On a Friday night this past December, the newly opened Mitchell Street Library was packed to the brim. There were not the quiet readers, researchers and internet surfers we have come to expect at a library. That night, a jubilant sold-out crowd—yes, people reserved tickets to go to a library—gathered to watch the Mondo Lucha Mexican wrestlers pile drive, power bomb and elbow drop off the top turnbuckle of a professional wrestling ring situated in the middle of the library’s 23,000-square-foot space.
The Mondo Lucha event was a part of Milwaukee Public Library’s (MPL) Library Loud Days initiative, but it also reflects a greater mission of “creating technology-rich flexible spaces,” championed by city librarian Paula Kiely. This approach includes the largest neighborhood library branch rebuilding project that the city has undertaken since the early 1970s. The Villard Street Library was rebuilt in 2011, and Mayor Tom Barrett allocated $22.4 million in 2014 to rebuild five more branches and fill them with modern community rooms and technologically advanced “makerspaces.”
“Public libraries have evolved continuously since their inception, always looking to see what the local community needs,” Kiely said. “So we’re always balancing what we need for the long term and what we need for the short term. I think that it’s really important that libraries adapt to become more like community centers and provide a safe place for people to come explore whatever interests them.”
The 21st Century Library
MPL’s shift is not far outside the norm for a public library system in the digital age. Nationwide, attendance for library programming increased by 17% from 2012 to 2017, according to a Public Library Data Service report, even while book circulation was down over that same time period.
“The emphasis is now on services rather than the accumulation of books,” said Mohammed Aman, a UW-Milwaukee professor who teaches a class on public libraries. “The idea of a warehouse of knowledge is just not there, because we could never really accumulate every book in the confines of a building, no matter how big that building is. Therefore, our public libraries serve not only as a modest warehouse of printed matter that the public may be interested in, but also a variety of other activities that were not much known before.”
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For MPL, this includes hosting computer skills classes, job fairs, financial literacy programming and the aforementioned Library Loud Days. A new program with Milwaukee Public Schools called Library Now opens all library services up to MPS students, allowing them to access digital resources without ever stepping into a branch.
“This is a strategic focus to bring our library system to the 21st century,” said Alderman Cavalier Johnson, who serves on MPL’s Board of Trustees.
Then there is the introduction of the makerspace. The Mitchell Street Library’s Studio M was the first of its kind in Milwaukee. It includes a recording studio, video production equipment, graphic design software and a kitchen that is used for culinary arts programming. “It is really designed for the entire community to come together and explore a lot of technology that we have incorporated into that space,” Kiely said.
A second makerspace is planned for the upcoming Good Hope Road Library, which is expected to break ground soon. “We’re still working on the design, but we’ve got it in there,” Kiely said. She expects that space to have a 3D printer, along with other hands-on technology focusing on building, design and construction. MPL plans to work with teenagers in that community to give them a say in the programming offered.
Kiely would like the makerspace concept to be a part of all new library projects going forward and is currently working out details for the Martin Luther King Jr. and Capitol drive branches. “I think that with both of those, we will continue to look at the particular community’s needs,” she said. “We’ll test the idea of a makerspace and see if the community embraces that, or perhaps there is something else that would be more suitable for their needs.”
A Mixed-Use Future
A common thread of the new library branches is that they are all mixed-use, with the library serving as the anchor space with apartments above it. The MPL Board of Trustees found that this was the most cost-effective way to update facilities at a time when funding is scarce. “Local governments across the state rely on the state government for our shared revenue program,” Ald. Johnson said. “With those funds dropping to municipalities all across Wisconsin, it’s important to diversify and to be creative in order to make ends meet.”
By taking advantage of tax credits and grants that are only available to mixed-use properties, MPL was able to build new facilities without cutting the number of branches throughout the city. “We felt that the mixed-use model allowed us to maintain library services in all of the current communities,” Kiely said. “We had considered doing some consolidated libraries that might be larger, but as you can imagine, people love their neighborhood libraries. This model allowed us to satisfy those community needs, but to—through these development partnerships that we formed—replace those libraries for a lower cost and to add value to the community through the apartments that were developed above the library.”
An unintended benefit of the new library designs has been an increase in use of the branches as community meeting spaces. “We have always had large community rooms, but we now have many more spaces where small groups can gather,” Kiely said. “Those have been so well used and are in truly high demand. I think we provide a much-needed amenity for community groups, small businesses are developing partnerships, and I think that the library is serving a greater role in bringing people together.” Ald. Johnson hopes that the libraries will serve the same function as pricey co-working spaces and provide participants in the gig economy a space to meet for collaborative work.
The final project in MPL’s current plan, the Capitol Drive Library, is scheduled for completion in 2020. Even after a decade of accelerated development, MPL is still planning for more growth going forward. “We have already started thinking about the future,” Kiely said. “The library board had a retreat at the end of February. We were looking at the next 30 or 40 years and trying to do our best to project what the issues would be in front of us.” This includes thinking about artificial intelligence and how technology impacts the library’s place in society, but other challenges are more familiar, such as how to stay open for more hours and how to offer more books, laptops and better Wi-Fi.
Despite the lofty scope of these projects, Kiely’s goal is very simple. “I think that we’re doing a great job at meeting the needs of the community, and we just want to keep doing it and keep our ears open and our mission going.”
