Seattle's new downtown library opened today. The $165 million dollar edifice, designed by überarchitekt Rem Koolhaas, and dubbed "pure bling bling" by the New York critics, was approved by the voters in 1998 with the stated purpose of creating:
a legacy of literacy and lifelong learning for everyone in our communityBut sadly, the new library has less to do with actual books than it is a temple to the idea of books. The Seattle Times, which has been embarrassing itself with over-the-top library boosterism this week, admits as much in today's editorial:
A bookish city like Seattle deserves a shrine to its favorite pastime. With today's opening of the stunning new Central Library, the community will have such a place.Yes, the new downtown library is a rather stupid way to give people access to books (too far away and inconvenient for most city residents to get to, hours too limited, closed on 12 holidays plus two entire weeks every year), but it sure is a gorgeous "shrine to books".
The public library as we know it is a dinosaur, a relic from more than a century ago, in those pre-paperback days when owning books was beyond the means of many and when the definitive reference work was the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and before TV, radio, phonographs and movies were widespread or even invented. Now that the most up to date reference works are digital, most consumer entertainment is audio or video and books and magazines are relatively cheap and widely available, the public library no longer has the economic justification that it did when Andrew Carnegie was building them.
Public libraries can still serve important functions that no other institution can perform as well, e.g. -- a repository of community archives for historians, a popular access point to expensive databases, a literary resource for children and upwardly mobile lower-income people. But you don't need a $165 million inconveniently located building to put that in. I love books and I love to read and one of the first things I did when I moved to town was to obtain a library card. But I hardly ever actually go to the Seattle library. There are three branches within walking distance of me, but they're all open the same inconvenient hours and closed the same holidays, and they seldom have the materials I'm looking for. When I need to look something up I can almost always find a reference by way of google, and when I want a book I go to the local Barnes and Noble (open 9-11 every day), to one of the many fine independent new or used bookstores in my part of town, or I order it from Amazon.com.
So I really hope somebody gets good use out of our new "shrine to books", because I obtain my own literacy and lifelong learning from more competent institutions, but I get to pay thousands of dollars for the new shrine anyway.
UPDATE: Jacqueline Passey says the new library is REALLY REALLY UGLY! and won't do her much good either:
I think I will stick with my normal habits of just requesting the books I want online and picking them up at my local branch.Sadly, the $165 million that was spent on steel, glass and fancy European architects will not help buy books or keep the local branches open. Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at May 23, 2004 09:37 PM
I saw a Sea Times columnist last week stating the obvious about users of the downtown library. It is a great place for homeless people to wash their feet in the sinks and hang around every hour it is open.
It's eleven holidays - Jan 1 is both at the top and bottom of the list.
Our neighborhood has a great independent bookstore - Third Place Books - and a library directly below it. The bookstore beats the library for number of customers served; it has much longer hours and I would guess that typically it has at least as many people in it as the library (it's much, much larger, also). The library gets so much of our tax money that my rule of thumb is every time I enter the door it costs me $10, maybe $15. I could buy a lot of books for that.
Posted by: Ron Hebron on May 23, 2004 10:42 PMAs a bibliophile and one who buys many, many books, I still defend the public library.
I don't know Seattle's school library system, but the town I grew up in had a good public school system (and I went there). However, if the school library didn't have the stuff I needed (in areas such as chemistry or biology), the town library often did.
And this is stuff that I wasn't about to go buy (additional textbooks and workbooks on chemistry, physics, biology??).
OTOH, my wife and I were recently in our public library, and that, like this thing Steve describes, was a "shrine" to books. Huge, vaulted ceilings, lots of chairs, lots of computers, nice sculpture out front----and almost no books. I can say w/ confidence that I had a better collection of military history than this library did. Ditto science books. And we're talking a minor city in a major East Coast state, not a tiny farm town from someplace w/ no tax base.
