Urban public libraries are increasingly becoming "destination spaces," District of Columbia Public Library (DCPL) Director Molly Raphael told a Library of Congress audience in April. "Dynamic new central libraries are attractive neighbors in downtown areas because they bring foot traffic and repeat customers. They contribute to thriving and reviving downtowns," Raphael said.
In her lecture "Transforming the Urban Public Library," she portrayed libraries as growing, changing, trusted institutions that are as vital to their communities today as they have ever been. Her lecture was part of the Library's Luminary Lectures @ Your Library Series.
Raphael has had 30 years of experience at the District of Columbia Public Library, and for the past five years has been its director. The DCPL is 100 years old, with 21 branches, five community libraries and two mobile trucks.
She described the changing roles of public libraries, particularly in urban settings such as Chicago, Seattle, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Nashville and Washington, D.C. For example, she said, Chicago residents and businesses consider the downtown public library their central branch. Los Angeles plans to build or renovate 33 branch libraries between 1998 and 2004. Seattle Public Library will open a central branch in one year that will focus on technology.
In major urban areas such as these, Raphael said, public libraries are deliberately creating new opportunities for training in information literacy and cultural sensitivity, as well as building new or renovated facilities with striking architecture, grand reading rooms, conference centers with kitchens for banquets and other events, more personal computing stations, integrated retail services such as cafés, coffee and gift shops, and centers for teens (who, when asked to design their own library centers, demand not only technology but also access to materials and books).
Electronic information is no substitute for urban public libraries with appealing physical space, social interaction, and books and other materials. "Although our customers want the new technologies in our new libraries, they want them to supplement, not replace, the more traditional resources," Raphael said.
She gave five reasons why newly built or renovated public spaces have been successful and appealing even though people can meet their information needs in other ways:
- Libraries show that they are paying attention to the needs of their individual communities by offering new services and activities.
- Library designs now incorporate elements that elevate the importance of a street presence, making the library a desirable place with an image of comfort and sociability.
- Libraries either occupy prime city space or offer facilities and services that are not already provided for in the surroundings.
- Libraries recognize and embrace opportunities to collaborate with organizations that share common goals. For example, DCPL has partnered with the District government and the U.S. Small Business Administration to provide a new support center for small businesses, and with the Washington Hospital Center and Medstar Diabetes Institute to enhance health education.
- Libraries remain true to their public library mission, to inform the citizenry and provide lifelong learning. To meet their mission, libraries are obligated to provide computers and train people to use them.
In response to these public library movements, Raphael said, the DCPL Strategic Planning Committee in 1999 identified three strategic directions: (1) lifelong learning, with a particular emphasis on children and youth; (2) information literacy with an emphasis on technology and training for both the staff and the public; and (3) the "library as place," or the library as the center of the community, which entails rebuilding or renovating many library facilities.
All of these options require special resources and funding. How can libraries afford to build and renovate? "Our public funding level is woefully inadequate," said Raphael, explaining that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the "E-rate" are the major sources of funding for DCPL.
With the help of Ralph Nader's "DC Library Renaissance Project," an 18-month effort to muster the necessary resources, the DCPL engaged community leaders and filled District council chambers on March 20, with the result that $1 million was restored to the DCPL budget for FY 2004.
"I am an optimist … [and I] believe that the public library in the nation's capital must become one of the premier libraries in the country. We are determined to take this library system to new heights," Raphael concluded. "Urban public libraries have the opportunity to affect the lives of many more people than we did in the past. The question is, 'Will we be successful?' The answer is, 'Yes'—because if we are not, then our democracy will have lost one of its greatest assets."
