A Tour of Oodi
blinry.org
blinry.org
The article summarizes the functional parts so well. What is very hard to communicate is the feeling of space, especially in the top floor with the books. It's sort of unique, and recommend a visit anyone traveling nearby.
I worked at the company that developed the software used to design the construction of Oodi (Trimble/ Tekla Structures). It's so awesome to walk through a building you know the tool you helped to build, helped to build :D
Sure you can hang out in any cafe, but I find it valuable to have a place like Oodi that's free, easy to access, and built with kids in mind. When taking the kids on trips in Helsinki, we often visit Oodi to eat lunch, just because it's so easy. Or the whole trip might be just to visit Oodi, eat, and grab a couple books. Of course the central location helps a lot.
I never saw this from a huge screen, and it was fantastic. Be aware if you go see a movie that's not in English, they quite often only have Finnish subtitles.
What's also special is that this is a beautiful building, instead of the derelict buildings such social projects get usually shoved away in.
And, it's welcoming to babies and children.
It's beautiful, though, but that's about it.
t. a Finn
t. not a Finn.
For the "Culture" no one wants to pay their own money for.
I visited only once, using the Toilet. Kinda Scary. It was gender-free, consisting of large locked cubicles, which were mostly occupied as kiosks for drugs and sexual services. Romanian Romas also had permanent presence there. But sadly this gender-free dream was destroyed by the order of the Nazi Polizei.
Previously:
> So many environments nowadays, even the ones that are ostensibly created to fulfill this sort of thing, are just total failures at actually providing them. I'm thinking of things like public libraries. I live in Austin and have a major axe to grind about the public libraries here, which are nothing like what you'd get if you were actually interested in the pro-social goals that you'd think a public library would have in its charter. A teenager looking to escape their high-risk environment or an adult who's had their feet knocked out from beneath them basically stands no chance at getting out of their predicament if their only option were to use the public libraries here, which would unfortunately act more like a vortex to ensure they stay in the suck. <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42323264>
The photos and breathless wonderment showcase it all, as well as this choice line from the slide at the top of this post: "Oodi is our common living room". These are not quiet places to study or get (back) on your feet.
These are non-commercial substitutes for the shopping malls of yestercentury first, egoistic art pieces and boondoggle for administrative make-work second, and well-intentioned but poorly thought out and executed public resources at a very, very, very, very, very distant third.
Austin Central Library has a 4.7/5.0 on 1,464 reviews on Google Maps. Of course, this is a biased sample. But, I think it's safe to say lots of people love it.
4.8 is an easy pick.
No idea how or if it applies to Austin library.
But here is the thing: in Finland academic libraries are open to the general public. Someone wanting to immerse themselves in actual books, or work in silence, have a wealth of options in downtown Helsinki: the University of Helsinki main library, the Finnish National Library, the Finnish Literature Society's library, the Research Institute for Languages of Finland's library, and more. So, if Oodi ended up being a plain old social third space instead of a "real library", that didn't take anything away from Helsinki residents.
Taxes and corruption.
That's the real problem I have with the false promises of places like Austin's Central Library and other Oodi-likes.
The biggest threat to libraries and the social goods they're ostensibly designed to produce are not really the people trying to tear them down to tighten budgets. It's way more pernicious than that:
The biggest threat is the people trying to tear them down and replace them with places like this.
I find Oodi (and Sello after redesign) to feel like a typical open office space (rather than mall) but definitely not like a proper library.
Rikhardinkatu is what I'd expect library to be while Lippulaiva is rather nice for a library that's part of a mall.
It's great that libraries exist, be they in Austin, or here in Finland, but they're not where you get support when falling on hard times , or needing active support and assistance from your council/government/city/region. A library is not a walk-in rescue center, and nor should it be.
Oodi is a pretty space, it has nice facilities, although a surprisingly small stock of books. That said you can order books to collect them there, and Helsinki has no shortage of "real libraries". I think Oodi as a showcase, and a random mishmash of services and facilities is pretty good though. I went almost weekly with my youngest child for a few years, and have fond memories of the people I talked to, and the soft-play area.
… is this a joke? Regardless of the bizarre mental place from which only such a bizarre question can arise[1], the answer to the question can be found on the other end of the link I included—not that it should even have to be spelled out: "Researchers determined risk by asking lots of questions. For example, they asked whether the kid has basic necessities, like electricity or a quiet place to study."
* * * * *
> A library is not a walk-in rescue center, and nor should it be.
Right. Exactly. It's a library. It should be a library—one able to provide (and that does provide) the things that you should be able to count on a library to provide—and that few other places can if that's what you need. Not a cacophonous community center concerned foremost with providing photo ops for bougie normies living in relative comfort to post on Instagram during their disruptive stroll through. That's the _entire_ basis of my position and the premise of the multiple comments I wrote about this.
