The article mentions it in passing, but Oodi is an important stop for parents with babies. The third floor is quite often packed with strollers.
Sure you can hang out in any cafe, but I find it valuable to have a place like Oodi that's free, easy to access, and built with kids in mind. When taking the kids on trips in Helsinki, we often visit Oodi to eat lunch, just because it's so easy. Or the whole trip might be just to visit Oodi, eat, and grab a couple books. Of course the central location helps a lot.
blks 4 hours ago [-]
I take my kids to Leikkipuisto that is organised there few times a week. It’s an event for kids of different ages, with some playing, socialising, some programme. Activities for parents too
fsloth 1 days ago [-]
Really nice building and space.
The article summarizes the functional parts so well. What is very hard to communicate is the feeling of space, especially in the top floor with the books. It's sort of unique, and recommend a visit anyone traveling nearby.
I worked at the company that developed the software used to design the construction of Oodi (Trimble/ Tekla Structures). It's so awesome to walk through a building you know the tool you helped to build, helped to build :D
wvh 9 hours ago [-]
Oodi is more an experiment in creating a social, communal meeting space than a library. I think there's a terrible need for such social spaces in modern society with very few places where you can meet people and where you don't need to consume to hang out somewhere; this especially in countries with climates that make it difficult to hang out in streets and market places.
What's also special is that this is a beautiful building, instead of the derelict buildings such social projects get usually shoved away in.
And, it's welcoming to babies and children.
petetnt 1 days ago [-]
Kino Regina, the movie theater mentioned, is owned and operated by the Finnish Arts and Culture Agency and does not only show classics, but also a lot of contemporary movies of note, right up until recent releases. It has modern hi-grade digifilm equipment but is also equiped to show film from eg. 70mm and cinemascope formats. They also host concerts and seminars.
pimeys 9 hours ago [-]
Last summer I was visiting Helsinki and they showed Prince's Sign O’ The Times live from 35mm film in that theater. They have these public votes every now and then where you can vote to see some movie from their archives.
I never saw this from a huge screen, and it was fantastic. Be aware if you go see a movie that's not in English, they quite often only have Finnish subtitles.
zokier 1 days ago [-]
To me the actual book section of Oodi is not particularly interesting/inspiring/impressive. It's not bad, but it is pretty mundane and gets overshadowed by all the other stuff going on in the building.
sfeng 1 days ago [-]
Famously the actual main library at Pasila has a much larger book collection. Oodi is more of a community space / show piece.
calpaterson 1 days ago [-]
Fair, but it is part of a pretty large library system and you can order whatever you want to pickup at Oodi
amakhov 1 days ago [-]
Well, book collection of the particular library doesn't matter much nowadays since you can order a book online and it will be delivered to your closest library. So it's more like a public space.
Hamuko 1 days ago [-]
Oodi was noted in the media to be particularly unimpressive when it came to actually having books back when it opened.
Personally as a lover of public libraries, which to me have always been places to discover old and new books in a quiet atmosphere, this change of the "library" to some sort of community center is rather annoying. You usually end up with a minimum viable amount of books, all the interesting stuff hidden away in a magazine, so that you can't browse and discover yourself, and a high level of noise and distraction everywhere. I'm not against creating such community spaces at all, but please keep the library alive and open and separate from those very different activities.
Insanity 19 hours ago [-]
Yeah I share your sentiment, but spaces like this might be what’s needed to expose the next generation to books.
tarvaina 1 days ago [-]
I live nearby and really enjoy Oodi. It's usually much busier than in these pictures.
emilfihlman 1 days ago [-]
It's awful as a library, mediocre as an event space and not really good as a hacker space.
It's beautiful, though, but that's about it.
t. a Finn
adityaathalye 14 hours ago [-]
Well, you have no idea how good you have it :,)
t. not a Finn.
aifhyahdhd 1 days ago [-]
> The bottom floor has a big area full of chess and go boards, and there were in fact a couple of people using them!
Very cheap, relatively benign, with light educational and recreational value.
Decent.
> and a built-in cinema, which shows classic movies for little money.
