Library Brush Up

Blank Canvas - Library Brush Up

 Users addressed in this post will be the users of
Jefferson Market Library 
Children's Room.

* early morning preschoolers and caregivers
* after school children
* young weekend visitors

        Jefferson Market Library has all this:

1. Promotes human contact and social activities.
2. Is safe, welcoming, and accommodating for all users.
3. Has design and architectural features that are visually interesting.
4. Promotes community involvement.
5. Reflects the local culture or history.
6. Relates well to bordering uses.
7. Is well maintained.
8. Has a unique or special character.

That was then, this is now.........

If Jefferson Market has many of these aspects, 

why do we encounter?       THIS....        

Why is this space not used more? How can we make what is NOW

have more WOW?

This branch library serves...

This space serves all these people in the area.  We are focusing on the first three groups.
  Preschoolers and their caregivers

• Mom’s after dropping their children at school
• School children doing homework after school
• Retirees
• Business people of the community
• LGBT community
• College students too

The user that we are focusing on in this Library Brush Up is the young and their caregiver.

Lily is a preschooler living two blocks away from Jefferson Market Library on West 12^th Street.  Her big brother, Jack, attends PS 41 nearby where Lily will go when she is old enough to attend. Both parents work, one in the design field and the other in sales.  They care that their children get all the enrichment out of New York that they can while they are at work. Shelley, a caregiver, takes care of the children during the day. After dropping the brother off at school, since it is getting too cold for the playground, Shelley will take Lily to the library’s story hour before Lily’s nap.  Lily enjoys the company of the children and Shelley enjoys chatting with other mothers and caregivers before naptime.  Story hour is a good time to set up play dates for later in the afternoon.  They both would love to have a juice and muffin after story hour and look forward to the installation of a Bird Bath Coffee Shop in the lobby.  After 3 pm, Lily’s big brother will come to the library for homework help and the afternoon book club while Shelley and Lily go grocery shopping nearby.   Jack is excited to read on the information kiosk in the lobby about the installation of a new music lab in the Library soon. Lily is a young member of Greenwich Village and her small world exists within a 3 block radius within it and the Jefferson Market Library is in the center of all of it, offering so many things to its residents.

Parents and caregivers are the targeted adult group

The demographic is diverse in economic access, race, and gender. The hours of usage varies with the age demographic. In the morning, parents and caregivers inundate the space with strollers and preschoolers. Story time and quiet one-on-one reading is what this group uses the space for. Later in the day many of the students from the nearby schools come to get homework help or use the space to be with friends before their parents come home from work. One the weekend, especially when the weather turns cold, whole families come to escape the apartment. Looking for books, interesting videos or book club discussions are a popular distraction as well as special programs that the library might offer.

Mornings are filled with preschoolers and strollers

Young children make up the storytime demographic

School age children fill the space after 3 pm.

How can we serve all of these people better?

Should we toss out all the old books 

 and                                                       create........

             

T H I S ? ?

But, why toss the baby out with the bathwater or the books from the library? Why not rethink the way a library should be?

Information is delivered and discovered in so many different ways now. Yes, delivering it digitally is BIG but libraries can be so much more than this.....Yikes!
What can we do to make it better?

Start at the beginning, by making the first user experience a good experience, the entrance. Replace failing replacement doors with rotating ones to enter straight into the space. Then upon entering, 
what can the building say? Welcome!!

Interactive kiosk in the lobby could be

partnered with the Greenwich Village Society for Historical Preservation. Information about the village could be accessed by tourists and library history, the libraries historical Greenwich Village Collection could be promoted and hours and floor plan could be found there too.

Adapt2U Kiosks by Bozear 

These installations use our adapt2u Disability Discrimination Act Compliant touch-screen Kiosks.

Maps of the village with overlay software can show  Greenwich Village now and as it was years

ago.  Historical events can be discovered on a timeline and located on the map along with buildings

contributing to the history and flavor of The VIllage.  All of this, upon entering, will compliment

Jefferson’s Greenwich Village Collection of books.

Then,

linger a moment.The NYPL took a leaf out of book store playbooks

by launching a food-and-drink area. Patrons could buy drinks and snacks from kiosks inside the library’s Stephen A. Schwarzman Building. Library users  at Jefferson will be able to order up items including coffee, chocolate chip scones and sandwiches.These stands will be a welcome addition and will enhance the experience for everyone, from those tourists, visiting for a few minutes, caregivers and their charges, to those researching in the building all day. The kiosks will have seating areas around them.

     

Next stop

The Children's Reading Room.

After making the lobby more welcoming, it’s time to address the Children’s Reading Room.  What can be done with that room immediately and with no investment?

To look up a favorite story book or locate the

perfect information for that day’s

homework assignment.

User experience should not just exist on the computer screen, but throughout the process of information access.  The experience of getting to the basement’s Resource Room Reading Room is daunting.  How can we make these stairs an interesting way to get there?  

                                

How can we make rounding the corner, less a spooky movie scene and more a part of the information experience?





                     

 













Stay tuned for the answer in the next installment of... 

LIBRARY BRUSH UP!

Next Installment of - LIbrary Brush Up

In this latest installment of
LIBRARY BRUSH UP

In this installment of Library Brush up, we see what can be done with a dead hall that screams for a better use if it didn't already resemble a classic horror movie tempt us to scream......

       "Hmmm, I wonder what's down in that dark basement, accessed only through these old stairs...?"

Instead of a spooky space, why not make a special space?  

    In the hall add a rotating show of Greenwich Village history, whether it's the Draft Riots or Stonewall Riots,  beat poets or police on the beat, all celebrate the history and diversity of the area.

