[URBAN NOTE] "Halifax looks forward to the opening of its very own library of the future"

[rfmcdonald]

I approve of cities getting wonderful new multi-purpose library complexes. This Globe and Mail article by Jane Taber gets at it.

It is being billed as the “city’s living room.” Its rooftop patio offers stunning views of Halifax harbour. There is a 300-seat theatre, two cafes, gaming stations, two music studios, dedicated space for adult literacy, a First Nations reading circle and boardrooms for local entrepreneurs.

Oh, and it will lend books, too.

Halifax’s new $57.6-million gleaming glass library of the future is to open later this fall – a 129,000-square-foot building in the city’s downtown with a unique cantilevered rectangular glass box on the top, suggesting a stack of books. Fully accessible, culturally sensitive, environmentally sustainable and architecturally stunning, with elegant angles and lines, it is the first piece of modern architecture to be built in Halifax in decades, and the first major central library to be built in Canada in several years.

[. . .]

In Canada, library use has increased slightly year after year, according to statistics from the Canadian Urban Libraries Council. From 2008 to 2013, the CULC tracked an 18-per-cent increase in library use, which includes the population served, attendance at programs and number of programs offered.

That is the story in Halifax, where so-called “in-person” visits have increased 2.9 per cent from 2012-13. Website visits were also up by 1.8 per cent. About 15,000 residents signed up for a library card this year and 8,340 library cardholders signed up for the library’s digital download service, according to Halifax Public Libraries’ performance report, released in June.

Libraries are also competing for taxpayers’ dollars – and making progress. New libraries are being built; some are being renovated. An architect was recently hired for Calgary’s Central Library, which is expected to open in 2018; the Toronto Public Library is completing a five-year, $34-million revitalization of its reference library.