Me.

The Christiam Librarian on revisiting the library as place ...

While Harris (2007) obviously had no way of knowing that I would reference her article for this paper, her title, "Libraries with Lattes: The New Third Place", certainly foreshadowed the overall concept. Consider Bryson, Usherwood and Proctor’s  (2003) description of the library in their work, Libraries Must Also Be Buildings?: New Library Impact Study: “Buildings that are well designed and managed offer an array of resources that enable people and groups to establish relationships, carry on conversations, exchange ideas, and engage the life of the mind” (p. 70). All of these concepts point to the notion of how the library fits into the life of the user rather than how the library thinks the user should be told to view the library. The use of the library should be affected by the way in which people use the space. Furthermore, Bryson et al. (2003) describes the library as being one of the following at any given time: a meeting place, a learning resource, and a comfortable and relaxing space (p. 70). The evidence presented in this paper certainly supports that. Pay careful attention to the last item in this partial list from Meyrick’s ten practical ways for a library to be recognized as a third place:

1. Create a brand.

2. Respond to community identity.

3. Aggregate and cluster.

4. Encourage discovery.

5. Fantastic design and fabulous people (2007).

Meyrick (2007) adds that if nothing else is achieved, make sure you have the best coffee in town. Again, it is not about having coffee in the library but meeting the customers’ needs. Consider this: Starbucks are not usually very big. Someone suggested most customers do not go in there to stay for long periods of time; they get their coffee and make it a part of their lives. They take it to work and bring it to the library. Another phrase I often hear students recite to tour groups in the library supports this sentiment: “The great thing about the library is you can eat and drink in here. So, you can grab a cup of coffee and a bagel at Einstein’s and come to the library and study or you can just hang out.” While providing food and drink is considered one of the key elements of good third place criteria, the other two key elements are being easy to get to and having an inviting design that encourages lingering or promotes community. In this paper’s introductory exchange between the two students, the friend’s description of the library as a place to hang out is synonymous with lingering and promoting community. The students who were waiting in line for the computers in the lab were not doing so because there were no other computers available on campus.  They were waiting because they wanted to be in the library.

Sir Roger's comment bears repeating ...

Our language, our music and our manners are increasingly raucous, self-centred, and offensive, as though beauty and good taste have no real place in our lives. One word is written large on all these ugly things, and that word is "me".