It reminds of one of the later scenes from Secret Life of Walter Mitty when Sean (photographer) decides not to take a picture of the elusive snow leopard in front of them.
> Walter Mitty: Are you going to take it?
> Sean O'Connell: Sometimes I don't. If I like a moment, for me, personally, I don't like to have the distraction of the camera. I just want to stay in it.
Very true. If everyone on the planet was allowed to walk over the great pyramids of Egypt, they would be pounded into dust. Sometimes it is better just to observe and move on.
trust me , my places only remain because of a lack of visitors.
it only takes one to ruin a beautiful spot.
it also means the only people to see it are ones worthy enough to have found it on their own. I like that. I would share with like minded others but only if I trust them.
shame I find it hard to motivate myself to grow my social circle, there should be a club maybe I should make one, but noone would want to join it lol not knowing what cool stuff we could share
I mean I even discover things that would blow my mind and then I realise most people would say something like " oh thats odd or naughty I dont like you or that", as in maybe I find a river with huge lilypads that I can take a nap on. I just know the most of the readers would be annoyed for some reason and might even do something that would bring negative attention to it and get the river closed or studied or something that would remove it from the environment. I just feel surrounded by narow minded idiots, and a few highly intelligent psychos.
I feel that in some cases I would only share info if I was paid but then noone would never even think to ask me.
Which is weird. As I could do with a dollar for a cup of coffee. Who knows. I probably wouldnt even do it for money.
When visiting Delft in the Netherlands I was extremely jealous that the library there not only had a cafe, but that the cafe served wine and the whole place was open until like 11pm. Haven’t encountered anything like that in the US.
One thing that I don't like about American culture is that people are a little too hesitant about adding 'retail' into publicly-owned spaces. There's a reflexive attitude of that being A Bad Thing, even though most Americans who visit, say, Japan, really appreciate the various shops and kiosks they have in transit stations over there.
I also really enjoyed in Germany when at the top of some hike there'd be an inn+restaurant, something Americans seem to treat as nearly anathema.
Given the rest of American culture is intensely commercialised, I can see why there is a desire to protect the remaining non-commercial spaces.
My local library has an indepenently run coffee kiosk out front, the library own the facility and lease it to the operator, and presumably have some lease terms about allowable signage and branding.
I'd probably feel differently if it was a mega franchise like Starbucks or McCafe right at the entrance of a civic building.
I understand why, but it often results in bad outcomes. Part of why transit in other countries is better is often precisely because of greater commercialization. It's not just that it's more convenient for travelers, but also it makes money to fund transit.
this. and of course, the financial structure of these arrangements matters greatly. If the food places in the stations are making good money and the trains themselves are breaking even, you want the money to be flowing to the same people who run the trains, lest the train operator stops operating and the food places suddenly find themselves without customers.
This means you can't for example have both the train operators and the food places pay rent to some third party that owns the station, it has to be the transit company owning the station to benefit from the footfall to it
I'd probably feel differently if it was a mega franchise like Starbucks or McCafe right at the entrance of a civic building.
I would too. It would be in the government's interest to chose an operator and lease out space, but only if it were done in the most fair manner possible. I have no clue about such matters, I confess, but I would not want to see the idea politicized; as in only certain people can apply, or preferences given to certain classes. Perhaps a little contentious in the short run, but in the long term it would be better.
And yes, alas, if it's Starbucks that has the best deal, then so be it. In fact, playing devil's advocate, what IF Starbucks said we'll give you 100% of our profits from this location on the sale of beverages?
Probably best that the library gets the money from leasing the space, and let's the local operator earn whatever they can.
Near where I live, there is a library facility that has a cafe. However, it's not a regular book-lending library... it's run by the country library system, but it's actually a free coworking space. They even have a music room with 4 stringed instruments, a computer, and an electronic drum kit as well as a podcasting studio.
