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April 4, 2008
Design a library
Heartened by a comment below from James Christie (thank you James) - it might be worth making a serious point about library design. Readers may have seen the long and vitriolic comment from Demco, which merits an answer. (Demco, incidentally, are a library design company lost the bid to design Hillingdon libraries)
I have been involved in the design of a number of 'places to find books'. In the early 1980's when WH Smith was a well marketed operation, clearly at home with a certain customer base, I worked on the very detailed aspect of how to give those customers exactly what they understood and wanted from the brand name in terms of books. 'Market positioning' means exactly that and if you are using a brand name like WH Smith (or 'Public Library') you find that when you catch the mood of the customer correctly, the response is very fast and very large. In simple terms WH Smith customers expected a much more literary collection and impression than the shops were giving. When that was corrected sales increased dramatically. I could predict 50% increase simply by, for example, adding Picador titles, or more literary Penguins, than WHS were in the habit of stocking. In short, WH Smith had been talking down to their customers, wrongly.
The design of the store should then have matched that more educated range of stock, but events were overtaken by the foundation of much more serious book stores.
The first of these I worked on was Websters bookshops, which was an extremely good group of shops, with a much less known brand identity. Again, the temptation had been to try to increase sales by tempting customers who weren't really interested in books, with games and cards and so on. But that 'diversification' was exactly the opposite of what was needed to create a reputation of being serious about books.
Websters was turned into Sherratt and Hughes and this provided an opportunity to create the physical design of a shop which matched the bookish intention of the offering. This is where we learned not to be too 'modern' in the design. It was a time when the standard of retail design in all trades was changing and improving dramatically there were some wonderful fashion stores being created which set new standards. But bookish customers are not the same as customers for fashionable clothes. Nor can bookish retailers afford to be redsigning ever 2 or 3 years. There has to be a slightly old fashioned air- which will feel comfortable and smart for 15 years... If you try to design a bookshop for a fifteen year old, he or she won't like it in three years time and the rest of your customers will never like it.
So this led to Waterstone's of the early nineties, which was unashamedly aimed at serious customers who were serious about books. There was no attempt to seek out people who didn't read-- and by that method, it attracted masses of all kinds of people. If you like, everybody aspires to be a serious and educated person, whether they shout about it, or just believe it quietly. Waterstone's style (which was created by Tim W) was a simple personal statement of a belief in literature, which, it turned out, was almost universally popular.
I was also then involved in a creation called The Book Shed, in London. was intended to be a glorious emporium of all kinds of books and coincided with the end of price restrictions on book sellers
So when we discussed the style of libraries in Hillingdon, all these lessons were available to be studied. The first and most important one is that the design is essentially about making available the widest collection of collections of books.
The second is to make spaces within the area which are like rooms in which people feel comfortable and are happy to be solitary. You are not designing a 'community space' (despite what ministers keep saying) - you are designing personal space.
The single biggest difference between a book shop and a library is that a library needs and can afford to have a lot more personal space for reading and study (with computers available, nowadays, of course)
For the libraries of Hillingdon to be able to afford to refit all their libraries to a high standard what were needed were a set of 'design elements' which can be used in all kinds of buildings of different styles and ages, but convey the same feeling (Pizza Express are an example of a brand design which does this very effectively)
And the result is a calm pleasant place. For me the libraries still don't have enough books in them, but I believe the council are beginning to understand why I keep saying that. It has been a good first attempt. I wish we could do more.
As to the reasons why the first library has been successful, I have no doubt at all: The library is now more useful because the collections of books are so much better. If there are books about fishing, then it will be useful to a family which enjoys is fishing; if there are books on Brazil, then the library will be useful to someone going to Brazil. 'Collections' (plural) is exactly the right word. That is what people expect from a public library-- and that, too is why the brand name 'library' is so important and contributes to the increased use. It is also a pleasant and comfortable place in which to pass one's time and a place in which one feels agreeable and worthwhile. Anybody would.
Posted by Perkins at April 4, 2008 10:16 AM
Comments
You know, I don't actually like being relentlessly negative, but when I read April's Update, I despaired. An interview with the SLA President who dazzled us with words (indeed whole phrases) like "futurologist, transformational, micro increments, social cohesion issues, animate the space, social web, a level of automated tagging based on behavioural pathways, the user-endorsed ratings system which drives its business model, and (my personal doublespeak favourite), the negotiation of a reference question, as opposed to the communication theory of reference interview!" Perkins is begging for plain English and after this deluge of polysyllabic priapism, so am I. Elsewhere and in counterpoint, Piers Hartridge wrote in and suggested that "users and professionals need to decide collectively what a library is: is it a kind of community centre ... or is it to be, well, a library (a source of community information ... but also a dedicated home for a wide range of books). The final word was left to Joe Public on MSN (quoted in Mediawatching) who asked: "Is there sort of, like, a video rental place for books?" I think this sums up the profession's whole problem. While strange people in closed committee debate ways and means of animating the space to achieve a level of automated social tagging based on behavioural pathways using a user-endorsed ratings system in order to negotiate a reference question in micro increments, Joe Public is begging for libraries dedicated to books. I recently wrote that libraries are about books and reading, and you know, I think I'm right! Unless we start standing up unequivocally for the brand libraries=books=reading, we're finished, because at the moment we're just one millimetre away from some bright spark saying "why bother with libraries at all? I can find all I want home alone with google on my PC."
Posted by: James Christie at April 7, 2008 11:05 PM
Bravo, James Christie, for that fine assault upon the bureaucrats' appalling language.
Have they ever gone in a library and borrowed some good prose?
The terrible thing is that they assume that, by using such waffle, they are being intelligent.
If they depended upon a real, paying audience for their words, they would be in a cardboard box in a shop doorway after dark.
Posted by: Christopher Hawtree at April 10, 2008 10:23 PM