I mean, it’s an interesting building, and a nice place for a cup of coffee, but it’s absolutely useless if you want to go and browse some shelves and borrow some books; it’s like it’s been actively designed to make that hard to do.
I’ve visited Oodi a lot more than traditional libraries as I already have the need for books satiated with Kindle and such.
One of ours locally has a tool library and 3D printing, which I think is awesome. Performance spaces for poetry, music, etc.
It's important to not let our personal nostalgia for the past hold back the next generation from getting the resources they need from local government.
This is clearly a well-thought evolution of what a library of the future should be.
Maybe that changes in the future, which just means that the world has changed. Institutions need to adapt to the needs of each generation.
I don't do a lot of research (that a library is useful for) these days and what there is is mostly in journals and the like. But, in general, I find that with electronic searches of library catalogs it's probably less important to discover things accidentally by physical proximity. (And a lot of big libraries aren't/weren't open stacks anyway.)
Luckily Finnish public libraries have relatively good sites for reserving books online — maybe I should get into the habit of using the online reservations.
On the surface it fits the bill for all the modern awards it’s bound to get and it fits the narrative that libraries are for public space rather than renting books, but spend some time there. It’s not practical to get books from as there are hardly any books, it’s not practical to study as there is only one tiny reading room.
I urge anyone reading this article to spend more than 15m wandering around in there.
But I've been 2-3 times and I never found a book. It's like the books are all deliberately hidden, it's infuriating.
The Mid-Manhattan branch is a HUGE circulation library. It's across the street from the main library but confusingly enough - it's in the middle of being renovated so, for now, its colocated in the basement of the main library and a subset of its collection is available. It is _very_ browsable.
Libraries cannot survive by catering to a smaller and smaller subset of people who are habituated to using a mostly obsolete technology. On a cost-per-loan basis, most libraries would save money by closing their doors forever and simply buying books from Amazon whenever someone asks for one. Local governments look at the lending data and quite rightly wonder whether the money could be better spent on a thousand other things.
To secure their future, libraries are becoming a sort of egalitarian third space. They provide internet access for people who don't have it and training for people who have been left behind by technology. They provide a place to relax and socialise for people who can't afford a $4 coffee. They provide a venue for community events. They provide young people with opportunities to engage in the kind of self-guided learning that actually matters today.
Turns out I wasn't the only one thinking this: https://www.seattlepi.com/ae/article/On-Architecture-How-the...