As the author noted, I see libraries becoming more and more centers of community in the Bay Area (California, USA). Just check out the events at all of the Santa Clara County library system (8 libraries that share books): https://sccl.bibliocommons.com/v2/events?_gl=1*11u0hec*_ga*M...
Many events aren't even book related-- see events for Lego building, homework help, even Dungeons and Dragons events.
I wonder if there's a resurgence across the world where libraries are places of community sharing.
If you saw a homeless person in a library, would you be able to tell them they smell to their face? Do you have that kind of "bravery"? Or is it just here, amongst your "peers."
One Prague branch I frequent is hang out spot for kids to be hooked on free wifi and stare at smartphone, there is no better place to stare at your smartphone than in library full of books! I even complained* why they won't set some time limits per connection to make it annoying enough to be useless for kids (but still usable for someone for few minutes to look up some book reviews/database), but seems everyone including management is addicted to smartphones.
It's nice that library is welcoming young people, though not sure if encouraging their smartphone addiction is the right way to attract someone.
*main reason for complaint wasn't kids staring at phones and playing games, but shouting swear words during gaming on phone and playing it loudly without earbuds, when I am visiting with small kids who are interested in actual books
This must be global since I had a similar experience on the east coast of the USA. It seems reasonable to expect a public library not to functionally be an Internet gamer café.
Libraries have always had events and activities related to books and other things not book related.
People are just now noticing them. This is a great thing and I hope it sticks.
I believe people are getting sick of every interaction being monetized and are finally seeking out spaces where you can learn and interact with others without that threat.
> I believe people are getting sick of every interaction being monetized and are finally seeking out spaces where you can learn and interact with others without that threat.
And this is by no means special. I'm pretty sure this is the case for most major city libraries in Europe.
Other than that lots of people do their work or homework there, hangout in the outside spaces, book rooms for community meetings. With some more budget, I think there's a lot to be said for these to become default community activity/collaboration spaces.
I see libraries throwing out large amounts of books, and then chasing non-book things that became laughably obsolete in a few years, such as:
- audio books on little devices to plug headphones into, which have cheap rechargeable batteries that seem to be mostly dead
- collections of children’s toys in a toy room that after a few years are missing most of their pieces
- large collections of DVDs
- computer labs full of computers that are old/slow and then need all kinds of restrictions due to a handful of antisocial people using them for inappropriate things, leaving them nearly unusable for anyone else
- fancy 3D printing labs containing hardware without enough volunteers to teach people how to use it, and with hardware going obsolete or unmaintained/broken
- a seed bank that had obviously not had any seed packets taken out in years
My local library is eliminating a section of books in order to build a “sensory room”. Nothing against sensory rooms, but I’m not sure it was a good trade for yet another skip full of books. (There is a YMCA next door that would be a more appropriate place for a sensory room - and indeed it has one.)
On a recent library trip, despite all that, the dehumidifier was not working and I saw signs of permanent humidity damage to books in the archive. This is the one thing libraries should be doing: preserving books.
A wild take I have seen was "Japan is the white mans Wakanda". It is a rough way of saying something important.
There are many parts of Japanese culture that is seen as desirable and aspirational to others. The sense of social cohesion and politeness that is projected is seen as a good thing. Yes, the reality is more rough than is projected, Japan has its issues just like everywhere else. But when looking in from the outside, there are a lot of things that can be seen as goals for others to achieve.
This is the same reason why we are seeing a lot more positive takes on China nowadays. The image of a society that is progressing in a way considered desirable. It grabs folks attention, there is also the novelty of it all as it these of nations that look similar but different.
Not to play into the bait, but there are a lot of people here who live in Japan. Funnily, during JST work hours, I notice more jp related posts in the front page, because well, NA is sleeping.
The most interesting thing in the article to me is that there was a dual library/bookstore, and that it’s privately owned. I don’t think I’ve encountered a library that wasn’t publicly owned in the US.
None of the libraries in New York City are publicly owned. NYPL, BPL, and QPL are all private nonprofits that receive public funding. It’s an odd arrangement.
