Building Design Opportunities: Engaging Your Community is the First Step

A challenge for any library is deciding what services their community wants. Then, figuring out how to design their facility to accommodate those services. This talk and hands on exercise will provide ideas about how to determine what services your community wants. And how physical planning can be used to further define how those services are delivered. The two speakers have spent a decade working together to plan and construct a new library. We will use this library to illustrate the ideas, but our goal is to give the participants tools, and ideas, they can adapt to their own libraries. 'The best way to have a great idea is to have lots of them' - Linus PaulingDetail - Our talk will be an organized back and forth between the two speakers. We will also include a hands-on exercise to illustrate how game pieces can be used to understand and solve a problem. 1. The Executive Director will note how patron services were determined, noting where the idea came from. A community kitchen for instance. 2. The Architect will illustrate 5-6 ideas (sketches and photographs of other places) we considered. What about this, or this, or this. 3. The Executive Director will note the concerns discussed - too big, too small, too expensive, needs to be easier to care for. 4. The Architect shows the end result. We will focus on 4 key components of - 10 minutes each: 1.Lobby - hands on exercise2.Events 3. Children's and Teens 4.Adults Participants will take away specific ideas, but they also learn how to foster a dialogue for finding the best answer for their own situations.