Some of it can have benign cultural value, some of it can have malign cultural value. A bit expensive. Could have limited it to more boring but educational movies and films, perhaps with a focus on edutainment friendly to young children. Why spend taxpayer money on enabling people to watch braindead, mindrotting zombie movies for free or cheap?
Bad and soulless, fire whoever was involved with this.
> professional digital working stations, with high-quality screens!
Expensive. Some educational potential, some startup potential, but will that be realized?
Serves some fields but not others. Did they take a look at demand and supply regarding society?
Vulnerable to theft, grift and corruption?
Too expensive, cheaper hardware would probably have made more sense, unless they can make a strong case for the expensive hardware.
> There’s a big number of recording studios and sound production studios, all of which you can rent!
Is there really a dearth of professional musicians in Finnish society? This seems focused on startups and budding professionals, but a much cheaper space with much cheaper instruments that could be given to children both young and old, where instruments can be cheaply replaced once the children breaks them, would have much higher educational and creative value.
Bad and soulless, fire everyone involved with this.
> Oh, and while we’re at it, why don’t we rent some instruments, as well? There’s full-time staff maintaining them.
Grift and corruption, fire everyone involved with this, go straight to prison, do not collect $200.
> There’s many small and big group rooms which you can rent, many of them in active use! I see group meetings, students working, and podcast interviews being recorded!
Genuinely great for students, not that expensive. Good.
> Wanna rent a kitchen and cook with your friends? Sure, you can do that here!
A bit expensive. For homeless people and grift. The library staff might end up discriminating against homeless people, or have extra grift. Could have been good if limited to educational usage for children and teenagers, with adult supervision.
Have fun with homeless people committing theft in the library.
Bad.
> You can also rent game rooms with modern video game consoles and VR gear, along with the games to play in them!
Bad, corrupt and expensive. Could have been used for some more meaningful purposes like education and startups. Like letting children and teenagers try VR gear and program software for it, and possibly get inspired for non-entertainment usage of VR such as remote healthcare.
If really insisting on mindrotting entertainment that people can do at home, then it could have been done much more cheaply.
Fire everyone involved with it.
> There’s a makerspace: It has several 3D printers, multiple laser cutters, and engravers. And staff which can help you learn how to use them.
Expensive. Could be great regarding startups and education. Did they analyze needs for society, or did they do it due to it being trendy? Probably still good.
jdlshore 23 hours ago [-]
> fire everyone involved with this.
I know you’re just trying to show off how superior you are, and you haven’t really thought through the implications of somebody getting fired for making a mistake, but I’d like this rhetorical flourish to end. Making a mistake (or disappointing an internet commenter who’s put in very little thought and even less effort into a solution) isn’t something that should threaten people’s livelihoods.
On a related note, your style of post comes across as immature and/or socially inept. You might want to rethink how you present yourself online.
balgg 22 hours ago [-]
>Why spend taxpayer money on enabling people to watch braindead, mindrotting zombie movies for free or cheap?
Might want to open their webpage at least once before you spout such uninformed opinions:
https://kinoregina.fi/
Their whole thing is showing mostly culturally important films from known and lesser known directors/actors from around the world. I honestly don't think it could provide much more cultural value than it already does.
I was going to write more but the more I read your post it just looks like troll post so I'll just point out that yes, they do also provide movie and arts education, which is also stated on their website.
AlotOfReading 18 hours ago [-]
Even if that wasn't the case, having popular media isn't bad. It's a gateway to the rarefied, less accessible parts of the medium that everyone goes through. No one starts out watching arthouse, reading Kierkegaard, or programming in untyped lambda calculus.
alterom 1 days ago [-]
>Have fun with homeless people committing theft in the library.
Oh yeah.
In Finland, the country notoriously famous for its unmanageable homelessness problem.
Get a reality check, my friend.
Loudergood 16 hours ago [-]
Real Viktor Orban energy.
nnevatie 1 days ago [-]
It almost reads as you were not a fan.
aifhyahdhd 1 days ago [-]
Corrupt and soulless people will downvote this.
cxr 1 days ago [-]
This is the future of libraries, and it sucks. Austin's downtown Central Library is like this. It sucks. They are not places for reaching the future.
