
Finland's cities are havens for library lovers - jogjayr
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/may/15/why-finlands-cities-are-havens-for-library-lovers-oodi-helsinki
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sandelz
I live in mid sized Finnish city with about 60 000 people (Seinäjoki) and
library (built ~10 years ago) is one of those things you never hear people
talking bad about.

If I remember correctly our library served as an example when designing Oodi
library in Helsinki since it portraits a "new library style" municipalities
are reaching for.

The goal was to get people to stay there instead of just fetching the article
they were looking for. I think they achieved this since no matter when you
visit the place is backed with teens reading and discussing about some manga
or comics, elderly reading newspapers from around the country, poetry reading
groups and so on.

Since I mainly consume my literature via outlets like HN, I use the library
primarily to get books for my young kids. Even those facilities are great,
there is a play area with tunnels and holes in the walls where kids can read
in solitude, isolated reading "enclosures" where groups of kids can flock to
when some adult reads for them and lots of other neat details. They even film
some kid shows in there and the last time I visited I found out they have a
good catalogue of new console games you could borrow!

This might have sounded like an advertisement but the point I was trying to
make is that if someone would ask me what is the best thing our city has
accomplished with our tax money, my answer would be "our library". And as
everything is digital nowadays, making an effort to get people off their
phones to socialize and use narrative in its original form doesn't hurt
either.

~~~
m0ck
What a coincidence, Seinäjoki happens to be the only Finnish city I know
(besides Helsinki), because The Dudesons were born there :)

~~~
sandelz
Yes they are our heroes and main export :) I even know HP from earlier life,
extremely kind-hearted and funny guy.

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usr1106
Well, library budget cuts are not unheard of in Finland either. The biggest
cuts occurred in the big depression that hit the country in the early 1990s,
and spending has never reached the same levels again. That said it's easy to
believe that libraries are still better than in many other countries. They
remain free, where others have introduced fees for the library card or for
computer usage.

A bit of background: Finnish is a small language with only 5 millions
speakers. So books cost 2-3 times as much as in central Europe, although the
currency is the same (Euro). That might be an additional factor for the high
number of loans.

The observation that libraries are a place to socialize sounds strange to me.
Except in the cafeteria, which exist only in the very biggest libraries,
conversations are not allowed. So yes, libraries can he full of people when
it's dark and cold out there. But it's perfectly silent.

(I live in Finland)

~~~
Y14NZZRhRT5
It really depends on the design of the library in question. In iso omena the
new library is very open and integrated with social/welfare services so some
noise is expected. The library host a wide range of things of public interest
such as instrument rooms, conference rooms(free for individuals), vr rooms,
pc's for gaming, 3d printing and probably more I'm not aware of. I've noticed
a lot of school aged kids just hanging out and socializing in the library. If
you really need a quiet space to focus then there is a special study room
where noise is not allowed.

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pimeys
Living in Finland when I was a child, one of the hilights every week was a
trip to the local library with mom. First the comic books, then novels, then
the crazy amount of music as CD's that you were by law able to rip to your
computer. The local library had a massive influence to my personal growth and
if you needed some book, film or album, you just talked with the librarians
and you got it in a couple of days.

Such a nice service.

~~~
Moru
Yes, the law is the same in Sweden. The local library homepage used to have
instructions how to copy CD:s but can't find it any more after the update they
did last year. Still legal though, we pay a fixed amount per hard drive or
empty cd we buy for this.

