Session

How can a library grow into something new and exciting? How can it offer a safe space to engage the local community? How can it be a consistent presence in a neighborhood during a period of transition and insecurity? 

In a socially vulnerable area in a suburb outside of Copenhagen, we are working with other parties to open a brand-new library with cultural facilities. The existing library is expected to close in late 2025, leaving us with three years to provide a library without a building. How can we use this transition phase to start a new normal through cocreation to strengthen democracy, citizen engagement, and cultural experiences? 

At this workshop, we invite you to go Demo-Crazy and, together with us, explore how we can do library without a building. Together we develop new perspectives on the library as an activity and a way of doing and being, rather than just bricks and books. The workshop will be a hub where you are invited to investigate, test, and prototype the idea of a library as social infrastructure. The workshop will be based on co-creating, acting, and doing library together in a playful space. Let’s go Demo-Crazy. 

Hosts

Signe Sindberg
Senior Consultant, Gladsaxe Libraries Denmark 

Julie Broch-Mikkelsen
Senior Consultant, Gladsaxe Municipality and Gladsaxe Libraries, Denmark 

Using design thinking methods, Signe and Julie have worked with local citizens to develop local library branches and services. They are both focused on how to involve citizens in different ways to make smart and relevant decisions throughout a design process. Recently, they involved partners and local citizens to develop a new library branch in a socially vulnerable area of Gladsaxe. They also worked with children in making a new space and playground next to another local library.