Previously:
> So many environments nowadays, even the ones that are ostensibly created to fulfill this sort of thing, are just total failures at actually providing them. I'm thinking of things like public libraries. I live in Austin and have a major axe to grind about the public libraries here, which are nothing like what you'd get if you were actually interested in the pro-social goals that you'd think a public library would have in its charter. A teenager looking to escape their high-risk environment or an adult who's had their feet knocked out from beneath them basically stands no chance at getting out of their predicament if their only option were to use the public libraries here, which would unfortunately act more like a vortex to ensure they stay in the suck. <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42323264>
The photos and breathless wonderment showcase it all, as well as this choice line from the slide at the top of this post: "Oodi is our common living room". These are not quiet places to study or get (back) on your feet.
These are non-commercial substitutes for the shopping malls of yestercentury first, egoistic art pieces and boondoggle for administrative make-work second, and well-intentioned but poorly thought out and executed public resources at a very, very, very, very, very distant third.
TFNA 1 days ago [-]
As a Helsinki resident, I agree with much of what you say about Oodi. And in spite of the other commenter claiming "everyone" loves it, I don't nor do many of my peers of an intellectual bent, mad about books. This building only disappoints us.
But here is the thing: in Finland academic libraries are open to the general public. Someone wanting to immerse themselves in actual books, or work in silence, have a wealth of options in downtown Helsinki: the University of Helsinki main library, the Finnish National Library, the Finnish Literature Society's library, the Research Institute for Languages of Finland's library, and more. So, if Oodi ended up being a plain old social third space instead of a "real library", that didn't take anything away from Helsinki residents.
cxr 1 days ago [-]
> that didn't take anything away from Helsinki residents
That's the real problem I have with the false promises of places like Austin's Central Library and other Oodi-likes.
The biggest threat to libraries and the social goods they're ostensibly designed to produce are not really the people trying to tear them down to tighten budgets. It's way more pernicious than that:
The biggest threat is the people trying to tear them down and replace them with places like this.
aifhyahdhd 1 days ago [-]
> So, if Oodi ended up being a plain old social third space instead of a "real library", that didn't take anything away from Helsinki residents.
Taxes and corruption.
TFNA 1 days ago [-]
Nah, I might be a hermit and misanthrope who prefers books to people and hates crotch goblins running around, but I can still see the value for general society of a third space open to everyone, young and old. Especially when many people are hurting these days from lack of IRL contact, and the alternative would be expensive for-pay locations like coffee joints or pubs.
aifhyahdhd 1 days ago [-]
[flagged]
TFNA 1 days ago [-]
Your two posts here evince a lack of understanding of Finnish culture (cultural subsidy, and the creation of state jobs for cultural workers, is not particularly controversial here) and the particular challenges that Finnish society has to deal with (yes, people could do frivolous stuff at home, but the point is to get them outside doing stuff with other people).
The films I have seen screened in Oodi are often serious, edifying stuff. It is no different from the publically funded cinematheques that have existed in many European countries for long decades now. Fear of homeless people taking over the bookable facilities is completely ignorant of how they are apportioned.
stevekemp 1 days ago [-]
Why would somebody wanting to escape a high-risk environment, or some knocked-over adult go to a library?
It's great that libraries exist, be they in Austin, or here in Finland, but they're not where you get support when falling on hard times , or needing active support and assistance from your council/government/city/region. A library is not a walk-in rescue center, and nor should it be.
Oodi is a pretty space, it has nice facilities, although a surprisingly small stock of books. That said you can order books to collect them there, and Helsinki has no shortage of "real libraries". I think Oodi as a showcase, and a random mishmash of services and facilities is pretty good though. I went almost weekly with my youngest child for a few years, and have fond memories of the people I talked to, and the soft-play area.
cxr 1 days ago [-]
> Why would somebody wanting to escape a high-risk environment, or some knocked-over adult go to a library?
… is this a joke? Regardless of the bizarre mental place from which only such a bizarre question can arise[1], the answer to the question can be found on the other end of the link I included—not that it should even have to be spelled out: "Researchers determined risk by asking lots of questions. For example, they asked whether the kid has basic necessities, like electricity or a quiet place to study."
