{"id":9277,"date":"2026-10-14T11:49:16","date_gmt":"2026-10-14T15:49:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.acohen.com\/blog\/?p=9277"},"modified":"2026-10-14T11:50:51","modified_gmt":"2026-10-14T15:50:51","slug":"update-library-theory-of-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.acohen.com\/blog\/update-library-theory-of-service\/","title":{"rendered":"Update Library Theory of Service"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every Library Encodes a Service Plan<\/h2>\n

Every library reflects the community it serves and needs to update their theory of service. Indeed, you can learn how to read how a library functions by analyzing the how the place functions and its relationships to the technology of today. For example, the ratio of stacks to seating shows the lack of seating in relation to the need.\u00a0 The location and configuration of the public \/ access service desk and\/or reference desk can indicate a people focused methodology.\u00a0 These architectural configurations help us define what we call theory of service. However, any library service theory needs to include IT \/ tech \/ data management methods.\u00a0 You need to update how collections and services functions today to ensure the library is fundamentally sound.<\/p>\n

Researching library data helps us encode the library service plan. It is important to get a handle on patron use and student services on college and university campuses. The question is whether there is a plan in place or whether you still need to understand who will provide them, and what that choice would say about the library as a whole.<\/p>\n

Historical Library Building Need More Than a Review<\/h2>\n

If your thinking about a based line for the library theory of service or work in a Carnegie library, the design of the historic library building may be a starting point. Andrew Carnegie’s philanthropy funded 2,811 library buildings, 1,946 of them in the United States, and his organization reviewed the plans closely. The typical result followed Andrea Palladio’s neoclassical teaching.\u00a0 This included symmetrical fa\u00e7ades of granite or marble.\u00a0 There was always a broad stair up to an imposing entrance that usually creates disability access issues.\u00a0 We think they designed it this way to signal that people needed to strive for higher learning.\u00a0 Maybe the entrance stair gave the library a seriousness that is critical today.<\/p>\n

Carnegie Library Plans<\/h2>\n

Carnegie library plans express a clear theory of service. Carnegie unchained the books.\u00a0 On the other hand, these libraries were often configured to put books in places that restricted access. In some of the larger libraries most of the collection sat in closed stacks, and the public could not browse. Socializing and Children Spaces were often left out of the original plans entirely and later fitted into basements or second floors once children’s services became popular.\u00a0 For example, the Troy Public Library which is not a Carnegie Library, but an historical jewel didn’t have space planned for teens.<\/p>\n

Basically, the library infrastructure carries the communities culture forward.\u00a0 Our service plans support this change. For example, we have studied self-supporting stacks.\u00a0 At the Boston Athenaeum, there is a space that\u00a0 stores material efficiently, but its shelves are part of the building’s structure. This system hangs from columns set on a three-by-five-foot grid that are anchored in the basement slab. Certainly, the architecture creates a rigidity, and the configuration makes reconfiguration nearly impossible. Many stacks installed before the Americans with Disabilities Act have aisles of thirty inches, and some New England libraries have aisles of only twenty-four.<\/p>\n

Today the minimum is thirty-six inches, some states require forty-two; we like to use 44 inches.<\/em><\/p>\n

Architectures Open Plan and Its Hidden Rigidities<\/h2>\n

After World War II, the library’s theory of service changed.\u00a0 The prosperity and suburban growth, the G.I. Bill, and flood of new publications produced demand for browsable, open stacks. The fixed-function interior, in which form follows function and bearing walls lock in the layout, gave way to the open space frame. In the open architectural frame, columns on a grid carry the structure, and mechanical and electrical services run through false ceilings or raised floors. The architecture focused on the floor plate.\u00a0 So, how can library space be divided? And how can we create a space that an adapt at will?<\/p>\n

Library space planning for adaptability does not guarantee flexibility in practice. The building matters here.\u00a0 For example, columns spaced twenty feet apart on center are cheap to build with standard materials, but they create 400-square-foot bays, about half the size of an ordinary classroom. Many old libraries have a sea of columns that limits how the interior can change. Thirty-by-thirty spacing costs more up front, but the resulting 900-square-foot bays can hold stack ranges, seating, training rooms, or staff workrooms, and partitions.<\/p>\n

Basically, print collections causes a second kind of rigidity in planning. In some libraries, shelving takes up as much as 75 percent of the public space.<\/p>\n

As collections grew, they consumed the space meant for people, and these buildings came to serve their materials rather than their users. Low ceilings in stack areas, chosen to save on construction and energy, mean that converting those areas for people requires major renovation.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Shift Toward People<\/h2>\n

Library design has been moving from place-centered facilities that celebrate shelving toward people-centered ones. We need visible, attractive service points, comfortable seating, simple pathways, good signage, and welcoming rooms for meetings, collaboration, and classes.\u00a0 We also need to understand the data and use it to help us make decisions.<\/p>\n

Research Questions:<\/p>\n