RANT 8.

With library excursions done and dusted, I mused over how different these library spaces are and it got me thinking about how beautiful, in different ways, these buildings are. Libraries are renown as providers of free information and resources like books, computers etc; the place to go when you want to know. Yet all over the world there are libraries, if you care to google, that are quite simply – beautiful, a visual treat.  The State Library of Victoria has history in its walls, magnificent architecture and a rich story of development and expansion as they strive to maintain a vast ever growing collection of weird and wonderful. The City Library an evolving, funky space with focus on all that is multi-cultural, suiting the diverse clientele. Multi levelled with a little area for art gallery displays that change on a monthly basis. My question is can we get people to visit libraries for the visual experience and not have them seen as simply information hubs?

Yes a library’s primary function is to serve the community with information, services and education opportunities and this should never be compromised, but can we get them listed as places to go in travel brochures or as part of a holiday itinerary because the building is historical, beautiful or having an art or historical display, maybe a collection of significance to see. Non-religious people visit cathedrals and tiny chapels all the time to appreciate their history, beautiful structure or stained glass windows, they visit for the visual pleasure; lots of libraries are beautiful too, often with interesting displays; is a marketing opportunity being missed here? Libraries must provide information and service always, but beauty and history can be advertised too with the side benefit of tourists coming and as they walk in, the front door counter clicks over, with more people coming in the statistics people are happy and happy statistics people will keep handing over the funding.