* * * * *
> A library is not a walk-in rescue center, and nor should it be.
Right. Exactly. It's a library. It should be a library—one able to provide (and that does provide) the things that you should be able to count on a library to provide—and that few other places can if that's what you need. Not a cacophonous community center concerned foremost with providing photo ops for bougie normies living in relative comfort to post on Instagram during their disruptive stroll through. That's the _entire_ basis of my position and the premise of the multiple comments I wrote about this.
I sympathize with what you're saying. The "classic" library provides something that no other public spaces do.
But its worth mentioning that there are fewer and fewer "other public spaces." My local library is just that, a library, and that means I can't:
1. Eat in it, perhaps while studying.
2. Talk above a whisper.
3. Rent anything but books that I might want/need.
4. Do anything on a computer but be on the internet (the computers run a locked down version of Windows XP)
That's not a "problem" exactly. This library is doing exactly what a library is supposed to do. But my town has one other "public" space, which is a combined community and senior center. That's not good for much outside of chair yoga for a kid in a high risk environment; it's largely designed for adults.
It's nice that my library is "just a library" because I don't need it to be anything else. But the fact is that the library is one of the few open, walk-in, free public spaces left. It being "just a library" in that case seems like a missed opportunity.
jltsiren 22 hours ago [-]
Governments provide services to all kinds of people. Some services exist to help people with specific needs, while others just try to make everyone's lives a little bit nicer. Public libraries are in the latter category, at least in Finland.
Libraries, like institutions in general, evolve over time. Libraries have extended their range services from books and study spaces to newspapers and magazines to music recordings to computers, printers, and internet access to all kinds of devices to event spaces and meeting rooms, and so on. At some point, you have to decide whether all these services should be under the umbrella of the same organization, or if you should create a new organization. But because new organizations mean more administrative overhead, you only create them if you expect it to improve the services.
Many of the more traditional libraries I've used were located in various community centers. In addition to the library, those centers might have event spaces, exhibition spaces, adult education programs, youth centers, and so on. Oodi might have fancier architecture and a more central location, but it's fundamentally not that different.
eulenteufel 1 days ago [-]
Ah yes, the bizarre mental place of being a european and having a social net that extends past public libraries, a strange condition indeed.
Helsinki still has classic public libraries, so kids wanting to study in peace can still do that plus having the opportunity to meet people and engage in other activities that might be difficult at home, like practicing an instrument.
The notion that a knocked-over person is best supported by a library sounds quite strange from my perspective. A person struggling needs first and foremost to shelter, food and access to hygiene. Libraries do not provide any of that. They do provide a quite place to think and work and access to public information with newspapers and internet access, but a good shelter and a smartphone provide this too.
I think Finland (and many other countries) provide enough support to relieve Libraries of being a first address for struggling people, while still maintaining these libraries for what they are really needed. Oodi and similar projects existing does not take that away and I'm surprised you think it does.
cxr 1 days ago [-]
> The notion that a knocked-over person is best supported by a library sounds quite strange from my perspective. A person struggling needs first and foremost to shelter, food and access to hygiene. Libraries do not provide any of that.
> Finland (and many other countries) provide enough support to relieve Libraries of being a first address for struggling people
Could you stop doing this, please? You are confabulating. I literally did not say any of the things that you're describing here. Not only did I not say it, I didn't even say anything like it. So… stop, please?
What I have done, by now, is to have made it abundantly, excruciatingly clear that I'm talking only about libraries providing the things that a library should provide, and nothing more. (And that it is, in fact, the position of those in support of e.g. Oodi who, perversely, are the ones suggesting that these libraries should be more—though you clearly don't appreciate this contradiction.)
> a good shelter and a smartphone provide this too
No. Absolutely not.
You don't understand, and that's great—you don't have to understand. And it's not a European versus American thing that's the root of the problem here. (There's no shortage of Americans who would fall into the same camp as you. That would be the expected outcome if I were to call upon any man- or woman-on-the-street and have this discussion.) It's a failure of empathy—true empathy—of the sort that requires being able to really think through everything involved in a counterfactual before staking a position about what would or wouldn't be sufficient in some hypothetical that's so far removed the present moment that you're acquainted with. And that's how societies get future libraries like the ones we're talking about.