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utopkara
US cities are amazing for libraries as well. I don't know much about the
history of libraries, but it feels as if having a nice library was a
prerequisite to being called a town. I'd say even now, having a nice library
is a source of pride for towns.

~~~
annexrichmond
Your comment reminds me of a classic scene from Fargo Season 1[1]

Gangster 1: "There’s no library in this town. Why is there no library in this
town?"

Gangster 2: "Umm... cutbacks?"

Gangster 1: "He thinks every town should have a library."

[1]
[https://youtu.be/Ck_3QxgO438?t=1m22s](https://youtu.be/Ck_3QxgO438?t=1m22s)

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manemobiili
Havens for library lovers? Yes! I've only lived in small finnish town's of 15
000 people. Currently in Kuusamo, where father of irc (Jarkko Oikarinen) is
from. IMHO, most of these town's are bleak APART from the libraries. Sure,
selections are often small & dated, it's hard to find anything programming
related that's not HTML, C# or java. It's not all bad - my current location
has surprised me with a math book from 2017. Kindle is still essential for me
to learn things. Maybe not everything like languages that have audio cd's on
the back or painting that rely on the pictures. Technology related fields
tends to move quickly. And it's cool to store documents of your own. All i
need is a kindle and a notebook (one with pen and paper). One gripe i have
with books was holding pages open with one hand and writing notes down in
other. This is annoyance with small page books mostly. Ergonomics aside, i
found surprising that some libraries have all these gizmos. I find it
ridiculous, but where else could these urban crowds go to?

This week i had to do a movie review, i don't really watch film's or show's so
i don't have netflix or anything. Library was a easy solution to this. And you
get to chat with the clerk about the film while at it.

So while i find libraries filling with these ridiculous gizmos, i agree that
there are more use cases for libraries than reading itself.

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psychedelic
This article fails to mention another reason; cities in Finland are built in
such a way that going to the library is feasible. I've lived in both Finland
and the U.S., and commuting in Finland is much easier. Commuting in U.S.
cities takes a lot more energy, and the thought of it is often painful, so
people just don't go in the first place. At least where I live...

~~~
jryle70
Below is Seinäjoki main library as mentioned above:

[https://www.google.com/maps/search/library/@62.785737,22.838...](https://www.google.com/maps/search/library/@62.785737,22.8388848,823m/data=!3m1!1e3)

Can you elaborate how it's easier to get there than says one in Fairfax, a
dense suburb of DC in Northern Virginia?

[https://www.google.com/maps/place/City+of+Fairfax+Regional+L...](https://www.google.com/maps/place/City+of+Fairfax+Regional+Library/@38.8468094,-77.3040255,15z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x665c72a5ad088889!8m2!3d38.8468094!4d-77.3040255)

~~~
psychedelic
I've never visited Seinäjoki nor Fairfax, so no, not really. But I can
elaborate on why I said what I said...

Overall Finnish cities tend to be built up instead of out. I've lived in
Jyväskylä, Tampere, and Kuopio, and each of these had reliable bus systems and
minimal traffic compared to any U.S. city I've lived in. Finnish cities also
tend to include a decently robust bike/walk path within cities while here in
the U.S. we mostly limit ourselves to sidewalks.

The U.S. is huge, and the states are diverse, so I'm sure my experience is
anecdotal, but my observation have lived in Colorado, Louisiana, Maryland, and
the aforementioned cities is that Finnish municipal planning is approached
much differently than any other U.S. city I have ever lived in or visited.

That it just my experience. This site will let you play around with some
stats, though I have no idea how accurate they are:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20140309232920/http://data.world...](https://web.archive.org/web/20140309232920/http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IS.ROD.SGAS.PC/countries)

Note that most Finnish vehicles use diesel fuel. There is a different category
for that if you choose to explore the site. But you can see that overall
automobile usage is much higher in the U.S., and we have built an
infrastructure that supports it (built out).

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WalterBright
The buildings are certainly spectacular, but the pictures in the article show
an awful lot of building with a small bookshelf here and there. My notion of a
great library is a space packed with books :-)

~~~
forgotmypw
Books? In a library? Sounds like something out of the 20th century...

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himom
Isn’t it also a point that a Finnish library desires to offer a free, public,
commonwealth community center where people can break through the Bowling Alone
syndrome of commerial, isolated, glowing screen head-down solitude, rather
than just peruse a pile of books that are probably available on said glowing
box? Sure, there are few areas of libraries to have conversations apart from
meeting rooms, but at least people can have a place to be in closer proximity
to others and hopefully propinquity that doesn’t involve shopping or eating.

