10 Ideas: New uses for libraries if all books are electronic

This post is a collection of responses from the weekly 10 ideas email. If you’d like to be more creative every week, you can sign up to receive the email here.

Some of my favourites this week:

1. Memorials to past knowledge: Convert to Pagan bonfire sites — could be like participation art where the community gathers to mourn to loss of knowledge and the general dumbing down of society — “When I was a child we use to come here to sit quietly and learn”
2. Community problem solving: use the library as a community problem solving hub so that where a local issue presents itself, anyone attending the library can contribute their ideas, labour or skill towards actually helping their own community to solve a shared problem.
3. A national network of pop-up stores: Anchored by a cafe, with 5–10 pop-up retail spaces, that are integrated across a city or country. So you could feasibly roll out 1000 pop up shops across the country just for a couple of months.
4. Probably the most practical idea: turn the libraries into quiet working hubs so that employees can base themselves from these locations instead of commuting into the city every day

The Full List:

Childcare

1. Free childcare centres — government funded
2. National network of childcare at scale. Cost efficiencies from running a national network.
3. Child care centres
4. Creches

Accommodation

1. Homeless shelters
2. More houses/ units
3. Aged care facility
4. Affordable housing
5. Affordable micro apartments with shared communal spaces and facilities
6. Redevelop into apartments

Education

1. As a library with electronic books that can be ‘lent’ within a 2km zone on a electronic device. Use the extra space as a reading room that is quiet and has a librarian to make recommendations re interest and new books etc. The library / government could cut a deal with Amazon or similar for the ‘lending’. The tech already exists for document sharing and retraction
2. Learn to read centres for children/underprivileged
3. A computer lab for general public to use
4. Rent free spaces for schools
5. Convert to tutoring colleges — get on the better side of the demographics
6. Free co-working space for students to improve entrepreneurship
7. Vocational retraining centres for people deemed to be obsolete because of AI
8. New schools
9. Age activation centres. Spaces that are designed to keep the elderly mentally active (through activities such as 10 ideas)
10. Spaces that teach children to be sceptical and how to respond to social media
11. Learning centres
12. Pre schools
13. Digital hubs
14. E learning for the elderly

Office and working

1. Rent free office space for start ups
2. Conference facilities for businesses
3. turn the libraries into quiet working hubs so that employees can base themselves from these locations instead of commuting into the city every day.
4. Co-working spaces (WeWork, but not as nice)
5. Conference spaces/meeting rooms for hire
6. Call centers for corps
7. A network of flexible use spaces.
8. Flexible use business space
9. Place to allow people with disabilities to open businesses

Storage

1. Self-storage for tradies and industry
2. Self-storage for general public
3. Storage space for Joymode or a mini Amazon

Community

1. use the library as a community problem solving hub so that where a local issue presents itself, anyone attending the library can contribute their ideas, labour or skill towards actually helping their own community to solve a shared problem.
2. Workshops with tools (hammers and saws etc.) for ppl who live in apartments or similar
3. Communal Sharing Centre — contribute items of large investment to borrow things from others in the community (eg. lawnmowers, other equipment)
4. Social enterprise centres. The space is designed with meeting rooms and all the facilities that you might need to get a social enterprise off the ground and to make maximum impact
5. Free meeting and function space that can be booked by any community organisation
6. These spaces become the new town halls. Central function space that can be used by a range of groups
7. Men’s sheds
8. CWA
9. Local shared veggie gardens (would need to remove a section of the roof)
10. Local hydroponic centres to grow fruit and vegetables for the community
11. Local radio

Entertainment

1. Family entertainment centres — climbing walls, go karts, putt putt, skate ramp
2. Dance and performance art rehearsal spaces
3. National film festival locations
4. A network of giant beer halls (that the council uses as a funding source)
5. New urban park spaces
6. Local recording studios
7. Arts, painting, exhibition centres

Retail

1. More takeaway food places as they are typically centrally located
2. Anchored by a cafe, with 5–10 pop-up retail spaces, that are integrated across a city or country. So you could feasibly roll out 1000 pop up shops across the country just for a couple of months.
3. Recycled mall for environmentally friendly products / Salvation Army
4. Have a cafe and childcare centre to anchor the space. Then a series of pop up tenancies for social enterprises.

Transport and logistics

1. Pave and make into carpark
2. Shared bike depot — where people can rent bikes to take them the last mile from public transport to their homes
3. Localised logistics hubs for retailers who want to offer 1 hour delivery

Other

1. A new fancy building for the local council since they usually own the land and want to build themselves better office space
2. Convert to Pagan bonfire sites — could be like participation art where the community gathers to mourn to loss of knowledge and the general dumbing down of society — “When I was a child we use to come here to sit quietly and learn”
3. Human interaction hotspot — social media free area
4. Sell the spaces through a national real estate deal. Get a multiple uplift because it’s a pre-existing national network
5. Sell the properties and use the money as universal basic income
6. Bomb shelters with solar panels on top to power the community when there is a power shortage

This post is a collection of responses from the weekly 10 ideas email. If you’d like to be more creative every week, you can sign up to receive the email here.