There are a lot of Americans who know how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich given the basic ingredients/tools. There are a lot of Americans who, when asked, would probably tell you with great confidence that they could for sure explain all of the steps involved in making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with those ingredients. There are far, far, far fewer Americans than that who could actually provide an explanation, sans errors/mistakes.
eulenteufel 22 hours ago [-]
> Could you stop doing this, please? You are confabulating. I literally did not say any of the things that you're describing here. Not only did I not say it, I didn't even say anything like it. So… stop, please?
I've reread your comments and agree now understand that you are not talking about providing social net basics but providing the service a library provides. So I'll stop with this point.
I was probably confused by the statements (emphasis is mine):
> These are not quiet places to study or get (back) on your feet
Your anser (is this a joke) to:
> Why would somebody wanting to escape a high-risk environment, or some knocked-over adult go to a library?
Having understood this it is clear why the rest of my comment makes no sense as a reply, as it is about a certain profile of needs that we both agree libraries do not need to fulfill.
I do think that libraries provide things that a shelter and a smartphone can not give, like a quite place to study that is not your home, perspective that you might not have or know how to find, and using my (aparently limited) empathy I'm sure I could come up with many more.
If you wouldn't mind I would like to know what in your opinion are the essential things a library provides.
I also still don't understand why Oodi existing is supposed a problem. Are you afraid places like Oodi will drive classic libraries out of existence or are you aggravated because you consider it unnecessary (or even counteproductive) spending?
fastforwardius 1 days ago [-]
I mostly agree with you.
I find Oodi (and Sello after redesign) to feel like a typical open office space (rather than mall) but definitely not like a proper library.
Rikhardinkatu is what I'd expect library to be while Lippulaiva is rather nice for a library that's part of a mall.
Sharlin 1 days ago [-]
Happily, Helsinkians don't agree. Everyone seems to love Oodi.
1 days ago [-]
cxr 1 days ago [-]
It would "seem" that "everyone" loves Austin's downtown Central Library. Reality: they don't.
ks2048 1 days ago [-]
There's nothing "everyone" loves.
Austin Central Library has a 4.7/5.0 on 1,464 reviews on Google Maps. Of course, this is a biased sample. But, I think it's safe to say lots of people love it.
wellthisisgreat 15 hours ago [-]
To me 4.7 on Google Maps means there is some merit to the hype, the experience will be above average but potentially barely so.
4.8 is an easy pick.
No idea how or if it applies to Austin library.
cxr 20 hours ago [-]
Move the goalposts harder, please.
Loudergood 16 hours ago [-]
No.
hmahonen 11 hours ago [-]
Interesting take. I do not agree.
Helsinki weather is crap. Half a year it is too windy, too wet and too cold to be outside. It rains sleet or snow very often.
Oodi is a great place to do things or just to stop by. No pressure to buy anything. No ads up to your eyeballs.
There are a lot of people just sitting by. Studying. Reading books. Using the provided services. Meeting up people.
The layout is good, especially the second floor that containts most of the services. There are a lot of spaces where you can just _sit_ without obligations.
I am sorry, but I think your ending sentence does not make any sense.
(I am a Finn, I visit Oodi roughly once a week during work trip to the capital).
Rendered at 19:41:13 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
Sure you can hang out in any cafe, but I find it valuable to have a place like Oodi that's free, easy to access, and built with kids in mind. When taking the kids on trips in Helsinki, we often visit Oodi to eat lunch, just because it's so easy. Or the whole trip might be just to visit Oodi, eat, and grab a couple books. Of course the central location helps a lot.
The article summarizes the functional parts so well. What is very hard to communicate is the feeling of space, especially in the top floor with the books. It's sort of unique, and recommend a visit anyone traveling nearby.
I worked at the company that developed the software used to design the construction of Oodi (Trimble/ Tekla Structures). It's so awesome to walk through a building you know the tool you helped to build, helped to build :D
What's also special is that this is a beautiful building, instead of the derelict buildings such social projects get usually shoved away in.
