Redefining the Library: Co-Designing for Our Future Selves and Cities

ABSTRACT

Co-design approach gives us new possibilities to redefine libraries. Involvement of the community and users is an important avenue in creating an up-to-date library services that will be adaptable and flexible enough to meet the future. A well-designed and user-friendly library can reflect a community’s character back to itself, crystallizing who it is, in all its multiplicity, and what it stands for. Working together with the citizens around common goals is an important step in creating safer, healthier, happier and more inclusive communities and cities.

Helsinki City Library has utilized customer-oriented methods for a long time already. However, in recent years, there has been a shift in thinking. Customer orientation used to mean examining citizens in panels and as targets of design, but nowadays library users themselves participate in planning and decision-making. The aim is to carry out true involvement processes, i.e., processes that have a direct impact on the services and organization. Co-design in library context means a process of collaborative knowledge sharing and solution creation, driven by a belief that everybody is creative and can contribute to planning when provided with knowledge and tools.

KEYWORDS:

• Co-design
• community engagement
• Helsinki City library
• customer focus
• building design
• Helsinki City library