Re:How Restaurants Got So Loud
by jorvi on Wednesday November 28, 2018 @06:08AM
(#18550660)
I believe the trend of changing libraries from ‘places to read’ to ‘mutli-purpose community hubs’ is a great one. I’m not sure, but I believe its happening all over Scandinavia.. and for what it’s worth I hope its also going to start happen in The Netherlands.
Right now libraries are dying. In my city, 80% of public library use is high school kids or university kids (overflow from the busy university library) studying there during peak exam times, outside of that its extremely underutilised. And for my hometown its even worse, even 15 years ago there would maybe be a handful of people there at a time, in a building that could easily fit 30-50 people.
Turning those libraries not only into a book repository but also as a place to drop your kid to play with other kids while you read, to study (think study rooms with outlets for laptops), to grab a coffee, attend a reading, etc. to me is an amazing initiative.
And there is synergy as well: you can go grab a coffee with your friend whilst your kids play, maybe browse for a new sci-fi book - and hey there is a reading which you can attend whilst your kid is preoccupied and the reading doesn’t feel dead because some other visitors and students are also attending and even if you get thirsty you can grab a tea :)
This whole wall of text might seem a little rantlike but I truly do love libraries (my mom used to take me) and seeing them reinvigorated like that is very cool.
Right now libraries are dying. In my city, 80% of public library use is high school kids or university kids (overflow from the busy university library) studying there during peak exam times, outside of that its extremely underutilised. And for my hometown its even worse, even 15 years ago there would maybe be a handful of people there at a time, in a building that could easily fit 30-50 people.
Turning those libraries not only into a book repository but also as a place to drop your kid to play with other kids while you read, to study (think study rooms with outlets for laptops), to grab a coffee, attend a reading, etc. to me is an amazing initiative.
And there is synergy as well: you can go grab a coffee with your friend whilst your kids play, maybe browse for a new sci-fi book - and hey there is a reading which you can attend whilst your kid is preoccupied and the reading doesn’t feel dead because some other visitors and students are also attending and even if you get thirsty you can grab a tea :)
This whole wall of text might seem a little rantlike but I truly do love libraries (my mom used to take me) and seeing them reinvigorated like that is very cool.