And, it's welcoming to babies and children.
I never saw this from a huge screen, and it was fantastic. Be aware if you go see a movie that's not in English, they quite often only have Finnish subtitles.
https://www.hs.fi/kulttuuri/art-2000005933560.html
It's beautiful, though, but that's about it.
t. a Finn
t. not a Finn.
Very cheap, relatively benign, with light educational and recreational value.
Decent.
> and a built-in cinema, which shows classic movies for little money.
Some of it can have benign cultural value, some of it can have malign cultural value. A bit expensive. Could have limited it to more boring but educational movies and films, perhaps with a focus on edutainment friendly to young children. Why spend taxpayer money on enabling people to watch braindead, mindrotting zombie movies for free or cheap?
Bad and soulless, fire whoever was involved with this.
> professional digital working stations, with high-quality screens!
Expensive. Some educational potential, some startup potential, but will that be realized?
Serves some fields but not others. Did they take a look at demand and supply regarding society?
Vulnerable to theft, grift and corruption?
Too expensive, cheaper hardware would probably have made more sense, unless they can make a strong case for the expensive hardware.
> There’s a big number of recording studios and sound production studios, all of which you can rent!
Is there really a dearth of professional musicians in Finnish society? This seems focused on startups and budding professionals, but a much cheaper space with much cheaper instruments that could be given to children both young and old, where instruments can be cheaply replaced once the children breaks them, would have much higher educational and creative value.
Bad and soulless, fire everyone involved with this.
> Oh, and while we’re at it, why don’t we rent some instruments, as well? There’s full-time staff maintaining them.
Grift and corruption, fire everyone involved with this, go straight to prison, do not collect $200.
> There’s many small and big group rooms which you can rent, many of them in active use! I see group meetings, students working, and podcast interviews being recorded!
Genuinely great for students, not that expensive. Good.
> Wanna rent a kitchen and cook with your friends? Sure, you can do that here!
A bit expensive. For homeless people and grift. The library staff might end up discriminating against homeless people, or have extra grift. Could have been good if limited to educational usage for children and teenagers, with adult supervision.
Have fun with homeless people committing theft in the library.
Bad.
> You can also rent game rooms with modern video game consoles and VR gear, along with the games to play in them!
Bad, corrupt and expensive. Could have been used for some more meaningful purposes like education and startups. Like letting children and teenagers try VR gear and program software for it, and possibly get inspired for non-entertainment usage of VR such as remote healthcare.
If really insisting on mindrotting entertainment that people can do at home, then it could have been done much more cheaply.
Fire everyone involved with it.
> There’s a makerspace: It has several 3D printers, multiple laser cutters, and engravers. And staff which can help you learn how to use them.
> Sewing machines! Shirt presses! Cutting plotters!
Expensive. Could be great regarding startups and education. Did they analyze needs for society, or did they do it due to it being trendy? Probably still good.
I know you’re just trying to show off how superior you are, and you haven’t really thought through the implications of somebody getting fired for making a mistake, but I’d like this rhetorical flourish to end. Making a mistake (or disappointing an internet commenter who’s put in very little thought and even less effort into a solution) isn’t something that should threaten people’s livelihoods.
On a related note, your style of post comes across as immature and/or socially inept. You might want to rethink how you present yourself online.
Might want to open their webpage at least once before you spout such uninformed opinions: https://kinoregina.fi/
Their whole thing is showing mostly culturally important films from known and lesser known directors/actors from around the world. I honestly don't think it could provide much more cultural value than it already does.
I was going to write more but the more I read your post it just looks like troll post so I'll just point out that yes, they do also provide movie and arts education, which is also stated on their website.
Oh yeah.
In Finland, the country notoriously famous for its unmanageable homelessness problem.
Get a reality check, my friend.
Previously:
> So many environments nowadays, even the ones that are ostensibly created to fulfill this sort of thing, are just total failures at actually providing them. I'm thinking of things like public libraries. I live in Austin and have a major axe to grind about the public libraries here, which are nothing like what you'd get if you were actually interested in the pro-social goals that you'd think a public library would have in its charter. A teenager looking to escape their high-risk environment or an adult who's had their feet knocked out from beneath them basically stands no chance at getting out of their predicament if their only option were to use the public libraries here, which would unfortunately act more like a vortex to ensure they stay in the suck. <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42323264>
The photos and breathless wonderment showcase it all, as well as this choice line from the slide at the top of this post: "Oodi is our common living room". These are not quiet places to study or get (back) on your feet.
