Want to do more with less? This book is written for libraries to show how to make use of limited resources to meet clients’ needs. Tight budgets, few available staff, limited staff time and red tape sometimes makes it difficult to produce quick responses to a need. Munro introduces a short-term, hands-on approach aka tactical urbanism. This grassroots movement, often used in city or neighbourhood projects, is shown to be very relevant to libraries. With all the emphasis in many public institutions on innovation, the concept of tactical urbanism is a very good approach.
The book begins by introducing and defining tactical urbanism and why it is relevant to libraries. This section ends with at is a helpful glossary of urbanism concepts such as placemaking, design thinking, pink zones and innovation districts. Before presenting library-based case studies, in a chapter titled ‘A realistic tactical approach’, the author describes several non-library projects, each followed by a discussion how the approach could be applied to libraries. Munro also introduces a reality check by pointing out some of the pitfalls of a tactical urbanist approach – issues such as loss of goodwill, success, legality of the project and how to handle criticism.
The reader is presented next with five library case studies that are wide ranging in their approach, large and small projects. Each case is described, the conditions and causes are outlined, why it speaks to tactical urbanism and finally an interview with one of the key proponents giving their successes and the lessons learnt. Some of the projects are the Dewey-less book shelving project (aka ShelfLogic) that started as a pilot but ended up changing the library’s approach to shelving, LibraryBox that filled a need for limited wireless internet, and a metadata case study involving MarcEdit, Koios and Access Checker. Other case studies describe projects where library and cities overlapped; where library initiatives using tactical urbanism had far-reaching effects in the wider community. The latter part of the book reminds the reader of what could go wrong – things don’t work out the way they were expected to, tactics that worked but were unpopular and sometimes the intervention took a personal toll on the participants – overload, burnout, additional duties. The final chapter gives 12 steps on how to become a tactical interventionist.
Would I recommend this book? Yes, I would. Public libraries of all sizes would find the concept of tactical urbanism a good approach to dealing with everyday problems as well as promoting the creative and innovation focus that is so popular currently. The book’s argument, case studies are set out logically and the writing style is easy, relaxed and enjoyable to read. This book is a great resource that presents a novel approach to the age-old problem of limited resources.
National Library of New Zealand
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© 2018 Diana Fehsenfeld
https://doi.org/10.1080/24750158.2018.1466641