Increasing the Feeling of Insideness at a City Library: a Co-Design Project with Librarians from Lund Stadsbibliotek

In this co-design project between librarians from Lund Stadsbibliotek and Interaction Designers from Malmö University, the aim was to help the institution to sustain in the future and open their public space for new users. The librarians’ wish to change the library was partly an outcome of a workshop with different librarians from the area of Malmö and Lund, Sweden and of hearing from good examples, e.g. the learning center from Malmö Stadsbibliotek.

Engaged employees at the library shared the concern that there are non-users of the library who do not feel academic enough to come to the library. The librarians used the image that it is too difficult for those users to come up the stairs to the entrance. That means before the library can change their role and support participation of families, individuals and communities, the potential users need to be identified and to feel part of the library. With the help of different interventions at the library and workshops outside of the library, the designers explored the potential of the library and tried to connect the inside and outside, to give potential users the possibility to feel part of the library and to bring Lund inside the library.

Step by step the librarians were involved as an active part in the intervention. At the end of the project, the designers handed over the project together with a summary of the learning outcomes of each intervention in a book.

This is another work example which demonstrates my experience in using participatory design methods.