They are common here. Membership is usually a dollar or two a month. Members store their books their on a kind of permanent loan so they don’t have to store so many books in their house. It’s unstaffed and just run by its members, and members replace any books they lose.
There is a private engineering library I visited in TN (anyone can drop in during business hours) that aims to preserve books that engineers used before everything became computer assisted.
I recently had a similar episode as the author in another east Asia country: Taiwan.
Found myself in Taitung (along the much less densely populated, remote east coast) with several inches of rain forecast. Spent the day at the Taitung County Public Library [0] and it was a very pleasant public space which had more tourists than patrons!
> If you are, I suspect you already do this: when you travel abroad, you find yourself walking into a local bookstore.
> I do it everywhere, not only in Japan but also abroad. My shelves hold some Chinese and Russian books even though I cannot read a word of them. A bookstore is one of the best places to understand the local culture: what people there are curious about, what they worry about, what they love.
This sounds more like a fetish for physical books to me? I find it bizarre myself, books are just knowledge containers, if you can't read them...what's the point?
I do something similar with boardgames. I like to import foreign language games or pick them when traveling. They don’t need to be in English for me to enjoy and appreciate them. I have games from Germany, France, Spain, Japan, China, Brazil, and the UK.
My favorite is Kolejka, a Polish game about queuing at nearly empty stores during communism.
Book covers, seeing what kinda stuff is being talked about, the general vibe of the space itself.
Lots of fun to be had wandering about, and unless you're looking at a thing where the script is really indecipherable you can kinda figure out what the topic du jour is even in foreign languages.
It's fun to look at book covers and imagine what's in the contents too.
> One example is the family bible that's passed down from one generation to the next. That book might contain handwriting of your grand parents recording the birth of your mom. Surely you can see how that might be special to somebody?
A personal artifact is a much different thing from some random book at a bookstore (personally, I'd rather explore the sights, take photographs, and make my own memories, not come back with someone else's). I also personally own thousands of books, they are a pain in the ass, and every day I consider liquidating most of them in favor of ebooks. I have too many to even consider treating them as art.
I can see this catching on in the US with a lot of cultural exceptions that would amplify the library as an either an ideological battleground or sanctuary.
We have an excellent library in East Lansing. My sister and I went there every week with our late Mother when we were kids. I was in there recently at an AI meeting and I noticed that it was changing into a bit of a community hub as well.
Wouldn't have ever thought of it as a meeting place for user groups but they are starting to actively encourage it. I saw it as a very positive development. During COVID they advertised that anyone could use their parking lot for the free Wi-Fi. They must have had the coverage cause the rather large parking lot was packed. They must have tuned it because I sure can't get coverage in most of the parking lots of the fast food franchises where most of their customers these days only use drive-thru.
> A library with 100,000 visitors in a town of only 9,000 people
That reminds me that there is a library that I believe became a bit viral on social media and now it seems like it receives so many visitors to the surrounding area and it is still quiet, but it is funny because it seems way more crowded and there's way more movement that I remember in the past.
That's why with this post, I sort of wonder whether this is something that these towns really want to have. I am under the impression that in Japan, they generally want visitors, but then they probably end up with issues from people not knowing what to do and even behaving badly.
i guess they're in relatively separate spaces? that's how it's like in my local area in the UK
I'm finding that libraries in the UK outside of big cities are resembling those in the article, just nowhere near as popular, and with a more pedestrian book selection
Starbucks in bookstores? Hasn't that been a thing at Barnes and Noble for 35 years?
Tsutaya has been trying to re-invent itself because yea, it's main businesses, video rental, video/DVD sales, and music CD sales died to digital/streaming. It's not clear it's succeeding. It's unclear how they are doing. They pivoted to bookstore + starbucks + luxury stationery + lifestyle goods. Recently they've been trying co-working spaces "Share Lounge", you can pay by the hour or get monthly subscriptions. Whether this will prevent them from dying is not clear at all.
