An Inclusive Library Space

A library should be considered as a place of community, innovation, and a place to let your thoughts wind down. Naturally, it’s considered a place to gather information and divulge into your studies for most—but that shouldn’t be the only thing a library offers. 

It should be a place that everyone can walk into and feel at ease. While people’s studies are important, you can’t focus if you weren’t ever relaxed in the first place. For me, on certain days I can look forward to seeing my friends and community at a club. We don’t have to worry about being too quiet or too loud since there’s always other groups surrounding us. It’s a place people shouldn’t feel judged since there is always something for you to connect with inside. It should be a community with books, games, puzzles, or even simply a place to work in peace without the outside world interrupting you. 

People get stressed—it's fortunately just a part of human nature. However, who needs to be worried in an environment where everyone is too distracted with their own interests to spare a glance? After all, it’s not a classroom, it’s simply a place for people to slow down with their friends or catch up on their studies. Many of my friends wouldn’t be in my life if I hadn’t entered the library after school one day. In fact, the only reason I ended up going was because of how much more laid-back the environment was compared to the stuffy hallways and enclosed classrooms I was used to. 

On the note of friends, it’s important to have an area located in every environment that doesn’t feel exclusive to people. If people only went to the library to study in silence, why would you go there to talk with your friends? It’d be much easier to just move somewhere else to not bother the people in the room. People should be able to have an equal balance of calm and energy—enough to bring people in, not scare them away. I want to laugh with my friends as I tell them about something that happened to me earlier, and I want to focus on my work after a busy day. If there was no balance, then nobody would end up coming in the first place. 

Now to the actual innerworkings of the library itself—there always needs to be a place for the nerds, gamers, etc. Every library has them and needs them. Install a few computers to play a game off Google, buy some dice to toss around, install a station for those who want to draw to their hearts' content. People are simple in the long run—if there’s a will, there’s a way. 

In my opinion, this is all you need to make an inclusive library space. A place to wind down, but also a spot where you could talk your heart out to your friends. Puzzles to be solved, and games to be played.