Posted by: Dean on May 24, 2004 08:07 AMPublic libraries are important, and I hope they never go away, but it's important to recognize how the venerable institution has been, like so many others, subverted. Many early American libraries were philanthropic bequests - like those by Andrew Carnegie. All the public had to do was keep the doors open and the desk staffed. Public libraries launched many storied academic careers that never would have gotten off the ground for lack of books at home.
Now, libraries are community centers for the homeless, Internet access for pedophiles and terrorists and all kinds of other things that have nothing to do with books or the public good.
Let's not even talk about what an excrable political outfit the American Librarians' Association (or whatever it's called) is.
Like education in America, the public library is an institution in need of a top to bottom ideological scrubbing.
Posted by: M. Murcek on May 24, 2004 09:41 AMI am going to go see the inside of the new library soon but that will probably be the last time I have any use for it. If I want books, I have them sent to the branches. I'm certainly not going to go downtown and pay for parking (or wait around half the damn day for a bus) when I don't have to. Such an ugly building - it would be hard to imagine a building that fits less into its neighborhood.
I really don't have much use for the library buildings except as a place to pick up books. I rarely browse there as they are too noisy, what with gum-snappers and computer keyboards going all the time. Browsing is sensibly done at amazon. I find what I think I want, I read the reviews, and then I request it from the library.
I wouldn't mind living in the Queen Anne branch, though.
Someone should start a betting pool for the first auto accident on 5th Avenue resulting from the design of the new library. I was driving past it one morning and the glare off the side was so horrible that I had to stop in the street to be sure I wouldn't hit anyone. What kind of architect can't predict that glass reflects sunlight?
And the Times' coverage of this event has been embarassing.
Posted by: Carol on May 24, 2004 10:27 AMThe "Seattle Library" looks like the box the EMP Building came in.
Posted by: Gary B on May 24, 2004 10:36 AM"Yes, the new downtown library is a rather stupid way to give people access to books (too far away and inconvenient for most city residents to get to...), but it sure is a gorgeous "shrine to books." "
Amen.
It's next to impossible to imagine many making the arduous, risk-laden trip downtown for the privelege of paying to park to pick up a book, when as an alternative they can spend the money to actually own the same book at any number of malls.
I forget, did we vote on this boondoggle? I do remember the decision was made during the overheated tech boom... when the stinky homeless shelter that was the downstairs bathroom was a public blight.
Does it strike you that Seattle-ites have this desire to "keep up with the Jonesvilles"? I swear I think this library came ot exist because we were comparing it to NY or LA or Chicago's main libraries.
Are y'all high? I love this place, as far as it's too inconvienent to get to - well, move closer. I love a good 10 minute walk away from the place, I'm posting it this comment from one of the fourth floor computers and couldn't have a better time. The library is not simply a one trick pony, a place to pick up books, it's a congregation. A church for the faithless. Haven't you met interesting, intelligent or otherwise charming folk at any library at any point in time?
Not all homeless are stinking drunken messes of themselves, I freely admit that I am though :)
This place rules and you know it.
Posted by: Ad-diggity diggity dog on May 24, 2004 02:16 PMThey didn't so much as build a library as do set construction for aspiring sci-fi filmakers.
Posted by: Wind Rider on May 25, 2004 09:43 AMI like the library because I like architecture. Every city needs one or two buildings like this to break up the monotony. Downtown is full of boring buildings.
I think the homeless issue can be managed intelligently just like it has in other cities. Ditto for the pervs. Downsides to everything. Life's tough.
On the other hand, it is a lot of money for a shrine to books. I use the library all the time but I do it this way: I reserve what I want on-line, I get an e-mail when it's ready and I go to my local branch to pick it up. It doesn't cost a lot of money to do that, but a public library is more than that is it?
By the way, Bill and Paul put up over 40 mil to help build the place not counting what quite few other rich folks chipped in. Thanks for giving back gang.
Posted by: Comet on May 25, 2004 10:18 AMHow many more children would have been introduced to reading by building 10 branch libraries at $16.5 million each? Why build a "shrine to books" instead of building actual access to books.
My two cents:
I haven't been back for my first visit to the Koolhaas Library