As for libraries, yes, turning them into community centers sounds great!
That said, I think the blog post is jumping to lots of unfounded conclusions.
Honestly, the share lounge idea is not a bad one, at least in the major cities. It can be pretty difficult to find a working space that isn't a tiny pod or a monthly commitment.
That said, the only Tsutaya share lounge I've seen was basically a glorified Starbucks, which is not so appealing.
My local library collocates with a cinema these days - I, and many others, were originally super sceptical about this, mostly because the arrangement made a public service and space sort beholden to a commercial entity.
Happily in practice it has turned out to be great, and the combined space operates really effectively as a community ‘third space’. Obviously because of the private sector aspect of this there’s a significant risk in terms of how sustainable it is, but moderated somewhat by the council owning the actual building both live in.
The first example, Takeo City library, wasn't opened by Tsutaya in 2013. That's a public (government) library that already existed from 2000, remodeled, and when reopening in 2013 they partnered with Tsutaya so they could have a small books/stationery shop in the library. There's a Starbucks too... I think Tsutaya might be managing part of the library, but it's not like they opened a library.
Seems like it's a program that Tsutaya is doing around the country, some sort of public/private arrangements where they do management and they add a small shop. I have mixed feelings about it, and I hope the libraries don't depend on Tsutaya's funding. For me libraries should be a totally public endeavor, and their decisions on policies or titles shouldn't be on risk because of funding pressure.
Found a 2015 statement from Takeo explaining that planned spending on books had been cut by more than half to pay for safety work on the shelving, and CCC also acknowledged that it should have chosen the books more carefully.
83 comments
[ 7.9 ms ] story [ 97.9 ms ] threadIts ironic
> Walter Mitty: Are you going to take it?
> Sean O'Connell: Sometimes I don't. If I like a moment, for me, personally, I don't like to have the distraction of the camera. I just want to stay in it.
> Walter Mitty: Stay in it?
> Sean O'Connell: Yeah. Right there. Right here.
it only takes one to ruin a beautiful spot.
it also means the only people to see it are ones worthy enough to have found it on their own. I like that. I would share with like minded others but only if I trust them.
shame I find it hard to motivate myself to grow my social circle, there should be a club maybe I should make one, but noone would want to join it lol not knowing what cool stuff we could share
I mean I even discover things that would blow my mind and then I realise most people would say something like " oh thats odd or naughty I dont like you or that", as in maybe I find a river with huge lilypads that I can take a nap on. I just know the most of the readers would be annoyed for some reason and might even do something that would bring negative attention to it and get the river closed or studied or something that would remove it from the environment. I just feel surrounded by narow minded idiots, and a few highly intelligent psychos.
I feel that in some cases I would only share info if I was paid but then noone would never even think to ask me.
Which is weird. As I could do with a dollar for a cup of coffee. Who knows. I probably wouldnt even do it for money.
One thing that I don't like about American culture is that people are a little too hesitant about adding 'retail' into publicly-owned spaces. There's a reflexive attitude of that being A Bad Thing, even though most Americans who visit, say, Japan, really appreciate the various shops and kiosks they have in transit stations over there.
I also really enjoyed in Germany when at the top of some hike there'd be an inn+restaurant, something Americans seem to treat as nearly anathema.
My local library has an indepenently run coffee kiosk out front, the library own the facility and lease it to the operator, and presumably have some lease terms about allowable signage and branding.
I'd probably feel differently if it was a mega franchise like Starbucks or McCafe right at the entrance of a civic building.
This means you can't for example have both the train operators and the food places pay rent to some third party that owns the station, it has to be the transit company owning the station to benefit from the footfall to it
I would too. It would be in the government's interest to chose an operator and lease out space, but only if it were done in the most fair manner possible. I have no clue about such matters, I confess, but I would not want to see the idea politicized; as in only certain people can apply, or preferences given to certain classes. Perhaps a little contentious in the short run, but in the long term it would be better.