1. <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40136743#:~:text=I%20ca...>
Helsinki still has classic public libraries, so kids wanting to study in peace can still do that plus having the opportunity to meet people and engage in other activities that might be difficult at home, like practicing an instrument.
The notion that a knocked-over person is best supported by a library sounds quite strange from my perspective. A person struggling needs first and foremost to shelter, food and access to hygiene. Libraries do not provide any of that. They do provide a quite place to think and work and access to public information with newspapers and internet access, but a good shelter and a smartphone provide this too.
I think Finland (and many other countries) provide enough support to relieve Libraries of being a first address for struggling people, while still maintaining these libraries for what they are really needed. Oodi and similar projects existing does not take that away and I'm surprised you think it does.
> Finland (and many other countries) provide enough support to relieve Libraries of being a first address for struggling people
Could you stop doing this, please? You are confabulating. I literally did not say any of the things that you're describing here. Not only did I not say it, I didn't even say anything like it. So… stop, please?
What I have done, by now, is to have made it abundantly, excruciatingly clear that I'm talking only about libraries providing the things that a library should provide, and nothing more. (And that it is, in fact, the position of those in support of e.g. Oodi who, perversely, are the ones suggesting that these libraries should be more—though you clearly don't appreciate this contradiction.)
> a good shelter and a smartphone provide this too
No. Absolutely not.
You don't understand, and that's great—you don't have to understand. And it's not a European versus American thing that's the root of the problem here. (There's no shortage of Americans who would fall into the same camp as you. That would be the expected outcome if I were to call upon any man- or woman-on-the-street and have this discussion.) It's a failure of empathy—true empathy—of the sort that requires being able to really think through everything involved in a counterfactual before staking a position about what would or wouldn't be sufficient in some hypothetical that's so far removed the present moment that you're acquainted with. And that's how societies get future libraries like the ones we're talking about.
There are a lot of Americans who know how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich given the basic ingredients/tools. There are a lot of Americans who, when asked, would probably tell you with great confidence that they could for sure explain all of the steps involved in making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with those ingredients. There are far, far, far fewer Americans than that who could actually provide an explanation, sans errors/mistakes.
I've reread your comments and agree now understand that you are not talking about providing social net basics but providing the service a library provides. So I'll stop with this point.
I was probably confused by the statements (emphasis is mine): > These are not quiet places to study or get (back) on your feet
Your anser (is this a joke) to: > Why would somebody wanting to escape a high-risk environment, or some knocked-over adult go to a library?
Having understood this it is clear why the rest of my comment makes no sense as a reply, as it is about a certain profile of needs that we both agree libraries do not need to fulfill.
I do think that libraries provide things that a shelter and a smartphone can not give, like a quite place to study that is not your home, perspective that you might not have or know how to find, and using my (aparently limited) empathy I'm sure I could come up with many more.
If you wouldn't mind I would like to know what in your opinion are the essential things a library provides.
I also still don't understand why Oodi existing is supposed a problem. Are you afraid places like Oodi will drive classic libraries out of existence or are you aggravated because you consider it unnecessary (or even counteproductive) spending?
But its worth mentioning that there are fewer and fewer "other public spaces." My local library is just that, a library, and that means I can't:
1. Eat in it, perhaps while studying. 2. Talk above a whisper. 3. Rent anything but books that I might want/need. 4. Do anything on a computer but be on the internet (the computers run a locked down version of Windows XP)
That's not a "problem" exactly. This library is doing exactly what a library is supposed to do. But my town has one other "public" space, which is a combined community and senior center. That's not good for much outside of chair yoga for a kid in a high risk environment; it's largely designed for adults.
It's nice that my library is "just a library" because I don't need it to be anything else. But the fact is that the library is one of the few open, walk-in, free public spaces left. It being "just a library" in that case seems like a missed opportunity.
Libraries, like institutions in general, evolve over time. Libraries have extended their range services from books and study spaces to newspapers and magazines to music recordings to computers, printers, and internet access to all kinds of devices to event spaces and meeting rooms, and so on. At some point, you have to decide whether all these services should be under the umbrella of the same organization, or if you should create a new organization. But because new organizations mean more administrative overhead, you only create them if you expect it to improve the services.
Many of the more traditional libraries I've used were located in various community centers. In addition to the library, those centers might have event spaces, exhibition spaces, adult education programs, youth centers, and so on. Oodi might have fancier architecture and a more central location, but it's fundamentally not that different.
Helsinki weather is crap. Half a year it is too windy, too wet and too cold to be outside. It rains sleet or snow very often.
Oodi is a great place to do things or just to stop by. No pressure to buy anything. No ads up to your eyeballs.
There are a lot of people just sitting by. Studying. Reading books. Using the provided services. Meeting up people.
The layout is good, especially the second floor that containts most of the services. There are a lot of spaces where you can just _sit_ without obligations.
I am sorry, but I think your ending sentence does not make any sense.
(I am a Finn, I visit Oodi roughly once a week during work trip to the capital).