The
city's largest and most impressive public library has reopened after
a 4-year, £48 million restoration, and
it's every bit as modern as impressive as you might hope. Today saw
the official reopening, so I darted in (during another typical
Mancunian downpour) to dry off and have a wander around.
On
entering I found a historian dressed as a Somme solider giving a very
believable speech about the horrors of the first world war,
describing the sheer weight of his backpack. When emerging from the
WWI trenches, he describes, a soldier carried so much gear that it
was imperative he stayed on his feet. If he fell, his pack would stop
him getting back up. Nobody else would help. Also, the soldiers'
training taught them to stoop low when advancing on the enemy to duck
high-flying bullets. The Germans, however, positioned their turrets
close to the ground, and the “crouching running” style favoured
by the soldiers meant that they were taking bullets to the face.
Hence the disastrously high fatality rate during the First World War.
The
library is now part museum in its presentation. Old book archives and
notes are displayed behind glass; perspex cases show old student
notes found stuffed under desks from decades ago, unearthed during
the library's recent huge restoration.
Manchester
City Council have grasped that people search for information in a
multitude of ways, and the new library caters for a variety of
learning styles. There are books aplenty, as expected, but there's
also a healthy supply of bookable computers, scrolling LCD displays,
information touch screens cordoned off in circular booths,
interactive digital signage and librarians on hand.
Manchester
Library is much more in touch with what people today need from a
library. A room full of books hasn't been the correct resource for
research for decades (although that IS one method). Different strokes
for different folks, as the saying goes. An impressive and promising
redesign.
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