4 ms·

What libraries are, really, is reading rooms. Even in college, in the 90s, I never went to the library for access to the books. I love the UCSD Medical Library

What libraries are, really, is reading rooms. Even in college, in the 90s, I never went to the library for access to the books. I love the UCSD Medical Library. They tore out literally tons of shelves and it is now effectively a vast reading room with 20-foot ceilings and huge amounts of soft, natural light coming in through windows and skylights. Look at the old libraries, how they obsessed with high ceilings and walls lined with books. Not deep warehouse shelving, but glorious, spaces lined with books. The reading rooms. It's about the reading rooms. Museums would do well to understand this better also. The National Portrait Gallery in DC does a pretty good job of it. To sit among the cultural artifacts as you make your own artifacts, or wonder about others, is the beauty of the thing. That's what these post-WWII cinderblock-and-steel-shelving libraries got wrong. Look at the reading room of the National Library of Medicine. Go to the Library of Congress. The reading rooms, people. It's not about the musty old stacks. It's about the reading rooms.

toyg 10y ago
While I understand where you're coming from (and deeply enjoy marvellous spaces like the Rylands Library in Manchester), I have to recognise that libraries have a multitude of uses, of which "providing reading rooms" is just one. For many lower-class folks, free access to information is actually more important - and that's where the "shelving" comes in. A beautiful reading room with little to read for free, wouldn't be very useful to a lot of people. When I was a kid, scavenging my local library for fantasy and sci-fi, the most assiduous patrons were lower-class, the elderly and the borderline homeless, who would come in every day to read newspapers and check out books for free. They wouldn't have come otherwise, regardless of how beautiful the reading room might have been (well, maybe the homeless, but that's it). These segments are now better served by what the NYT dismisses as "a Starbucks wannabe": a free internet node, possibly with curated portals. It might look unfashionable to the NYT, but it's the hard truth. This can absolutely be intersected with your "reading room" concept; I just don't think either concept can survive on its own.
7952 10y ago
I used to go to the town library every saturday morning. I would spend hours in the reference library pouring over obscure technical books. The book about designing satellites, or electonics, or nuclear fallout predicitions. It was literally the only place I could find out about some relatively simple things (in hindsight); but at the time they seemed like secrets. The musty old stacks are where the disocovery was, now most of it is just a Google away. I now get that feeling from art galleries or museums. So many things to be discovered that will change how I view the world. Most of it is on the web, but I want to see it for real. Maybe books need to be treated more as historic artifacts.
andrewl 10y ago
It's about a lot of things, but a beautiful reading room is wonderful for sure. I used to study in the reading room of the architecture library at the University of Texas at Austin. I wasn't an architecture student, but it had high ceilings and huge windows, and I felt like I thought better there. I miss it.
a_thro_away 10y ago
I disagree (I think); I recently went to the Henry Ford where it has been transformed into a "learning place", where they present a narrative, catering to strolling through, the ambiance (and restaurants). The Henry Ford used to be a collection of Things, of Harley-Davidsons, vacuum cleaners, and electron tubes, each of which had its own up close detail and story to tell, regardless of what comforts provided, the items themselves were the topic. Most of the items are now back in storage, now a pre-scripted narrative, making room for human comfort.

toyg 10y ago

While I understand where you're coming from (and deeply enjoy marvellous spaces like the Rylands Library in Manchester), I have to recognise that libraries have a multitude of uses, of which "providing reading rooms" is just one. For many lower-class folks, free access to information is actually more important - and that's where the "shelving" comes in. A beautiful reading room with little to read for free, wouldn't be very useful to a lot of people. When I was a kid, scavenging my local library for fantasy and sci-fi, the most assiduous patrons were lower-class, the elderly and the borderline homeless, who would come in every day to read newspapers and check out books for free. They wouldn't have come otherwise, regardless of how beautiful the reading room might have been (well, maybe the homeless, but that's it). These segments are now better served by what the NYT dismisses as "a Starbucks wannabe": a free internet node, possibly with curated portals. It might look unfashionable to the NYT, but it's the hard truth. This can absolutely be intersected with your "reading room" concept; I just don't think either concept can survive on its own.

7952 10y ago

I used to go to the town library every saturday morning. I would spend hours in the reference library pouring over obscure technical books. The book about designing satellites, or electonics, or nuclear fallout predicitions. It was literally the only place I could find out about some relatively simple things (in hindsight); but at the time they seemed like secrets. The musty old stacks are where the disocovery was, now most of it is just a Google away. I now get that feeling from art galleries or museums. So many things to be discovered that will change how I view the world. Most of it is on the web, but I want to see it for real. Maybe books need to be treated more as historic artifacts.

andrewl 10y ago

It's about a lot of things, but a beautiful reading room is wonderful for sure. I used to study in the reading room of the architecture library at the University of Texas at Austin. I wasn't an architecture student, but it had high ceilings and huge windows, and I felt like I thought better there. I miss it.

a_thro_away 10y ago

I disagree (I think); I recently went to the Henry Ford where it has been transformed into a "learning place", where they present a narrative, catering to strolling through, the ambiance (and restaurants). The Henry Ford used to be a collection of Things, of Harley-Davidsons, vacuum cleaners, and electron tubes, each of which had its own up close detail and story to tell, regardless of what comforts provided, the items themselves were the topic. Most of the items are now back in storage, now a pre-scripted narrative, making room for human comfort.