If you haven’t poked your head into a public library recently, you are in for a big surprise. These are not your ‘Marian the Librarian’ libraries of old with row upon row of book stacks and users sitting at long wood tables in high-backed, uncomfortable wood chairs, while shushed by matron-esque librarians. Today’s libraries are hustling, bustling places of reading, writing, computing, group study, collaboration and net surfing.

Is this just a fantasy of mine? No Way! Case in point, while out for a drive on a recent Sunday I passed a building that caught my interest. The architecture was new and different, reminiscent of the 60’s modernism with some late 80’s deconstructivism thrown in. A mix of corrugated siding, colorful stucco, high windows and a soaring buttressed fascia where I expected to see the word DINER floating above. But instead of a sign denoting an eating establishment, there was the word LIBRARY flying across the entrance.

Picture courtesy of Tully Library Archives 

I did a U-ie, turned into the parking lot and made three circles around as I and others were looking for an open spot in the full lot. Excited to find this much activity, I couldn’t wait to see what was inside. I wasn’t disappointed.

The Tully Community Library

Entering, you are greeted by a hubbub of activity and space designed to invite, excite and enhance your library experience. Huge clear story windows, exposed structure and mobile art pieces float in the upper spaces, carry on the external theme and add light and energy to the entire facility.

Picture courtesy of Tully Library Archives

But the real energy was generated by the space and people below. This is a new age happening – Guttenberg reborn for the second millennium – present in:

• A plethora of computer stations, used by all ages, seemingly sprinkled about at every opportunity.
• A separate “Tech Room” with computers set up classroom style, a ‘quiet’ space with a posted sign of  “drinks must have lids”
• Plenty of tables with electric outlets for plugging in laptops
• Reservable “Group Study” rooms; this day one was filled with teens and pizza boxes; another with tots on a blanket on the floor playing games
• An “Internet Café”, tables and flooring material designating a more obvious eating and reading area
• “Teen” rooms and kid areas
• Window benches! My favorite reading space, where I jotted down notes for this article.
• Electronic, self-serve check-out stations
• Lots of comfy or sturdy chairs for reading, whichever is your preference
• Plenty of cheerful help from the staff, each went beyond my question with information and resources

I even spotted one table with a school arts and crafts assignment in progress. Not your “typical” library activity of the past, but seemingly right in place in this more-than-a-library, community setting.

Photo courtesy of Catherine Adams Lee 

The space has a wonderful airy feeling created by plenty of windows providing natural light. The high ceilings do dual duty of attitudinal buoyancy and sound dissipation allowing for hushed and semi-hushed areas. Just about every seating setting imaginable is liberally distributed amongst the shelves of books for reading, learning, studying, collaborating, working and community – a new [work] place at its best.

 Best of all as on that day, for every one of the 70 full parking spaces, there can be two to three times as many people using and enjoying the space. Proof that places designed beyond the old ‘box’ of one defined purpose or people succeed, hugely. Come and enjoy the rebirth. It’s open to everyone. It’s today’s public library.

 Post Scripts:

1. For more on the Tully Community Branch Library, San Jose, California
   http://www.sjlibrary.org/about/locations/tully/index.htm
2. More pictures of the Tully Community Library   
   http://www.flickr.com/photos/sanjoselibrary/sets/72157604815848114/ .
3. This library is not just a random occurrence. In 2000 the people of the City of San Jose, California approved The Branch Library Bond Measure, providing $212 million over ten years, dedicated to the construction of six new and fourteen expanded branch libraries in San José.For more on the San Jose Public Library System
   http://www.sjlibrary.org/about/sjpl/index.htm 

I have adopted a tradition of celebrating the year change with a trip to a museum. This year I went to the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. The exhibit that captured my attention this year was the again one of textiles, “Amish Abstractions: Quilts from the Collection of Faith and Stephen Brown”.  Another year it was the Gees Bend Quilt exhibit at the Palace of Legion of Honor, SF. http://newworkplaces.com/blog3/2007/01/12/wrapping-up-the-old-year-2006/ .

I found the Amish quilts to be equally as intriguing as the Gees’ Bend for similar, and different, reasons. The similarity is the natural pursuit and need for self-expression through what is essentially a utilitarian medium, quilts, in a restricted culture that existed in isolation. It is the nature of that isolation – self chosen in the case of the Amish and imposed in the case of Gee’s Bend – that created the differences. The Amish’s isolation, being selective, was not complete and allowed for some of the outside world to seep in. Their designs were afforded the benefits of acquiring and incorporating new concepts while simultaneously allowing them to break rigid conventions of color and innovate pattern. Gee’s Bend’s forced confinement kept them from such exposure, yet also freed them up to create new and entirely different, free form versions devoid almost all traditional format. In both cases, I find the inherent and driving human need for outward expression of personal and individual self, in even the most restrictive or dire of circumstances, a lesson unto itself.

