When office workers in central Des Moines look out from their downtown high-rises, the large greenspace at the heart of the city is nearly uninterrupted, even by the 110,000 square foot library in the middle of it. That's because the two-story building's green roof blends right into the park from above.
That's not the
Des Moines Central Library's only optical illusion. The skin of the 2006 building is made of copper mesh encased in glass. The result: By day, library patrons are seemingly encased only in glass, virtually standing in broad daylight among the stacks, as well as the surrounding park. Outside, the apparently opaque copper building shimmers in the sunlight. By night, the walls become transparent from the outside, allowing passersby to view the activity inside the glowing structure.
"It's a park within a library and a library within a park," says Des Moines Public Library Marketing Manager, Jan D. Kaiser of the new building, which transported the central branch from the outskirts of downtown to the center. "One thing we noticed immediately is that it became the heart of the community."
Des Moines isn't alone in a nationwide trend of innovative downtown library buildings that reflect and support the innovations happening inside.
Seattle's downtown library, which opened in 2004 and was designed by famed architect Rem Koolhaas, boasts bright yellow escalators connecting its 11 stories filled with 1.45 million books and 400 computers. It was funded via a $196 million bond measure that was passed by the public and in its first year more than doubled the preducted patronage with 2.3 million visitors. A new $184 million central library now under construction in
San Diego will include a 350 seat auditorium, teen center, cafe, and 24-foot-high living wall of honeysuckle vines. In
Salt Lake City, the new downtown library includes an art gallery, one of the world's largest collections of graphic novels and zines, and four of the central library's six floors include spiraling fireplaces that together appear to be a column of fire.
All of the buildings have one thing in common: flexible space. Each has meeting areas, auditoriums and media-capable lounge areas far beyond their former locations. No longer just book-lending institutions they have become popular hubs, facilitating and servicing a wide variety of cultural, artistic, and community activities.
"One of the beauties of the building is the extreme flexibility that is possible," says Kaiser of the Des Moines library. "We are undergoing a little bit of reorganization right now, moving some of the stacks around. We are finding people want to have more niches where they can come with their laptops, hook into the wi-fi and have meetings."
As Ann Arbor begins to imagine what shape the future of its own
central library may take, the concept of flexible space has become a part of the discussion. The trend is connected to a greater, national movement in which library professionals are reevaluating the role of libraries in an ever-changing digital world.
"One way to think about libraries these days is not as a vault of single copies of books on shelves," says Shana Kimball, head of publishing services, outreach and strategic development for the
University of Michigan Library. "Libraries represent this repository of expertise. Libraries are thinking, 'what are the other kinds of services we can do for our patrons?'"
Physical books, Kimball says, will always be a major part of that equation, but the role is encompassing more."Libraries are also helping patrons create content," she says, "rather than just being the place where you consume published works."
The Ann Arbor District Library is no stranger to this concept. A new library service allows members to check out musical equipment, from electric bagpipes to an
LED synthesizer. Other innovative services include the ability to check out energy meters, science kits and art prints.
According to
Madison Public Library Foundation Executive Director Jenni Collins, who is now buttoning up a $9 million fundraising campaign for a new $29.5 million library in Downtown Madison, the connection between flexible spaces and innovative library services lies in the inevitability that those services will continually grow and change.
"Of course we're always going to have shelves with books on them," Collins says. "But we have a lot more seating areas and a media lab. And we're also asking, 'what are we going to need 15 years from now?'"
Who could know? One way the new Madison library will facilitate this is with electricity access panels in the floor, so as the needs for any given space change, so can the space itself. Collins says that one of the greatest innovations for the new library, however, is notably simpler.
"In 2010 we had 350 public meetings at the library," Collins says. "And we didn't have a large meeting space in our library system. We have community wide events, like a film festival and book festival, and we can't participate the way we'd like to. That's a shame for a library to not be able to host a major author. Now, we are building 250-seat auditorium."
Ann Arbor resident and advocate for a new downtown library, Peter Baker, sees a similar obstacle at our own central branch, where space for larger meetings and events is limited.
"There's talk of having an auditorium or meeting rooms…to have meetings that aren't necessarily profitable, commercial shows," he says. "Things that, quite frankly, used to take place at Borders. That's not there anymore.
"The library is doing those things now, but is at capacity. When they have a popular author, if anything past 100 or so people come, they have to go in another room and watch it on closed caption television."
What have the larger, innovative buildings with flexible spaces and innovative services done for central libraries around the country? Collins expects the new building to double the annual visitors to the Madison Central Library, bringing in a million visitors. It's an estimate with precedent. In Des Moines, more than 220,000 people visited the new library between April and July after its opening in 2006, compared to 54,000 visitors during the same months in 2005.
The new services and public spaces likely played a major role in those patronage spikes, but Collins says a library building's role in the community extends beyond the tangible walls and consumable services.
"Out town is very conscious of civic infrastructure," she says. Collins feels the new library, which is due to open in September of 2013, will finally be an accurate symbol of Madison's priorities as a community. "The library is the center of our civic life."
In her personal opinion, Kimball feels Ann Arbor can relate.
"I think our public architecture are important symbolic statements," she says. "If we were able to say, 'look at this shining jewel,' of our library, that would say a lot about us as a community. It would say a lot about what Ann Arbor is and what we care about."
Whether its electric panels in the floor for increased flexibility, or simply innovative services that challenge patrons to be creators themselves, Baker says his ideal future library is one that can meet today's needs, as well as achieve goals no one may be yet able to anticipate.
"My kids are going to see the library as something very different from what my parent see," he says, "but it will be just as important."
Natalie Burg is a freelance writer, the news editor for Capital Gains, and a regular contributor to Metromode and Concentrate.