The Future of the Library: Urban Mediaspace

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You'd think that with the advent of ubiquitous digital media, the old brick-and-mortar library would go the way of the video rental store. But it looks like many cities are instead turning libraries into "urban mediaspaces"-multipurpose facilities for learning, creativity, and culture.From Miller-McCune:

Examples have gone up in dozens of places around the world, including Salt Lake City; Vancouver, B.C.; Chongqing, China; the Spanish island of Tenerife; Delft, the Netherlands; Brisbane, Australia; and Cardiff, U.K. Versions are planned in Philadelphia; Oslo; Turin, Italy; Amsterdam; and other cities large and small. These library buildings incorporate a constellation of nontraditional and even non-library uses, like cafes, shops, theaters and auditoriums, galleries, classrooms, conference centers, meeting rooms, recording and broadcast studios, government offices, even housing. Some are placed adjacent to theaters, concert halls and museums to form cultural campuses; others are joined to schools or even hotels.

This seems like a great way to both provide a center for civic and cultural life and reinvent libraries for the digital age.