11 ms·

Libraries – how companies do not understand open spaces

• tajchert 4y ago
  With remote work, open spaces from hell are (hopefully) a thing of the past, but key learnings on proper room culture are still valid after almost 200 years. How 400 people can work in deep focus in library but cannot do the same in company open space?
  • pca006132 4y ago
    Perhaps with libraries people think that they should be quiet there, while it is advertised as collaboration space for open spaces and people are encouraged to talk there?
    • AlotOfReading 4y ago
      Libraries are part of a larger "research ecosystem", so they can exclude all the loud and talkative bits of research because there are other places it can live like the hallways and cafeterias and text messages people use. Open offices are undifferentiated. There's nowhere to segregate disruptive activities to because there's nowhere else to go, except for maybe some small concessions to meeting rooms. That space can't even be a good space for everyone because it's constantly serving a hundred mutually conflicting uses rather than providing specialized purpose the way a reading room does.
  • happytoexplain 4y ago
    Maybe I have a psychological problem that most people don't have, but I can't work on a monitor that is publicly visible.
    • paulmooreparks 4y ago
      It isn't just you. I couldn't stand having my monitors facing other people when I had to work in an open space, even though I only ever had work on it.
    • GoOnThenDoTell 4y ago
      I feel something similar, like I need to make sure my screen always ‘looks’ like work regardless of if its actually work, so it becomes performative
    • slategruen 4y ago
      Maybe it's an overstatement but I personally feel like I'm in Panopticon when working in open offices. I do not experience the same feeling in co-working spaces and coffee shops though. It just feels more productive to work with strangers in the same room who don't care about what you're working on but are aware that you need to get stuff done. On the other end of the spectrum, work-from-home setups just feels very solitary and distractions are just more prevalent.
    • Heyso 4y ago
      In my case, sometimes I like to move, lie on my bed a few minutes, when I am thinking. Can't do in open office. I also don't have half my focus spent on my surrouding (who's saying what, who's moving, who's looking at me for attention...). I also don't have project managers or commercials chatting around me. I am getting stressed if someone pass by closely behind me.
  • drewcoo 4y ago
    > How 400 people can work in deep focus in library but cannot do the same in company open space? They're different kinds of work. People usually (to this day) work alone in libraries. People in big open bullpen offices tend to work collaboratively. Also, those solo library workers don't typically have bosses by whom to be seen collaborating. Or "collaborating."
  • thrown_22 4y ago
    Who will be the library nazi that kicks you out when you talk too loudly?
    • xpe 4y ago
      We don't need to refer to a librarian that way. Yeah, I know, Seinfeld did it. It isn't funny or interesting. It is a cliché. Let's try to choose our language so that our history and language can hold onto meanings that matter. There is a Star Trek TNG episode called Darmok that describes a culture that only speaks in metaphor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darmok https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darmok Surely we have a better metaphor for a meek but powerful librarian than ... > Who will be the library nazi that kicks you out when you talk too loudly?
      • thrown_22 4y ago
        [flagged]
      • wccrawford 4y ago
        That person isn't "meek" usually, though. They are very clear that they have the power and you will obey them. They are very insistent, without ever having to get loud, and they will force you to follow the rules. I don't have another word for that kind of person, but I agree that "nazi" should not be used that way.
      • kbelder 4y ago
        It's more modern to refer to them as library stasi, anyway. And probably slightly more accurate.
      • spc476 4y ago
        There's always Conan the Librarian.
      • 867-5309 4y ago
        "librar" should suffice - just remember to zip it
      • 4y ago
  • onion2k 4y ago
    How 400 people can work in deep focus in library but cannot do the same in company open space? People go to a library because they want to do work. The same is not true of an office. Lots of people there would prefer to be somewhere else.
  • charlie0 4y ago
    The work is different. Most peole working in a library are reading a book or writing things down. Not sure about yall, but I like to talk to myself as I'm coming up with and implementing a solution. Even if I'm whispering, I'm sure others can hear me and would find that distracting. I really like the idea of the library as an open space and the most valuable idea I would gather is to have tons of noolks and crannies where desks are spaced far apart. This wouldn't work with people sitting side by side. Even the clacking of keyboards gets distracting after a while.
