used by people.

As you enter – after locking your bicycle in a protected parking, at an hour which works for you, because we’ll run open till 24:00 – you’ll be greeted at the front desk which should look nothing else but a welcoming boutique hotel reception, from which you’ll be guided to the area of your interest.

And we’ll cater to a variety of needs and wants, from isolated, super-quiet, almost serene feels-like-home soulfully decorated spaces with a working chimney, to loud group work areas where there are large tables, stacks of paper and utensils, print and scanning equipment and the walls are all yours done with IdeaPaint, to media rooms for all that audio-video content, to study halls where desks and chairs that are sturdy and hard and plenty of light keep you wide awake and with your nose into your books, to green areas

We’ll not hide much behind closed doors, so you’ll be able to freely browse the whole selection walking between the shelves.  The perfect library will learn its book display from the best examples of contemporary visual merchandising, and we’ll mix and match things, so that you can find Stanley Kubrick movies alongside with DVDs with soundtracks to his music together his biography right by the gorgeous Napoleon, The Greatest Movie Never Made, so that your particular interest can be fully satisfied.

More, we’ll use QR codes marking, so that you can easily see what else is there related, or even suggest your own or indicate missing, or more, contribute to a book, enrich it for the next person who picks it up.

We’ll also take time to work out the magic of multi-sensorial appeal, so that every time you come in, you’re greeted by the same consistent and instantly recognizable smell of our library, and whatever you touch, be it a shelf or it will have that feel-good texture of things with a character.  And we’ll similarly play carefully selected music to put you in the right atmosphere in the right area.

One thing we’ll make sure is everywhere in abundance are electricity sockets for your devices.  And if you don’t own one, we’ll gladly borrow you a laptop or a tablet.  And don’t even ask about free WiFi – isn’t it like air nowadays?

STAFF

Remember our why?   That’s how we’ll hire people, searching for those who connect and are able to give life to it.  People who come to work to do something meaningful, to enrich and to be enrich, not just for the paycheck or to sit out time.

And we’ll look for talent wide and diverse, not just spread career librarians around the space – we need people who love people for our welcome desk, and we need library professionals to help guide studies, and we need enthusiasts to help curate specific sections with content both in and out of the library (mirroring Barna’s thought), and we need refined detail-tyrannical folk with a zeal for DIY to keep the interiors top notch, and we need good manager to run the place, and we need ninja communicators to tell our story to audiences in and out, etc. etc.

We want people to come to a human, warm place, where there are other people happy to see them, so we’ll combine electronic database of your personal library use with constant attempt to remember your name and your preferences, so we can always serve you better.

All in all, we will look for people who understand that we are in a service industry, and go out of their way to cater to the multitude of interests of people who visit us.

EVENTS

A place becomes alive when there’s life there.  Life that we’ll create by doing something small and cozy and unpretentious more than once per week:  things like morning coffee meet-ups for a talk with inspiration people, evening readings, movie screenings, book launches, or smth Pecha Kucha style, or The School of Life type of seminars, or Skype meetings with some author or artist…  And there are always things to display:  we can rotate exhibitions of book covers, typography, posters, book illustration, photography, vinyl jackets, etc. etc. etc.  New arrivals, featured book of the day, theme of the week when you are invited to immerse in a subject, “days of…something-something” when we invent our own excuses to be silly and play, like hat day, when you can wear the hat inside and get a little memorabilia, or all-white day, or moustache day when we give away fake moustaches to wear inside… And then the visitors themselves are building contributors – there can be a wall of smiling faces (you!), there can be reviews, your projects… It’s endless.

We have the space already, we know many great people, we are endlessly curious… so agenda will stay fresh and experimenting.

Plus, we’ll launch our own “space program”:  opening pop-up satellites of the library here and there in malls, office buildings, public gatherings and all.  Not much of a hustle and a chance to meet new audiences and tell a bit about ourselves.

Last but not least, the space is yours:   you can easily rent it for your own purpose.  And we are open to help redecorate, manage logistics and catering, for a reasonable extra fee.

COLLABORATIONS

We believe in doing stuff together with other talented people, in whatever domain… the spark and the magic it creates.   So we will reach out far and wide to create working connections and long-lasting friendships, where we will strive to give first (and more), and ask second.

For example, meeting Benedikt Taschen (and other publishing leaders) to show him how every single book he sends us is put at display and touches somebody of our visitors.

Or inviting architects like Corvin Cristian or Autobahn to contribute to and supervise projects of library’s interior make-overs submitted and implemented by eager architecture students.

Or connecting to (sister) leading libraries all around the world, for example, to host a visiting week of Black Diamond in our premises.

Or doing a limited-edition run of beautiful perfectly wearable T-shirts with a Romanian designer.

Or partnering up with aforementioned School of Life.

Or running “unconference” initiatives like this one (the “interest” quote is from their movie).

It is “perfect library X (times) any good brand” mindset.  Where we get inventive, we respect people, we have integrity and openness to make great friends and do stuff together, and then give back of what we can – even if this is just showing honest results.

OUR BRAND

We’ll never ever underestimate its power.

Like creating own blend of coffee, our own cookie recipe, our own wrapping paper, our own chair designs, our own beautiful totes for you to carry, our own bookmarks, our own postcards, our own event posters that have a collectable appeal, our own playlists for download, our own publication and our own content, self-created or commissioned.  All sold in a gorgeous little shop and online.

And we’ll invest in an imaginative visual identity, and put it to wise use.  Not over-branding, that is, but rather realizing ideas and making things that we believe it, that are useful and that we would love to own, wear or give as a gift ourselves.

COMMUNICATION

All of the above, and more like this, will make our public and internal narrative.

There’s a bigger story to tell, and there are smaller ones, every step of the way, in every aspect of our work, and we’ll openly and effortleslly tell them starting day one.

Because these are things we live and breathe, because they are our why?, our raison d’être as a library.

——-

And somehow, I feel I may get interested in visiting a library like this.

 

UPDATE OF OCT 3:   I was looking for something in the archive of my personal blog just now, and simply “bumped” into this older post about libraries of tomorrow, from almost exactly a year ago, Sep 26 2010.    now how do you explain that, if not for some universal power of attraction.   frankly, i forgot about this post, and just the phrase “for the learner, not the learned” stayed with me throughout these months, as I was actually applying some of this mantra to Sufrageria at McCann.   what a great “archive” “contribution” to our ideation here.  I would surely underline “intuitive, human, sustainable”.   yes, please.