These are non-commercial substitutes for the shopping malls of yestercentury first, egoistic art pieces and boondoggle for administrative make-work second, and well-intentioned but poorly thought out and executed public resources at a very, very, very, very, very distant third.
But here is the thing: in Finland academic libraries are open to the general public. Someone wanting to immerse themselves in actual books, or work in silence, have a wealth of options in downtown Helsinki: the University of Helsinki main library, the Finnish National Library, the Finnish Literature Society's library, the Research Institute for Languages of Finland's library, and more. So, if Oodi ended up being a plain old social third space instead of a "real library", that didn't take anything away from Helsinki residents.
That's the real problem I have with the false promises of places like Austin's Central Library and other Oodi-likes.
The biggest threat to libraries and the social goods they're ostensibly designed to produce are not really the people trying to tear them down to tighten budgets. It's way more pernicious than that:
The biggest threat is the people trying to tear them down and replace them with places like this.
Taxes and corruption.
The films I have seen screened in Oodi are often serious, edifying stuff. It is no different from the publically funded cinematheques that have existed in many European countries for long decades now. Fear of homeless people taking over the bookable facilities is completely ignorant of how they are apportioned.
It's great that libraries exist, be they in Austin, or here in Finland, but they're not where you get support when falling on hard times , or needing active support and assistance from your council/government/city/region. A library is not a walk-in rescue center, and nor should it be.
Oodi is a pretty space, it has nice facilities, although a surprisingly small stock of books. That said you can order books to collect them there, and Helsinki has no shortage of "real libraries". I think Oodi as a showcase, and a random mishmash of services and facilities is pretty good though. I went almost weekly with my youngest child for a few years, and have fond memories of the people I talked to, and the soft-play area.
… is this a joke? Regardless of the bizarre mental place from which only such a bizarre question can arise[1], the answer to the question can be found on the other end of the link I included—not that it should even have to be spelled out: "Researchers determined risk by asking lots of questions. For example, they asked whether the kid has basic necessities, like electricity or a quiet place to study."
* * * * *
> A library is not a walk-in rescue center, and nor should it be.
Right. Exactly. It's a library. It should be a library—one able to provide (and that does provide) the things that you should be able to count on a library to provide—and that few other places can if that's what you need. Not a cacophonous community center concerned foremost with providing photo ops for bougie normies living in relative comfort to post on Instagram during their disruptive stroll through. That's the _entire_ basis of my position and the premise of the multiple comments I wrote about this.
1. <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40136743#:~:text=I%20ca...>
But its worth mentioning that there are fewer and fewer "other public spaces." My local library is just that, a library, and that means I can't:
1. Eat in it, perhaps while studying. 2. Talk above a whisper. 3. Rent anything but books that I might want/need. 4. Do anything on a computer but be on the internet (the computers run a locked down version of Windows XP)
That's not a "problem" exactly. This library is doing exactly what a library is supposed to do. But my town has one other "public" space, which is a combined community and senior center. That's not good for much outside of chair yoga for a kid in a high risk environment; it's largely designed for adults.
It's nice that my library is "just a library" because I don't need it to be anything else. But the fact is that the library is one of the few open, walk-in, free public spaces left. It being "just a library" in that case seems like a missed opportunity.
Libraries, like institutions in general, evolve over time. Libraries have extended their range services from books and study spaces to newspapers and magazines to music recordings to computers, printers, and internet access to all kinds of devices to event spaces and meeting rooms, and so on. At some point, you have to decide whether all these services should be under the umbrella of the same organization, or if you should create a new organization. But because new organizations mean more administrative overhead, you only create them if you expect it to improve the services.
Many of the more traditional libraries I've used were located in various community centers. In addition to the library, those centers might have event spaces, exhibition spaces, adult education programs, youth centers, and so on. Oodi might have fancier architecture and a more central location, but it's fundamentally not that different.