• shadowofneptune 4y ago
  It is interesting how these apply to the kind of office I work in: the nurse's station of a hospital unit. Any attempt at a library ambiance is impossible with today's medical equipment, the amount of alarms active at any time is staggering. Preferring written messages over voice calls is incentivized, but still needs work. You can page a physician, but almost always he will call back rather than respond in writing. Sometimes the physician will never enter the order into the electronic health record and so it needs to be entered by the nurse—that's an opportunity for error. Introducing friction is a good idea. The best places for drawing up medications are ones with doors, it gives a rare moment of silence. Unfortunately there's a culture issue, people will leave those doors open and try to talk to people busy in there. Newer-built units are much better spaces to work in, generally. They're larger and have these ideas in mind when built. It's rare when a tower can be completely demolished, however. New equipment fills older wings and staff have to squeeze past it.
• skybrian 4y ago
  When sharing a small office my coworkers and I would talk a fair bit. Later I moved to a newly-remodeled space and I’ll give my coworkers credit: it was very quiet there, much like a library. Which meant there was little reason to go into the office. I think for collaboration, you want a nice team room (much like a meeting room) where everyone there is actually working together on the same project.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
• mr_tristan 4y ago
  It is interesting to use a library as a model, but I would be amazed that you could get any particular company to understand and implement it. I could see teams having dedicated coworking areas that are extended from a large central open area. But, I could also predict that people would just carry their discussions into the open area, and constantly walk up and disturb the peace by asking "quick questions" anyway. Anyone asking others to "please be respectful" would probably get laughed at and ignored. On the other hand, a coworking space might be able to pull off such a model, with a large open area, and then dedicated areas for team collaboration. You don't play by the rules: see you later. I do think working physically next to others could be quite pleasant. But, given that in almost 23 years of work, I've never experienced this, I'll take remote work instead, since it at least gives me control over the mayhem. And maybe I'll ask if there's budget for some coworking space time. But given the current economy, I'm not holding my breath...
  • PaulRobinson 4y ago
    I'm curious about how we got to a place where we can assume that our colleagues will disrespect other colleagues and laugh at those asking for more respect. I'm not saying you're wrong, but there is something quite horrid about a working culture where we think that might ever happen. If you say "this big open space is like a library: no fixed desks, sit where you want; we expect quiet, there is a 'librarian' who is empowered to ask you to keep the noise down or leave; you do not bring food and drinks into this space other than water; you do not take calls or do meetings in this space", I think most people would get that. But you would, perhaps, need the librarian to enforce the rules, because you're right, a decent %age of working age adults are utterly self-absorbed and will think the rules should not apply to them. Perhaps part of the problem is in an open _public_ space like a library, the only person with authority is the librarian. In a company, that person is going to be a mid-level manager at best - what happens when a more senior manager decides they are going to break those rules?
    • csydas 4y ago
      One of my first jobs was IT for a University, and due to limited space, our team was housed in the University library. It was honestly fantastically handled by the Librarians as they addressed this by using the building space as a visual guide for the students and visitors. The library had three floors and the rule was the higher the floor, the more you must absolutely uphold the "stay quiet" rule, and the design choices really spoke to this. The first floor (noise = okay) had open work areas; tables without barriers and multiple sockets, no walls between computers, vending machines, couches and other places situated for casual conversation/collaboration. The second floor still had some open tables, but virtually every work space had some form of enclosure to it. There were also considerably more book shelves that guarded off each work space so it naturally lent itself to having barriers and privacy, and this led to quietness. Third floor was the most densely packed book floor and the only working spaces were private enclosed ones, and there were far more of these alcoves that were basically a desk + socket for your electronics + lamp. Even the main lighting on the upper floors was different to give a calmer feel. This worked extremely well as even first years and visitors just implicitly understood from the design that you could have a nice conversation on the first floor (shouting and screaming of course was still stopped, and no music without headphones (and even people who had headphones that leaked noise were held accountable pretty strictly)), but it seemed that the way the workspaces on the other floors were designed led to this quite nicely. The books of course helped asa natural barrier for the 2nd and 3rd floors to intercept other noises without incident. My current work place, my team has an open floor plan due to a new temporary building and they're still feeling it out. Luckily the team has mostly understood that this is a new situation and they need to be respectful of the fact that they're in a shared space, but as the teams get more comfortable with the building, this is eroding a bit. I can't help but think that the same visual cueing would help a lot to give the impression of "this place is okay for an open conversation, this place is for people who need to focus." > Perhaps part of the problem is in an open _public_ space like a library, the only person with authority is the librarian. In a company, that person is going to be a mid-level manager at best - what happens when a more senior manager decides they are going to break those rules? The sad answer is that this sort of position needs a dedicated well-being manager or office manager to guide such items. It can't be a dual role with the primary work, it must be someone whose goal is to ensure the workplace is representing the needs of all employees, and then guiding people to where they can have such conversations and enforcing the zoning. My company has a well-being manager and she takes the job quite seriously in that she is always looking to get feedback on what people need while still enforcing the policies that are created to ensure a healthy work environment.
