Visiting the libraries in Finland really makes you question your perception of what a library is, and I think I’m not alone among the participants in last week’s Global Libraries peer learning meeting in thinking about this issue.
On Tuesday, we visited the Sello library, part of the Espoo City Library system. Located adjacent to a big shopping mall, the library is a giant architectural wonder, a huge modern building with open spaces, comfortable stylish furniture, and numerous sections devoted to different purposes, from quiet spaces to computer use to thematic presentations and art exhibitions.
The library is full of books, but there are also many other options for visitors. While we were there, there was a Chinese calligrapher giving a demonstration in the central space of the library. A librarian was reading from a romance book as part of a monthly program aimed at raising the respectability of the normally-maligned genre. A group of young men was playing video soccer on a super-HD screen.
But there were also other things going on – some pretty far from my normal perceptions of what a library does. There were a series of sound studios where visitors could use advanced equipment for sound recording and mixing – while were there, a young rapper was assembling a recording. A woman was practicing piano in an adjacent studio. In another part of the library, there was a “salt room” – a small space for relaxation – with mood lighting, a couch, and chunks of salt throughout to help one relax.
The librarians told us that these parts of the library were included in response to customer request. They were also very confidently unsure of whether they were all necessary, their motto was proudly “While others are still planning, we have already failed.” But witnessing these things made me wonder – how do we even define what a library is? Should librarians respond to *all* types of user demand?
The Global Libraries programs encourage our participating librarians and communities to think in new ways about how libraries can respond to local needs. But how far should that go? At what point do libraries lose their defining characteristics? Where do librarians draw the line? Is a library’s central role to strengthen community education and access to information, or is it simply a community center for in the broadest sense? (Do libraries even need to have books? A library visited by others participating in this meeting didn’t – loaning other items instead.)
Wandering through the libraries we’ve seen in Finland, I wonder how librarians from Romania and Ukraine would perceive them. Would they be filled with new ideas? Or would they think Finnish libraries are pointed in the wrong direction? Coming out of this visit, I’ve definitely had to question my own assumptions.
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It’s all very well to have libraries chock-a-block with lifestyle accessories. But in America at least, they need to have a core mission and devote the majority of their resources to fulfilling it.
I think you’re right that a library needs to keep services focused around its mission – the larger question seems to be what is the mission of a library, and how broad can it be before it stops being a library? I would say that the answer to this is truly a local one.
If the library management involves the community heavily in the creation of the library mission, and the mission includes lending guitars and providing space to record music, it’s not really our place, as outsiders, to say that’s wrong. Local resources for local needs.
This points to how the words we use (like “library”) can limit our perception of what things can and should be. Sometimes that’s good, sometimes it gets in the way of positive change. Related to that, some places have actually moved away from using the word library. The Idea Stores in London are one example.
Meaghan,
All valid points. At the same time I wonder to what extent it is the librarians’ responsibility to be leaders in the community and to what extent they should respond to demand. Sure, there’s community demand for video games, and kids would love it if there was a place with banks of video screens where they could go and play games all day. Some parents might even appreciate having such a place where they could park their kids and not worry about them. But then would the library really be doing a community service? So, what are the boundaries of that dialogue on the libraries’ role? Are there any activities to which the library answers “nope, we don’t do that”? Do librarians get to help establish those boundaries, or are they only meant to be implementers?
I don’t have any answers, but this visit raised these questions for me.
[...] observation of Finnish libraries from Ari Katz at IREX from the same [...]