Anacostia Dynamo Initial Meeting Report

A start-up meeting of citizens interested in learning more about forming a Library Dynamo took place at UPO's Anacostia Community Service Center on May 3, 2007. Attendees discussed and evaluated the purpose: to provide informed citizen oversight of the proposed transformation of the DC Public Library. Seattle was cited as an example of citizen oversight of library redevelopment. http://www.spl.org/lfa/oversight/oversight.html

Attendees also briefly talked about their vision for a neighborhood library. It included:

• The library as learning center
• The library as community center
• The library as town hall
• Access to childcare
• Access to technology
• A light and airy design
• A locally owned and operated coffee shop.

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The following notes and links are provided by the Library Renaissance Project as follow up and food for thought relevant to the community vision for the Anacostia Branch Public Library.

1. Library as Learning Center

Classrooms for all sorts of learning including literacy, finance, computers, music, languages, etc.

2. Library as Community Center

When the people of Moab, in Utah, were asked what they wanted for their new library, they said they wanted it to be the town’s living room, according to Library Journal. Read more about Moab, Utah’s Grand County Public Library, winner of the 2007 Best Small Library in America Award, and the community’s desire to have the library serve as a gather place. http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6407751.html

3. Library as Town Hall

DC’s libraries have long been used as polling places, as community meeting space, and as places to gather the community to convey information or ask for input. According to library officials, citizen complaints about the lack of meeting room space provided in the 2004 plans for the four closed libraries were a principal reason for canceling the plans.

Some questions library advocates might want to see considered are:

Can meeting rooms be located in such a way that community meetings can extend beyond regular hours of operation, if necessary, without impacting library staff? If so, what would be required to secure the spaces after hours?

Would ANC’s benefit from access to space in libraries? What about volunteer based organizations like mentoring and literacy programs that do a lot of work in libraries?

4. Access to childcare

Typically libraries do not directly provide childcare but co-location of childcare services in the same building or complex is not uncommon. Some provide extensive referral services like the Tower Hamlets borough of London, where SureStart children’s centers are located in new libraries called Idea Stores. http://www.ideastore.co.uk/index/PID/456

5. Access to technology

DCPL has lagged behind substantially in this area but recently installed wi-fi throughout the system. Interim libraries in Tenley and Anacostia have 16-20 computers for public use being widely appreciated. The Seattle Public Library has more than 300 at its central library. http://www.spl.org/images/slideshow/NewCentralSlideshow.asp?index=42

How many terminals are needed? Where should they be located and how will they be monitored? How will patrons with low computer literacy skills be helped?

6. Light and airy design

Bringing light into libraries while protecting materials has been done extensively around the world in libraries old and new.

Views of the refurbished central library in Turku Finland from inside and out:

http://www.pbase.com/norbertf/image/75424879

http://www.pilkington.com/europe/uk+and+ireland/english/news/pilkington+booked+for+finnish+library.htm

Reviews of the Seattle Public Library New Central are mixed.. The airiness is dizzying according to some (11 floors), yet the children’s space on the ground floor gets no natural light.

http://www.spl.org/images/slideshow/NewCentralSlideshow.asp?index=20

http://www.spl.org/images/slideshow/NewCentralSlideshow.asp?index=11

In any case, the library has experienced a big surge in usage since reopening.

7. Coffee shop, preferably locally based

Bookstores have adopted comfortable chairs and cozy coffeeshops. A coffee cart in the lobby of the Seattle Public Library is maintained by a consortium that provides job training for the homeless. Seattle Public even allows library patrons to take drinks into the stacks, as long as the cups have lids.

Strong and Active Community-based Public Library Oversight Groups

Not only are all points in the Anacostia vision doable today, but they are exactly the kinds of things recommended for maintaining strong libraries. Residents participating in active library community oversight groups can help the community to see that almost anything they might want for their public library is already being done in a library somewhere.

They can feel confident about asking for, and if necessary, demanding, that DC provide what other cities and towns are already enjoying. Below are excerpts from “How to Make Your Library Great,” at the Project for Public Spaces, an organization dedicated to “creating public spaces that build communities.” Their suggestions reinforce the vision of strong community-based library overight groups.

• offer a broad mix of community services from child care to job placement to income tax advice to university extension courses;
• serve as civic information centers and forums for public discourse about timely local topics such as zoning changes, new developments, and government initiatives;
• foster communication and sharing information by housing community access television and radio stations in libraries;
• make the library a repository of local history by collecting oral histories, preserving photographs, archiving settlement records, etc;
• allow transparency between the library interior and interior to enhance activity and liveliness, for instance, an entrance opening onto “sitting stairs” where people can read outside or sit in the sun, or a bookstore and café on the ground floor spilling onto the street;
• use amenities such as public art, fountains, and gardens to help establish a convivial setting for social interaction, encouraging people to gather and linger. In partnership with its "backyard" neighbor, Bryant Park, New York Public Library operates an outdoor reading room stocked with books, magazines and newspapers. This popular amenity remains well-managed throughout the winter too, when it sets up shop in a tent that perfectly complements the park's ice rink, seasonal café and holiday market;
• offer easy access by designing nearby streets so that cars slow down around the library, crosswalks should be well marked, and lights should be timed for pedestrians, not vehicles.

Read more http://www.pps.org/info/newsletter/april2007/library_attributes

/dynamos/anacostia/reports/