• bachmitre 4y ago
  I think once you allow eating at the tables and have everyone hammering their keyboards (as opposed to mostly reading) there won't be much of a difference to an open office anymore
  • egypturnash 4y ago
    Four hundred programmers, all in the same room, tapping away intermittently at their big, loud, mechanical keyboards. Swirling about the room as some people start cranking out the code at high speed, some pause to think and debug. You can hear when the whole team is in the groove and bringing that Lines Of Code metric up, but the sound of that one person thoughtfully, slowly, refactoring, and deleting reams of now-obsolete source vanishes in the rattle. Nobody speaks. Nobody plays music. There is just the Clacking.
    • ebjaas_2022 4y ago
      Beautiful!
  • ghaff 4y ago
    Having been in the reading room of a library that doesn't allow food and drink and a good half the people on keyboards, it really is much more subdued than an open office would be.
• Eleison23 4y ago
  My local library could learn something from this layout. I'm afraid that most of us taxpayers can't afford a renowned British architect like this. My library is designed more like an office space, and comparing these with the article, I can see the flaws too. My library has a hodgepodge of flat tables for 4, easy chairs, a few carrels, study rooms that can be reserved, a cafe with a dining area, etc. The computer labs are like sardine tins. This British library was designed thus because everybody went to the library to read books and write on paper, but since my library includes packets of vegetable seeds and tickets to museums, everybody goes to the library to do all sorts of disparate things, so the furniture must be versatile enough to accommodate everything, while discouraging sleeping. Libraries formerly observed a strict code of silence, and this floorplan appears to cater to solitary readers, so a library, being filled with solitary patrons pursuing their own research goals, does not serve as an analog to a workspace with teams who collaborate and communicate actively. The worst jobs I ever held were in call centers. I pity everyone who phones me from a call center because I can hear the cacophony behind them. It was truly impossible for me to concentrate or hear myself think. Working alone in a modern library is a little better than that.
• spoonjim 4y ago
  People are not working collaboratively in libraries. Offices exist for people to work collaboratively, otherwise they could work at home.
  • analog31 4y ago
    Offices exist for a variety of reasons: Supervision, access to information (paper files), equipment (phones, computers), status signaling, and moving information efficiently. The "collaboration" ruse seems like a recent invention. Managers collaborate just fine with private offices. Collaboration is certainly valuable, but at the same time, I have a hunch that 90% of the time spent collaborating, is spent getting the stuff done that you agreed to do. Also, much of the communication involved in collaboration is not necessarily done best in front of an audience. These may be a couple of the reasons for reports that open-plan offices actually degrade collaboration. A lot of the time I spent in libraries as a grad student was doing work that contributed to a collaboration. Likewise a lot of the coding that I do in isolation.
  • cratermoon 4y ago
    People are not working collaboratively in open-plan offices. "Recent research shows that such offices result in 73 per cent less face-to-face interaction, and a 67 per cent increase in email interaction." https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/325959 https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/325959
    • spoonjim 4y ago
      I believe it about open plan vs private offices, but this is a comparison between offices in general and libraries (which have effectively zero collaboration)
      • cyphar 4y ago
        > libraries (which have effectively zero collaboration) Have you never studied with other people together at a library? Most of my time spent in library during high school and university was spent working together on assignments or studying in groups for exams. It's not just me, whenever I go to my local libraries, they're always full of students studying (many studying in groups).
