With the tidal wave of digital content challenging libraries traditional role as the prime physical repositories of information, many people have begun to look at what other functions the bricks and mortal library plays in our civic and educational lives. Most of the literature exploring the library as place are founded on one or both of two underlying theoretical platform: the “public sphere” as defined by Jurgen Habermas in political theory and from the field of sociology, Ray Oldenburg’s definition of “third places.”
A review of the literature will looks at how these theories are applied to libraries and what other usage and facilities trends mean for the future of libraries as more of their role as guardians of content are usurped by on-line resources and their patrons’ lives are increasing on-line as well.
I would like to explore what libraries of the future will look like to best fulfill their changing roles and look at the concrete examples including the facility that is being planned for construction near my home. I would like to look at some of the implications laid out in Habemas’s later work on the corruption of the public sphere by consumerist forces and how that does or does not give libraries a uniqueness from other places that may fulfill some of the same social functions.