It’s like Iceland have baths. The US has coffee shops (was shopping malls).
Does Finland have libraries for this purpose?

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skybrian
I'm surprised by the 3d printing at libraries. Is this used much, and if so,
what do people print?

~~~
iseeyou
It's great and we'll used in my library (outside Helsinki). Generally my
perception is that it's a mix of kids printing silly things and adults
printing spare parts and useful things. I've seen people print parts for their
drones and some other odd spares. In my library they have 5 Ultimaker 2's and
they are all in use most of the time. Worth nothing is that using them is
free, and unsupervised, you just book them online and go there and plug your
SD card or "lend" a card from the library to use with a dedicated 3d print
computer.

You are required (or encouraged not sure) to do a quick intro course though
where they show how to change color and start the print.

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sgt
Finland is great for libraries and I have to recommend visiting. In many
senses it's really the country where you want to be, be it pony trekking or
camping, or just watching TV. Truly, it is the country for me.

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andrepd
Wow. I have nothing to say except this is great. Especially the concept of
library as a multifunctional "space of learning", beyond merely books, but
also socialisation spaces, cinema, lectures and talks, a makerspace, etc. All
built with a strong sense of community and participation.

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nickik
Let me guess, because people who are not lovers of liberies are paying for it?

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Areading314
Whats so great about libraries? Seems like a very inefficient way to
store/disseminate information in 2018

~~~
design-of-homes
> _" What's so great about libraries? Seems like a very inefficient way to
> store/disseminate information in 2018"_

I'm going to repeat something I've said previously on Hacker News: people
underestimate how much information in books _isn 't_ online and just how much
useful information is still tied up in those books. Many of us assume
everything is mostly online and so it's our first port of call for any
research or knowledge gathering.

A few years ago I was researching the Swiss architect Le Corbusier. I wanted
to find out about his famous housing complex called Unité d'habitation
(Housing Unit) first built in Marseille in France. I started my research
online looking for floorplans and commentary or critques. I found very little
(there is a lot more available online today, but not when I was looking).

Consider that Le Corbusier is one of the most famous architects of the 20th
century so this was a surprise. Eventually, I did find what I was looking for
by...(yes, you guessed it) going to the library and visiting an architecture
exhibition. I ended up scanning some floorplans from a book (and putting them
online). From the exhibition, I came across a video of Corbusier talking about
the Unité d'habitation - a great find, and I ended up transcribing sections of
that interview. None of this information was available on the web.

It's very easy to fall into the belief that the information you find online is
likely to be the best or most recent information available on that topic - so
the thought of further _offline_ research at a library never crosses your
mind. But there is a huge amount of information and knowledge found in books
that has never made it online. If you never go to the library, you won't
realise what you're missing.

~~~
keithpeter
UK/England: branch libraries in outlying suburbs and small towns/out of town
estates are closing as a result of changes in the local authority funding
formula devised by the national government. The larger cities have a central
library with a full range of services.

In the UK there is the inter-library loan service. As the name suggests, I can
track down a reference to a book, then I can request the book via the inter-
library loan service, where it is delivered to my local library. I can then
borrow the book or consult it on the premises (depends on cost/rarity of the
book). Most public libraries will charge a fee, usually a few pounds.

The COPAC library catalogue tells me which university libraries contain copies
of the book I want to read which can speed up the inter-library loan turn
around (usually 3 weeks).

[https://copac.jisc.ac.uk/](https://copac.jisc.ac.uk/)

To me this management of information that has not yet been digitised and that
is not widely disseminated is very valuable now and again. Discovery and
search made more efficient by free use of (expensively gathered) metadata on a
public database.

~~~
stordoff
You also sometimes need a particular book even if the information is available
online. I was self-studying for some A-levels, and needs the books that were
based on the curriculum. I put in a request with my local library, and a few
days later I had a stack of six (or so) books waiting for me.

I still wish I'd found more time to make use of the Cambridge University
Library during my degree. It's a tremendous place to work, but I never really
took full advantage of it.