• xpe 4y ago
  Thinking about my favorite libraries, this is what strikes me most: many people before and many people after will find inspiration in the same place. The people will change, the books will change, but the culture of respect for quiet (and thus concentration) will (hopefully) live on. This idea of the place inspiring beyond ourselves is wonderful. So, why not find ways of inspiring their employees beyond that particular job? ... What if more companies found ways to inspire people in very honest ways? I don't particularly like corporate-speak on the walls or vague mission statements. But if there was a way to remind people of the following message, I think it would go a long way: "People will work here for varying lengths of time. While they are here, treat each other with respect. Let's share the best of ourselves. When these efforts align, our organization thrives, and we can keep working together in ways that we can feel good about." The corollary, I think, would be "If we have to treat each other like sh*t in order for our company to be successful, what the heck are we doing here?" I somewhat prefer the negative phrasing. Apologies for the idealism. Ultimately, messaging is only as good as its authenticity and follow up. If a company says e.g. "Come to Hooli to do your best work" and then offers ineffective working spaces, it is time to add an asterisk; e.g. "* under the constraints of having to work in a loud, unproductive, distracting environment."
  • willhinsa 4y ago
    So true. Thanks for sharing. I don’t think it’s idealistic, either. It’s simply taking a longer term, more broad perspective for the health of our communities and society, rather than simply the immediate quarter’s results. It can’t be truly effective in the long run if you drive people insane on a long road to pernicion.
  • alex_young 4y ago
    It’s a bit unusual to most of us, but succession planning should really be practiced on an individual level. You’re not the last person to hold your job in most cases. If you plan for it, burnout will be much less of an issue, and your job satisfaction should be equivalently enhanced.
• jldugger 4y ago
  Honestly, because a quarter of the typical company is management whose main job is talking all day. In pathological situations, they spend more time talking up than down, to the point where my boss "sees" me for about 1.5 hours a week.
• unsungNovelty 4y ago
  I have been thinking about this problem. Why not create a exclusive spaces/floor for quite workers? Where you cannot make noise at all. Like in a library. So anybody irrespective of teams can just go there and get things done. I think good balance is necessary. Sales teams/Marketing teams cannot be just silently sitting around. They are conversation-prone with their work nature. But could use the exclusive spaces when necessary. But this again has to be enforced from the top. Not just for some employees. If the CEO or higher executives cannot uphold this, there is no point.
  • srazzaque 4y ago
    At a former company I used to work at, this is exactly how it worked. There was an area closed off in glass, literally called "the library". Though some of us called it the fishtank. Rules were clear. It was for focussed and quiet work. Meetings and calls needed to be done outside.
• bruce511 4y ago
  So back in the day we solved the open office problem by putting walks and doors around each worker. We moved premises and took the opportunity to give everyone a (small) office with a door. About 70% of our actual floor plan was for common open space - big kitchen, diner, lounge etc. But for work you had a private space with a door. Over 10 years later we bought another company and had their local staff over for a visit. Almost immediately a fairly loud person exclaimed "it's so quiet here!" (and not in a good way). Their office was separated into rooms of 4-5 people, so they were used to plenty of banter. Interestingly the quiet ones complained about the loud ones (but not the other way around). We ended up with a somewhat hybrid model - we took on more space and made more open-plan areas, and small-team offices. I'm a coder, do I like the solitude to focus. Others need more interaction. I think there's a danger in trying to propogate a one-approach-for-everyone. Different people have different needs. Creating a mix of spaces allows for mentorship at the beginning and an eventual migration to either a solitary space, or co-work space, depending on personality. This approach though never seems to get any press, it's always about the tyranny of open plan, or the soulessness of everyone being locked away in cells. (on HN its always the tyranny of Open plan :)
  • fezfight 4y ago
    Very few people get to actually try out the cell. Cubicles aren't offices. They're wire cages for moneys at the zoo. We should try having more actual offices before we declare it equal but different to the elementrary school recess that are open office plans.
    • bruce511 4y ago
      In my context cubicals are considered to be "open plan". We had some cubical dividers in our first office, way back in the day, but it's an interim stage at best. Of course we had that because we didn't have space for walls. When we moved we got a lot more space, made offices, but monthly rent went up about 6 fold. It's a very real cost. In fact, after salaries, it's our biggest cost by a long way. Given that most people are happy working from home we'll likely downscale our space a lot at our next lease renewal.
