Reading over coffee, workouts, beauty and more — at the library
IT’S TIME to do away with the conventional idea of public libraries as being strict places that forbid visitors from talking, eating and drinking.
Reinvented libraries now have more relaxed and user-friendly features - from holding exercise classes to setting up lounges for teenagers or younger users to chat or play games. Some others are run by private entities that boast cafes or restaurants on the same premises, enabling visitors to read a book over a cup of coffee.
“Move to the left while saying ‘right,’ “an instructor said to 15 women during a workout session on the fourth floor of the Yamato City Library in Kanagawa Prefecture, which opened in November.
In a space called the “Kenko (Healthy) Terrace,” events and classes centered on dietary education or beauty are offered daily, with Thursday’s exercise session being particularly popular.
“It is quite encouraging for me to be in this class,” said Hiroko Sano, who participates frequently. “I can also make friends here, which is wonderful.”
The Yamato municipal government, aiming to create a “healthy city,” dedicated the library’s fourth floor to health when the city relocated and rebuilt the facility. The floor offers about 10,000 books and other items related to health, while various measuring devices such as those for vascular age and brain age are available, along with a health consultation nurse.
“We hope to make the library a place where people can be healthier just by being here,” said Yuriko Yamaguchi, acting deputy director of the facility.
Tokyo’s Musashino municipal government aims to create a library where junior high and high school students can hang out. In 2011, the city rebuilt one of its libraries into a complex called Musashino Place. Of its four stories above the ground and three stories underground, the second basement is reserved for target age groups, offering young adult novels and magazines. The floor also has a lounge only open to teenagers or younger users so they can talk to their friends or play games. There is also a climbing wall and four studios for music and dance practice.
Nobuya Inoue, a third-year student at nearby Shotoku Gakuen Senior High School, said he visits the facility two or three times a week. “I like it because I can just come to hang out,” he said. “I can chill with my friends while playing games. It’s not how I pictured libraries.”
More and more libraries have cafes for the same reason. The Tagajo municipal government in Miyagi Prefecture, for example, opened its new library in March last year, outsourcing its operation to the operator of the Tsutaya chain of book, music and video stores. The complex housing the relocated library also has a Starbucks and a policy of allowing visitors to bring drinks into the library.
There have also been concerts among the bookshelves, offering visitors a chance to enjoy reading while listening to live music.
The new library extended its closing time to 9.30pm from 5pm and expanded its collection of books to about 230,000 from about 180,000. About 950,000 people visited the complex that houses the library from March to October 2016, or about 14 times more than in the same period a year earlier, before its relocation.
The Gifu municipal government asked internationally renowned architect Toyo Ito to design the complex that houses the city’s Chuo Library as its core facility. The library’s reading area is adorned with massive umbrella-like structures that hang down from an undulating, latticed wood ceiling. The bookshelves are low and radiate out around the umbrella-like structures. Conversations are allowed in some sections, and visitors can bring drinks inside.
Kazuo Nishino, executive director of the Japan Library Association, said that in the past, libraries were able to just wait for visitors to pour in.
“In a time where the population is falling, however, many libraries have taken advantage of the opportunity to rebuild their ageing structures, implemented various measures to attract more visitors and become innovative,” he said. — Washington Post