Chair Williams asks about accessibility; library directors respond

Just two more questions and then we're going to go to Zoom and then come back.

So I know that you all did mention how much you work really hard to make your spaces accessible to the general public.

public, but just wanted to get a better sense of whether or not you feel that these sensors are designed truly for the public, or do you see more use for scholars and researchers?

I just want to share that Nativa and I gave each other a look just now because we both work in buildings that were built over 100 years ago.

When libraries...

Like research libraries, we're not necessarily designed to be the welcoming open spaces.

People often say, oh, you're so lucky to work at that building with the lions.

But sometimes I look across the street at our new Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library with a little bit of jealousy because it's incredibly welcoming.

There are plugs.

There's low-hanging seating.

There's children's books.

It feels remarkably welcoming.

We are proud of our old buildings and our architecture, but they can be a real challenge.

I have a very vivid memory myself as a researcher going into the New York Public Library and feeling incredibly intimidated by that building, not feeling like it was for me.

And I think that many of my coworkers share that experience, and we work every day to break down those walls.

At 42nd Street, we've recently launched a new welcome philosophy where we invite new users in.

We look to transform first-time visitors into researchers by giving them

a hospitality-infused experience of public service.

We want to meet people where they are.

We don't want to say, what are you doing here?

We want to say, how can we help you?

And we've looked at everything from restaurant services to hotels to hospitals as examples of ways that we can serve people better and more intuitively.

But we still struggle, I would say, with our architecture.

And so we look for ways through signage, through programming, and I think most importantly, you'll have heard across this panel, reaching people at the youngest age possible is what transforms people into regular library users.

So it's great to say it to somebody when they're 30 or 35.

If we can get them when they're 7 or 14 or when they first arrive at college, we have an opportunity to transform a young person's worldview

about our building and for them to come into the grandness of our building and not say, I'm intimidated, but say, this was built for me.

And I just wanted to add, too, the Library for the Performing Arts, we're a little bit different because beyond being a research library, we're also a circulating neighborhood library.

So you can actually come in at any time.

You can pick up your holds from anywhere from New York Public Library.

We have this beautiful first floor lounge.

If you go there, especially after school, you see some teenagers doing TikTok dances, some people doing Zoom meetings.

You see a little bit of everything.

And I think for us, what we are working on now is to get these casual library users that might just be there using the library as a third space to engage with our collections.

So how do we get those students doing a TikTok dance to go up to our third floor and see this beautiful video of Baryshnikov doing a dance, right?

How do we get the people that were just in a Zoom meeting to come visit our exhibitions?

So this is the work that we are doing now.

But in terms of the space, as I said, it's a very welcoming, just like any of our neighborhood libraries.

Yeah, so, I mean, our building is extremely intimidating.

It's something that we try to address every single day, and we really have cultivated a kind of ethos of being of welcome.

We put aside space in our library for people who are just doing their own work, so it's not like we're, you know, you are not doing research, you can't come in here.

No, we understand it's a beautiful space.

People want to be there.

People get inspired.

I love it.

They come in, they do their work.

And like I said earlier, eventually we hope that they do research with us, but they know that it's a space that they can be.

What Julie mentioned, bringing children in at a very young age so that they understand like,

archival collections, I can touch these, it's fine for me to use them, and I can also be in the space and be, you know, feel welcomed and everyone is really happy that I'm here.

We do a lot of work with even signage in our building because a lot of people come in and they're like, what is this place?

I've never seen it.

Or they come to the library and they're like, I didn't know that this place existed.

So we really try to welcome every single person that comes in through our doors downstairs in our library on the second floor and really give them an experience that they want to come back.