A Library Denizen Notices a Few Things About the Library and Its Future

A guest post by Kristie Lewis from Construction Management Degree.

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When we think of libraries, we usually think of silent tombs housing our culture’s vast tomes of knowledge. When I was in college, there was always a grim, je ne sais quoi about the campus library, so much so that many of my fellow classmates avoided the place altogether, and I don’t think it was simply from a desire to put off their studies. While I did enjoy the quiet and silence, I can completely understand my classmates’ consternation.

Now that my undergraduate years are far behind me, I still frequent libraries, since they are the final bastions of affordable (aka free) reading material left, with the exception of computers/ iPads/ whatever, and who wants to read on a computer screen? (Believe me, I’ve tried. And I just can’t do it, although if Now is anything of an indication, I may have to suck it up and learn.) In fact, whenever I travel somewhere, I try to visit at least one library in every city I tour. And what I’ve noticed throughout all of my library sojourns is an emerging and striking pattern. It started with the dungeon of a library at my alma mater. I now live close to my former institution of higher learning, and had decided to drop by after years of not entering the depths of its chilling recesses. And what I found was that there were some changes made. Not dramatic changes, but smaller ones that I think are a reflection of the rise of computer technology, digitization, the whole Modern Mayhem run riot that comprises the current state of humanity.

For example, I noticed that the administrative powers-that-be had installed a new wing on the particularly oppressive fourth floor. It was an oasis of light, and there was a fancy latte machine with couches all around. It seemed…peaceful. And strangely appealing. What’s more, there were people actually talking. Now I’m definitely one to hold on to the sanctity of library silence. But in this case, there was an openness about that one area that I see paralleling the “openness” of the open source software and open science movements.

Now of course, this was a small change, and some may say, an almost trivial one. But I’ve seen this phenomenon occurring in several libraries, even smaller ones like the Bastrop Public Library in the small town in Texas or even the Mission Public Library in another equally small Texas city closer to Mexico. The libraries I had visited in Europe, one in Paris and one in St. Petersburg that I can clearly remember, are much older and have a certain history, so I did not notice these burgeoning trends there, if for only the fact that these places are more like museums and not necessarily functional libraries as such.

Granted, I’ve only discussed these small changes in library space in terms interior differences. However, I predict; no rather, I strongly urge, that library architecture move in the direction that these small interior changes are taking. The time for nostalgia of the Ivory Tower’s days of yore is over. In an age when no one seems to be reading anymore, I feel that it is incumbent upon today’s architects to make the library a more welcoming environment, a place that reflects in its physical structures the changing, revolutionary nature of how we give and receive both information, and, ultimately, the most powerful tool of all–knowledge.

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This guest post is contributed by Kristie Lewis, who writes on the topics of construction management degree. She welcomes your comments at her email Id: Kristie.Lewis81@gmail.com.

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