Helsinki still has classic public libraries, so kids wanting to study in peace can still do that plus having the opportunity to meet people and engage in other activities that might be difficult at home, like practicing an instrument.
The notion that a knocked-over person is best supported by a library sounds quite strange from my perspective. A person struggling needs first and foremost to shelter, food and access to hygiene. Libraries do not provide any of that. They do provide a quite place to think and work and access to public information with newspapers and internet access, but a good shelter and a smartphone provide this too.
I think Finland (and many other countries) provide enough support to relieve Libraries of being a first address for struggling people, while still maintaining these libraries for what they are really needed. Oodi and similar projects existing does not take that away and I'm surprised you think it does.
> Finland (and many other countries) provide enough support to relieve Libraries of being a first address for struggling people
Could you stop doing this, please? You are confabulating. I literally did not say any of the things that you're describing here. Not only did I not say it, I didn't even say anything like it. So… stop, please?
What I have done, by now, is to have made it abundantly, excruciatingly clear that I'm talking only about libraries providing the things that a library should provide, and nothing more. (And that it is, in fact, the position of those in support of e.g. Oodi who, perversely, are the ones suggesting that these libraries should be more—though you clearly don't appreciate this contradiction.)
> a good shelter and a smartphone provide this too
No. Absolutely not.
You don't understand, and that's great—you don't have to understand. And it's not a European versus American thing that's the root of the problem here. (There's no shortage of Americans who would fall into the same camp as you. That would be the expected outcome if I were to call upon any man- or woman-on-the-street and have this discussion.) It's a failure of empathy—true empathy—of the sort that requires being able to really think through everything involved in a counterfactual before staking a position about what would or wouldn't be sufficient in some hypothetical that's so far removed the present moment that you're acquainted with. And that's how societies get future libraries like the ones we're talking about.
There are a lot of Americans who know how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich given the basic ingredients/tools. There are a lot of Americans who, when asked, would probably tell you with great confidence that they could for sure explain all of the steps involved in making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with those ingredients. There are far, far, far fewer Americans than that who could actually provide an explanation, sans errors/mistakes.
I've reread your comments and agree now understand that you are not talking about providing social net basics but providing the service a library provides. So I'll stop with this point.
I was probably confused by the statements (emphasis is mine): > These are not quiet places to study or get (back) on your feet
Your anser (is this a joke) to: > Why would somebody wanting to escape a high-risk environment, or some knocked-over adult go to a library?
Having understood this it is clear why the rest of my comment makes no sense as a reply, as it is about a certain profile of needs that we both agree libraries do not need to fulfill.
I do think that libraries provide things that a shelter and a smartphone can not give, like a quite place to study that is not your home, perspective that you might not have or know how to find, and using my (aparently limited) empathy I'm sure I could come up with many more.
If you wouldn't mind I would like to know what in your opinion are the essential things a library provides.
I also still don't understand why Oodi existing is supposed a problem. Are you afraid places like Oodi will drive classic libraries out of existence or are you aggravated because you consider it unnecessary (or even counteproductive) spending?
I find Oodi (and Sello after redesign) to feel like a typical open office space (rather than mall) but definitely not like a proper library.
Rikhardinkatu is what I'd expect library to be while Lippulaiva is rather nice for a library that's part of a mall.
Austin Central Library has a 4.7/5.0 on 1,464 reviews on Google Maps. Of course, this is a biased sample. But, I think it's safe to say lots of people love it.
4.8 is an easy pick.
No idea how or if it applies to Austin library.
Helsinki weather is crap. Half a year it is too windy, too wet and too cold to be outside. It rains sleet or snow very often.
Oodi is a great place to do things or just to stop by. No pressure to buy anything. No ads up to your eyeballs.
There are a lot of people just sitting by. Studying. Reading books. Using the provided services. Meeting up people.
The layout is good, especially the second floor that containts most of the services. There are a lot of spaces where you can just _sit_ without obligations.
I am sorry, but I think your ending sentence does not make any sense.
(I am a Finn, I visit Oodi roughly once a week during work trip to the capital).