And yes, alas, if it's Starbucks that has the best deal, then so be it. In fact, playing devil's advocate, what IF Starbucks said we'll give you 100% of our profits from this location on the sale of beverages?
Probably best that the library gets the money from leasing the space, and let's the local operator earn whatever they can.
Many events aren't even book related-- see events for Lego building, homework help, even Dungeons and Dragons events.
I wonder if there's a resurgence across the world where libraries are places of community sharing.
It's nice that library is welcoming young people, though not sure if encouraging their smartphone addiction is the right way to attract someone.
*main reason for complaint wasn't kids staring at phones and playing games, but shouting swear words during gaming on phone and playing it loudly without earbuds, when I am visiting with small kids who are interested in actual books
People are just now noticing them. This is a great thing and I hope it sticks.
I believe people are getting sick of every interaction being monetized and are finally seeking out spaces where you can learn and interact with others without that threat.
Shhh... you're going to get libraries monetized.
I feel there is, but I am not yet seeing anything concrete.
Just last week new stats came out [1] that library attendance by young people in the Netherlands is going up again, so possibly!
[1] https://nos.nl/artikel/2630399-meer-locaties-meer-bezoekers-...
State: https://www.zlb.de/veranstaltungsuebersicht/
And this is by no means special. I'm pretty sure this is the case for most major city libraries in Europe.
Other than that lots of people do their work or homework there, hangout in the outside spaces, book rooms for community meetings. With some more budget, I think there's a lot to be said for these to become default community activity/collaboration spaces.
- audio books on little devices to plug headphones into, which have cheap rechargeable batteries that seem to be mostly dead - collections of children’s toys in a toy room that after a few years are missing most of their pieces - large collections of DVDs - computer labs full of computers that are old/slow and then need all kinds of restrictions due to a handful of antisocial people using them for inappropriate things, leaving them nearly unusable for anyone else - fancy 3D printing labs containing hardware without enough volunteers to teach people how to use it, and with hardware going obsolete or unmaintained/broken - a seed bank that had obviously not had any seed packets taken out in years
My local library is eliminating a section of books in order to build a “sensory room”. Nothing against sensory rooms, but I’m not sure it was a good trade for yet another skip full of books. (There is a YMCA next door that would be a more appropriate place for a sensory room - and indeed it has one.)
On a recent library trip, despite all that, the dehumidifier was not working and I saw signs of permanent humidity damage to books in the archive. This is the one thing libraries should be doing: preserving books.
There are many parts of Japanese culture that is seen as desirable and aspirational to others. The sense of social cohesion and politeness that is projected is seen as a good thing. Yes, the reality is more rough than is projected, Japan has its issues just like everywhere else. But when looking in from the outside, there are a lot of things that can be seen as goals for others to achieve.
This is the same reason why we are seeing a lot more positive takes on China nowadays. The image of a society that is progressing in a way considered desirable. It grabs folks attention, there is also the novelty of it all as it these of nations that look similar but different.
To steal and paraphrase "the important thing about fiction isn't that you see that dragons exist, it's that you learn that they can be defeated".
Of course trying to emulate something you think is desirable based on false pretenses is its own problem, but that gets complicated.
At least in California, libraries often have a community run used bookstore whose proceeds are used to help the library run community programming.
There is a private engineering library I visited in TN (anyone can drop in during business hours) that aims to preserve books that engineers used before everything became computer assisted.
Found myself in Taitung (along the much less densely populated, remote east coast) with several inches of rain forecast. Spent the day at the Taitung County Public Library [0] and it was a very pleasant public space which had more tourists than patrons!
Shots of the interior for anyone interested (surprisingly Scandinavian): https://youtu.be/gq8xlk_JEG4?t=108
[0] https://maps.app.goo.gl/tnEvHQLMNBGAnMWF9
Very boring indeed (but the covers are nice I guess).
