Marketing the public library
- Kristen O'Daly & Heidi Barry-Rodriguez from the West Regional
Library in Wake County will share with us some thoughts on this topic
Library as Third Place - Is It REALLY About Coffee?
- a follow-on to our consideration of the community context, Heidi
& Rebecca Stacy will lead us in an exploration of this concept
- "Third place" is a term coined by sociologist Ray Oldenburg to describe informal gathering places where people in a particular community or neighborhood meet to develop friendships, discuss issues, and interact or network with others. They have always been an important way in which the community has developed and retained cohesion and a sense of identity.
- "Third places" are crucial to a community for a number of reasons:
- They are distinctive informal gathering places.
- They make people feel at home.
- They foster relationships and a diversity of human contact.
- They help create a sense of place and community.
- They invoke a sense of civic pride.
- They provide numerous opportunities for serendipity.
- They promote friendship.
- They allow people to relax and unwind after a long day at work.
- They are socially binding.
- They encourage sociability instead of isolation.
- They make life more colorful.
- There are essential ingredients to a well-functioning "third place". They must be free or inexpensive. They should be a place where a number of people regularly. It should be a place where the person feels welcome and comfortable, and where it is easy to enter into conversation.
- According to Oldenburg, World War II marks the historical juncture after which informal public life began to decline in North America. Old neighbourhoods and their cafes, pubs, and corner stores have fallen to urban renewal, highway expansion, and planning that discounts the importance of congenial, unified and vital neighbourhoods. The newer neighbourhoods have developed under the single-use zoning imperative - which makes these critical, informal social gathering places impossible to construct. Hence, the death of the third place.
To ponder:
- How does today's public library fit into the definition of "third place?" How about the public library of the future?
- Does a public library really meet the criteria for a successful third place? What changes would have to come about to meet these criteria?
- How can the public library participate in a virtual third place?
- How does Michael Casey's vision of Library 2.0 in the "Library 2.0: Service for the Next Generation Library" article fit in with the idea of library as a third place?