    In the other space, rather than a change machine and one lonely xerox copier, why not make a better change by adding color printers, scanners, 3D printers and computers with Photoshop software for home design and printing projects.  School age children can create Google slide presentations for classes and art projects.

Mother's can create posters for school fundraising sales, holiday cards or edit and print photos. A design center would be well used by the entire community for who among us has access to all these wonderful devices and software?

And in the tower, accessed by more stairs?

 Every step 

is a step of 

illumination and learning.

 If the user decides to take the stairs, why not make their user experience part of the library experience? 

 These stairs light as you walk.  Inlaying inscriptions of famous literary passages along each step's edge would make the trip more interesting, illuminating and less slippery too.

Watch it in action :https://youtu.be/Ir_cqS6oV5U

 So, there was then, 
                                   and then      
                                               there is
                             NOW.
                                                         What should we do?

LIbrary Brush Up - Nitty Gritty

Now for the 

Nitty Gritty 

Library Brush Up Details

 Libraries are coping with a changing information landscape, many are reinventing and renovating their physical spaces and infrastructures to reflect changing user needs. Luckily the demographic of children, as library users, still focus on books, but the new and challenging aspect of the library is addressing current information requests and requirements.  How to preserve the need to introduce children to reading through interaction and books, but also attract what is now becoming a more and more tech savvy demographic?

What are the needs of this young demographic and what can the library do to satisfy them.  Starting with the youngest, it is easily observed at the morning story hour that caregivers are looking for an educational distraction for their charges.  Whether it is allowing them to pick out books to look at and enjoy together or to sit and listen to a librarian read to a group.  What can the library do to make the space more attractive to this group?

The entry and lobby is the first interaction that this group has with the library. An electronic information kiosk located in the library would be an attractive way to introduce the visitor to programs and scheduling that the library offers, a map and layout of the different reading rooms, location of easily accessible bathrooms and days and hours of operation. The kiosk can be sponsored  by a local citizen's group, in this instance, The Greenwich Village Society for Historical Preservation.  The Jefferson Market Library houses The Greenwich Village Historical Collection, the Greenwich Village Oral History Project, and is the epicenter of the Village Halloween Parade.  It's Kiosk could also offer the local visitor or tourist information about Greenwich Village from its early days as a farming community with maps of the farmsteads, through its days as an epicenter of music, writing and art, and now.  Access to the NYPL website Oldnyc.org with its map and pictures of building through out the years and throughout the city would be an interesting distraction for the out of town visitor.  Libguides with subjects such as the Draft Riots, the Stonewall Riots, information about the first integrated night-club in existence, the New Gate Prison.  All which existed or occurred in the area in different times.  An electronic mosaic could be accessed with linking information to everyone that walked through and left an indelible footprint on the Village. 

In the lobby to add the the visitor's experience would be a small coffee bar with snacks.  Then Schwarzman Building at the main brach of the New York Public Library added one to great success.

As far as the Children's Reading Room itself it could be improved by relocating its main desk to be viewable from the lobby.  When entering the lobby, the librarian located through the doorway to the left gives a more welcoming impression than the solitary security guard perched on a stool near the entry.  The desk could be conStructed of old books in a circular shape so as to not create the feeling of a barrier to those entering.

Replacing the librarian's desk to the left could be a long table of computers that would have their screens facing toward the wall. This would keep the illuminated screens from distracting young readers and the computer's users would be facing into the room.  Above them woul be installed a glass vitrine that is lit and books or displays of subjects could be installed on a rotating basis. 

The read-aloud time is an important time in all children's libraries and the library media specialist plays an important role in that.  Updating the reading circle to include more than a book would help flesh out an event.  Why not if reading a book about "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" also look up afterwards where reindeer actually do live, what do they eat and what do they look like in actuality. 

Or "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" by Eric Carle.  Why not look up information on caterpillars, what do they eat? What is metamorphosis? An exhibit in the display case could be cocoons, or butterflies. Or a shelf of books about different metamorphosis.

 Since children are easily distracted by the prospect of a screen, the smart board would be hidden behind a puppet stage and curtain.  This could also have a scrim that can pull down and double as a shadow puppet theater. 

Visual and oral storytelling in the old tradition is still appreciated by the young and shouldn't be completely usurped by technology.


To read or to listen it is important to be comfortable.  Stackable furniture would assure comfort and ease in rearranging for groups.

When the afternoon arrives and the school age children descend,
The reading room needs to be able to accommodate this group and
their needs.  They will be there for homework help or hanging out
for a while after school.  Tables with listening headphones, is some
thing that can keep kids that desire distraction, busy and quiet.
The NYPL offers Spotify for listeners.  For those that need to focus on homework, tables with dividers would be useful.  All new tables
will provide inset outlets. Even children now have their electronic devices and need to charge them.

 

Technology is important in keeping a library current and useful to most, but to keep users interested in returning to the library, the space is as important as well. If a room of computers were the main reason visitors continued to patronise libraries, they would simply look like this and succeed.
But, we know that this is not true.  Libraries are a gathering place for the public.  When people regularly congregate they often enjoy the social connectivity as much as the functionality of a local.

In today's isolated social structure there is no more public market places for groups to gather. Starbucks is the meager 21st Century iteration of this and it offers cold comfort, in spite of the hot coffee. Offering coffee and more; a place for quiet, access to information, intellectual replen-ishment, social interaction, and diversion should be what a library offers thereby insuring its continued existence. 

We have amazing resources at our hands and many of those are already in existence all around us.  There is so much to work with and offer to the citizens of our towns through the library, and in this particular instance, The Jefferson Market Library.  How can we do more for our library and the residents of Greenwich Village?