    • 4y ago
• btilly 4y ago
  Libraries do not have to cater to people whose job involves talking. Companies have managers, product managers, salespeople, support, etc, etc, etc. All of whom NEED to be able to talk a lot to do their jobs.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• theonething 4y ago
  I rarely have every experienced a library where it was quiet enough to do deep work. There is always that one (or more) person that ruins it. Talking loud, talking on their phone, even watching a show on their laptop out loud. This is in the US. The worst I experienced was in Singapore. Kids running around like it was a playground. Or teenage couples using it as a place to date. The last one is a big wtf head scratcher to me.
  • deepdriver 4y ago
    >This is in the US. In both my current and previous US city, downtown libraries function as de facto daytime homeless shelters. On the one hand this is good, as people in unfortunate circumstances can get Internet access, apply for jobs, and retain access to email. On the other hand some of those people browse porn, play music, and watch videos without headphones on the library computers. Others wander in off the street to have loud conversations with the front desk staff. Where I live now, this feels like the library’s main purpose. Either as a cause or a consequence, library staff seem to see themselves as social workers first, activists second, and librarians third, as reflected in the library’s public services and calendar of events.
    • hjwp3 4y ago
  • dazc 4y ago
    You get this in the UK too; libraries have become spaces for everyone to enjoy with the inevitable consequences. Around ten years ago I didn't have the money for an office so would work a few hours each day in the 'quiet' section of our local library. I could sometimes go a whole 5 minutes without wanting to murder someone.
• tkgally 4y ago
  Many years ago, I attended a university with a library reading room like those shown in the linked article. The high, arched ceilings made a huge difference. You could hear the sounds of people talking, coughing, rustling paper, etc. from throughout the room, but the sounds were dampened and dispersed as they echoed off the ceiling. As a result, they were rarely distracting, and I was able to get a lot of studying done. Conversations were discouraged not only by the library rules. The acoustics also made it difficult to understand what even people sitting nearby said. Not many libraries or offices built today could justify the expense of such architecture, though.
• greatgib 4y ago
  There no point comparing a library to a work open space. Please, tell me what is the point to go physically at work in an open space instead of doing remote work if it is to have the rules of a library? Not interacting with colleagues, not calling, not listening others speaking to know what is currently going on the company...
  • sublimefire 4y ago
    There are people who like structure in their life. Working from home every day is not what they want. But, then, in the office one needs to work, hence some space that allows you to focus is a necessity. For the record I do not like going to the office because of the above mentioned reasons. Furthermore, my home office has better equipment. My wife on the contrary loves going to the office although she could work from home.
    • brabel 4y ago
      > My wife on the contrary loves going to the office although she could work from home. Does she go to the office for the actual work? Or because she is social?
      • austinjp 4y ago
        Both? Can she work better in a social setting? Nothing wrong with that.
        • Sir_Liigmaz 4y ago
          There are plenty of people who work better in a non-social setting. Work is work. It does not need to be social. I do not want it to be social. I don't want to be friends with my co-workers. I am here for a paycheck. Sue me.
          • austinjp 4y ago
            I didn't say anything about preventing you from keeping your work and social lives separate. I sincerely hope your co-workers are aware of your preferences and give you the wide berth you desire.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• karaterobot 4y ago
  > I encourage all of you to visit your nearby library and spend some time there. I go to the library pretty much every week. I would describe it as quieter than the open plan office I used to work in, but much louder than my home office. People frequently carry on full conversations on their phones in the library, and some people just sit and chat with their neighbors. I don't think the stereotype of libraries as hushed temples of study is true anymore, except in some specific cases. In the 2000s, a lot of local library branches in my area pivoted into being community gathering places and general resource hubs, and the norms around making noise changed a bit. I've never heard a librarian shush anybody for talking.
• closeparen 4y ago
  My tech company had a space called "the library" for "those times when you need to do deep focus work." There were several thousand engineers in the building. The library could seat maybe 15. No monitors, no outlets. Even when they come tantalizingly close to understanding, the idea is just so foreign to them, that most engineers should be focusing most of the time and that our elaborate monitor and keyboard setups are part of focus work. Meanwhile out on the floor I have tried to (politely) call people out for e.g. having Zoom standup participants on full blast in the middle of the sea of desks. They shrugged and said, "it's an open office. You can wear headphones." This company prided itself on empowering engineers, providing them with the tools and resources to do their best work, and in some ways lived up to that. But the way we made it a totally individual burden to jam the noise or seek refuge elsewhere really undermined it.