Is Taiwan similar?
> If you are, I suspect you already do this: when you travel abroad, you find yourself walking into a local bookstore.
> I do it everywhere, not only in Japan but also abroad. My shelves hold some Chinese and Russian books even though I cannot read a word of them. A bookstore is one of the best places to understand the local culture: what people there are curious about, what they worry about, what they love.
This sounds more like a fetish for physical books to me? I find it bizarre myself, books are just knowledge containers, if you can't read them...what's the point?
My favorite is Kolejka, a Polish game about queuing at nearly empty stores during communism.
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/85325/kolejka
Lots of fun to be had wandering about, and unless you're looking at a thing where the script is really indecipherable you can kinda figure out what the topic du jour is even in foreign languages.
It's fun to look at book covers and imagine what's in the contents too.
A personal artifact is a much different thing from some random book at a bookstore (personally, I'd rather explore the sights, take photographs, and make my own memories, not come back with someone else's). I also personally own thousands of books, they are a pain in the ass, and every day I consider liquidating most of them in favor of ebooks. I have too many to even consider treating them as art.
Wouldn't have ever thought of it as a meeting place for user groups but they are starting to actively encourage it. I saw it as a very positive development. During COVID they advertised that anyone could use their parking lot for the free Wi-Fi. They must have had the coverage cause the rather large parking lot was packed. They must have tuned it because I sure can't get coverage in most of the parking lots of the fast food franchises where most of their customers these days only use drive-thru.
That reminds me that there is a library that I believe became a bit viral on social media and now it seems like it receives so many visitors to the surrounding area and it is still quiet, but it is funny because it seems way more crowded and there's way more movement that I remember in the past.
That's why with this post, I sort of wonder whether this is something that these towns really want to have. I am under the impression that in Japan, they generally want visitors, but then they probably end up with issues from people not knowing what to do and even behaving badly.
On the one hand, a quiet, unobtrusive cafe in the library seems nice.
On the other hand, I like the library precisely because it has so little of the advertising/commercial bullshit of every day.
A cafe AND a bookstore trying to sell you stuff feels over the line.
I'm finding that libraries in the UK outside of big cities are resembling those in the article, just nowhere near as popular, and with a more pedestrian book selection
Tsutaya has been trying to re-invent itself because yea, it's main businesses, video rental, video/DVD sales, and music CD sales died to digital/streaming. It's not clear it's succeeding. It's unclear how they are doing. They pivoted to bookstore + starbucks + luxury stationery + lifestyle goods. Recently they've been trying co-working spaces "Share Lounge", you can pay by the hour or get monthly subscriptions. Whether this will prevent them from dying is not clear at all.
As for libraries, yes, turning them into community centers sounds great!
That said, I think the blog post is jumping to lots of unfounded conclusions.
That said, the only Tsutaya share lounge I've seen was basically a glorified Starbucks, which is not so appealing.
Happily in practice it has turned out to be great, and the combined space operates really effectively as a community ‘third space’. Obviously because of the private sector aspect of this there’s a significant risk in terms of how sustainable it is, but moderated somewhat by the council owning the actual building both live in.
The first example, Takeo City library, wasn't opened by Tsutaya in 2013. That's a public (government) library that already existed from 2000, remodeled, and when reopening in 2013 they partnered with Tsutaya so they could have a small books/stationery shop in the library. There's a Starbucks too... I think Tsutaya might be managing part of the library, but it's not like they opened a library.
Seems like it's a program that Tsutaya is doing around the country, some sort of public/private arrangements where they do management and they add a small shop. I have mixed feelings about it, and I hope the libraries don't depend on Tsutaya's funding. For me libraries should be a totally public endeavor, and their decisions on policies or titles shouldn't be on risk because of funding pressure.
A couple links in English...
https://www.publiclibrariesnews.com/users/guest-posts/the-cc...
https://publishingperspectives.com/2015/10/in-japan-a-gorgeo...