 My personal preference is toward the Amish quilts. Their design is, as commented on a wall plaque at the exhibit, is reminiscent of the Modernist and Op Art painters such as Victor Vasarley, Josef Albers, Paul Klee, Frank Stella and Piet Mondrian. In my twenties years I was a great fan of the Modernists, particularly Victor Vasarley. I had a poster of his ‘Games’ on the wall in my dorm room and still have copies of four of his color studies. Although my younger self might have preferred the single-minded pursuit of the pure color aesthetic by modernist painters, I now find the Amish quilts, which pre-date this art period, more exciting.

 

Welcome to the New Year, and New Decade!

Post scripts: 

1. Why these museum trips at the ends of the years? They provide me with perspective. Forcing me to see the world through others eyes, they afford me the opportunity to better reflect on where we have been the past year(s) and gain a greater understanding of where we are going. I highly recommend it.
2. For more on perspective and museums, check out my trip a few years back to The Getty. This is an updated version of a piece I wrote several years ago.
3. If anyone is still questioning the value of the arts in education, a closer look at some of the Amish quilts should erase that. Many of the designs are so intricate and precise that they clearly represent applicable skill exercises in mathematics, engineering and spatial visualization (see figures above and below).  There is an ever-growing body of evidence that the study and practice of music and art engender the skills necessary to advance mathematics and science creativity to the highest levels. In an ever-increasing world of creative and knowledge-based work, those of both genders that will lead and succeed will have acquired some of their abilities in this manner. Our continued elimination of these courses from our education system will have a direct cause and effect on the next generation of Americans’ ability to compete in the future.

I find museum trips very inspiring. Walking amongst the various works of art takes me out of mind and into the mind of the artist, forcing me to look at subjects through their eyes. A while back I had an encounter that was more than a passing enjoyment. It taught me a lesson that has stuck with me to this day.

I was visiting The Getty Center Museum in Los Angles, touring through the Impressionists section. When museums are busy, people form a self-organized approach to art viewing. Orderly and without instruction, they move around the room in a clock-wise (left to right) manner (at least for Western audiences). Pausing in front of each painting for a period of time, the length determined by how large the crowd is and, unspoken, by what the group deems as the right and polite amount of lingering time before moving on and letting the next person have a turn.

This day there was a moderate crowd, so people were moving at a fairly slow pace, but not slow enough to really stand and study the art. I usually make a point of seeking out Impressionist works in each museum and, moving along, I was delighted to encounter Claude Monet’s “The Portal of Rouen Cathedral in Morning Light”, 1894. Here is a link to The Getty’s blurb on the piece. http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artObjectDetails?artobj=142049.

Claude Monet, French, Rouen and Paris, 1894
Oil on canvas  39 3/8 x 25 9/16 in.

from The Getty Center, Los Angeles collection

Then I saw a couple of more works by other artists and rounding the room’s corner, there was another Monet in the middle of that wall. I suddenly had the urge, given the unusual opportunity created by the juxtaposition of the two paintings, to compare the two. So I stepped out of line and into the middle of the room. From this point I could look at the first painting and, with a turn of my head, see the other, with straight on views of each.

I stood there doing this a while, really studying the magnificence of his skill and comparing the pieces. Seeing famous works of art in person is an entirely different, and incomparable, experience to viewing slides in art history class or pictures in books. You really do need to go to a world class museum and see such world class, historic art.

Lost in admiring Monet’s brush stroke choices and creation of light of the Rouen, suddenly my concentration was broken by a tug on my sleeve. I looked around and there was the museum guard pulling on my arm. My first thought was of course, “what was I doing wrong?” But then he began motioning me with his head and said – to fully appreciated the picture, I had to stand back further. So I moved directly back and he then said, “No, you need to go sideways.” I took a step to the right and received the surprise of my life. The whole painting suddenly popped in 3-D!

I was awe-struck. Not in all of my years of art and architecture history classes did I recall having been told to do this, or in all of my years of looking at 2-D pictures had I truly seen this third dimension in his paintings. I looked back at the guard, my mouth agape, and he just smiled. He must have noticed that I had more of just a passing interest than the others shuffling along. He was relishing the opportunity to surprise and educate and I was equally happy and grateful. I then went back to the other Monets and did the same, looking at them diagonally. The same thing happened. Suddenly they took on a depth of field that could only be viewed in this way, in person. I seem to recall my best vantage point was at about a 75° angle.

Thought my amazement and appreciation for Monet as an artist grew exponentially, what has really stayed with me ever since is a lesson in perspective. That we can look at a thing, an object, and idea one way for a long time, and, then, something can come along and change our perception of it completely, and forever. But those moments don’t usually happen if we don’t go out of our way, out of our normal patterns and habits, our comfort zone, to greet them. If we do, if we take a step outside of our box, no matter how tiny, surprises will happen and we can have encounters, unanticipated, unforeseeable, and unimagined that will make positive change, give new meanings and add depth to our existence. New lessons we can take and apply to other things. New perspectives we can carry with us to enrich our consciousness and lives.