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?