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TL;DR
Aaron Cohen Associates has guided library planning for academic, public, government, and specialized institutions since 1972. Every engagement begins with a structured assessment of community need, spatial behavior, and institutional mission — not with a floor plan. The portfolio below organises fifty years of project experience by sector so you can locate the work most relevant to your planning question and understand the methodology behind it.
Consider a scenario that arrives in our office regularly: a university provost schedules a capital review for a building that opened in 1989. Circulation counts are down. The building committee believes the solution is a renovation. But a visual scan of patron movement during peak hours tells a different story — the spaces people actually need do not exist yet, and the spaces that do exist are configured for a workflow that no longer matches how faculty and students seek knowledge. No renovation drawing can fix a program that was never updated. That gap, between what a building contains and what a community requires, is where this firm has worked for more than fifty years. The portfolio below is the working record of that practice.
Library Consulting Portfolio
Reimagining What Libraries Can Be
Aaron Cohen Associates have been reimagining what libraries for years. Founded in 1972 by a team of passionate architects and library advocates, our mission has always been clear: to transform traditional library concepts into vibrant, dynamic community hubs that serve as catalysts for learning, connection, and innovation.
We believe that libraries are far more than repositories for books — they're living spaces where communities gather, ideas flourish, and futures are shaped. Our commitment to developing innovative library design ideas stems from this fundamental belief: every community deserves a library space that reflects its unique identity while embracing the possibilities of tomorrow.
That belief has driven engagements across every sector of library service — from small branch renovations where every square foot of community space carries maximum programmatic weight, to multi-building academic systems where master planning must hold collection density, learning commons programming, and digital infrastructure in simultaneous tension. The methodology does not change between sectors; the evidence base and the community it serves does.
Core Capabilities
What We Bring to Every Engagement
Each capability below reflects a disciplinary domain that Aaron Cohen Associates has developed across hundreds of planning engagements. These are not services offered on a menu — they are integrated methodological competencies that work in combination to produce a defensible, community-grounded library plan.
Converting patron behavior observation, service analysis, and institutional growth projections into a square footage program that survives budget review and architectural development. See how this applies to academic library planning and public library design consulting.
Developing rolling ten-year frameworks that align library services, collections, staffing, and facilities with the institutional mission — before any architect is hired. Our strategic planning methodology is documented across academic, municipal, and specialized contexts.
Planning the infrastructure, workflows, and service models that move a library from physical-first to integrated digital-physical service delivery — including digital asset management, digitization lab planning, and digital library development from first principles.
Environmental standards, security architecture, and reading room configuration for rare book, archival, and special collections facilities — where preservation requirements and researcher access create competing demands that must both be met. Detailed frameworks are available for environmental controls planning and rare book reading room design.
Project Gallery
Project Experience by Sector
Fifty Years Across Every Library Type
The lists below represent a sample of the institutions Aaron Cohen Associates has served. Each sector carries its own planning requirements — the adjacency logic of a law library, the environmental thresholds of a special collections facility, and the community engagement frameworks of a public branch renovation are not interchangeable disciplines. The firm brings sector-specific methodology to every engagement, grounded in the behavioral research and spatial evidence that the project demands.
Select the list most relevant to your institution type to review representative project experience. Additional project history is available on request.
Client Lists
Browse by Institution Type
Aaron Cohen Associates organises its project history by sector because the planning methodology, regulatory environment, and community served differ fundamentally between institution types. Use the links below to review representative engagements in each sector.
Aaron Cohen Associates' List of College & University Libraries — academic library planning engagements spanning research universities, liberal arts colleges, and community college systems. These projects address enrollment-driven space programming, preservation and digital access in a single building program, and the evolving role of the research commons.
Aaron Cohen Associates' List of Government Libraries — planning engagements with federal, state, and municipal government library systems where security adjacency, records retention, and public access create competing demands that the building program must resolve before design begins.
Aaron Cohen Associates' List of Law Libraries — engagements with courthouse, law school, and bar association libraries where adjacency, access control, and collection density requirements are more exacting than in any other library type.
Aaron Cohen Associates' List of Medical Libraries — health sciences and biomedical library planning engagements where workflow zones, digital integration, and regulatory considerations shape every space allocation decision. Available upon request.
More Client Lists
Additional Sectors
The following sectors complete the firm's project portfolio. Each represents a distinct planning discipline with its own community, regulatory, and operational requirements.
Aaron Cohen Associates' List of Private School Libraries — independent and boarding school library planning engagements where curriculum alignment, makerspace integration, and the evolving role of the school librarian drive the space program.
Aaron Cohen Associates' List of Public Libraries — municipal and regional public library planning engagements where community-centered assessment drives every space and service decision. These projects range from single-branch renovations to multi-system capital campaigns requiring bond-ready feasibility documentation.
Aaron Cohen Associates' List of Special, Corporate, & Research Libraries — planning engagements with corporate information centers and research environments where retrieval speed, knowledge flow architecture, and security design determine the facility's value to the organization it serves.
The Planning Methodology Behind Every Project
Evidence First. Architecture Second.
Every project in this portfolio began with the same disciplinary commitment: no floor plan is drawn before the evidence base is established. That means patron behavior observation using our visual scan methodology, service point analysis, collection use data, and stakeholder dialogue conducted in a structured sequence that produces defensible findings — not impressions.
The result is a building program that an architect can design from and a board can fund — because the numbers connect directly to the community's documented needs rather than to a consultant's aesthetic preferences. That discipline is what distinguishes a methodologically grounded consulting firm from a generalist advisor, and it is what every project in this portfolio represents.
If your institution is at the beginning of a planning process — or restarting one that has stalled — the right starting point is not a rendering. It is a structured assessment of what your community needs and what your building currently provides. Library planning fundamentals provides the framework. Contact us when you are ready to begin.
Begin Your Planning Engagement
Every library planning engagement at Aaron Cohen Associates begins with a conversation — not a proposal. We want to understand your institution's planning horizon, the evidence you already have, and the questions your board or administration is asking. From that conversation, we can tell you whether a full feasibility study, a targeted space analysis, or a strategic planning facilitation is the right starting point.
Reach out through the contact page, and a senior consultant will respond within one business day.
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