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Virtual Placemaking

Today I sat in on a Zoom conference with the Futurist Interest Group of the Colorado Association of Libraries (CAL). There was a presentation by Susan Simpson of the Pikes Peak Library in Colorado Springs. She, in turn, based some of her thoughts on the work of Cara Courage (see www.caracourage.net). Look for a series of "lightning talks" about various futurist topics at the next CAL conference, September 10-12, in Loveland. This blog is an attempt to capture just some of my thoughts sparked by Susan's remarks.

There are various factors that make a place real and important to us.

Such places are creative. They speak to the part of us that wants to appreciate the beauty around us, or to make something that delights or captivates us.

Interesting places are engaging. And that means that they don’t just present distractions that succeed in capturing our attention for a moment. We put something of ourselves into it. The place becomes a focus for feeling or thinking, for an experience.

Connection is about more than attention. There is an element of emotional involvement. Emotional connection requires a sense of acknowledgement, of being seen and heard, of the possibility of personal growth or of building something together.

There are also, in the places we love best, a series of visual or sensory cues. We sit by a favorite tree, or view of the water. These cues encapsulate memory, recalling other pleasant times.

With the explosion of COVID-19 in our global society, and in particular, within the profession of librarianship, all of these notions of making a place are stymied by social distancing. Just as we have moved to a more community-centric orientation to our services and advocacy for them, libraries as physical spaces have been declared off limits. Nor is it clear that we will return to previous levels of physical interactivity any time soon. So the question becomes: how to carry over a more inclusive community orientation to the provision of virtual experiences?

There are a variety of technical issues around the creation of positive virtual spaces.

The first and most obvious is some kind of access. For knowledge workers, internet connectivity is essential, and quickly becomes a cost of doing business.

But there are many people in our society for whom a computer and internet access are unattainable luxuries, even as the things one must now do on the internet – look for work, apply for benefits – become in some cases the only alternative. Some of our more vulnerable or poorer populations do have smartphones. But phones aren’t really set up for filling out forms or reading complex documents. And of course, even if you have access to wifi (in a library parking lot), you still may not have a laptop.

Then there’s the issue of broadband. Most of the communities in the United States are rural, and for many, the “last mile” connectivity simply isn’t there. Not only do telecommunications companies balk at the infrastructure costs, they have actively taken steps in Colorado (see SB 152, passed in 2005) to keep municipalities out of the internet business.

It’s embarrassing that the United States has poorer national internet coverage than such nations as Bulgaria, who jumped over the creation of finicky copper networks to go wireless. But it’s clear that if a whole society is going to do more of its business online, in, just for instance, a pandemic, we need connectivity far more robust than is currently available. Wideband 5G networks can’t come fast enough. Building a far faster and more comprehensive national telecommunications structure is one clear need after the pandemic.

Another aspect of the creation of compelling virtual places is design.

For many libraries, their presentation to the world is their website. There are many choices for color, icons, font size. No one aesthetic is likely to please everyone, but in addition to a generally attractive out-of-the-box experience, we could add a level of customization. If we choose not to enable cookies that allow one to pick up where one left off, then we can set up logins that would offer, for instance, a choice of five CSS themes, arranging the various screen options to something that suits the patron.

A second level of design is the unique characteristics of an institution that translate as “personality.” That might be a design sensibility that conveys whimsy, quirkiness, or straightforwardness. Compelling spaces have consistency, a tone or look at that does not vary. One returns to it with confidence.

One element common to many of the spaces we are drawn to is warmth. There is a sense of welcome and shelter. But of course how one is treated in a space – the customer service style of a staff – is more important than graphic elements. When we are making places, it’s not just for ourselves, alone. It’s about the culture of a place, which is about shared attitudes and behaviors.

Ultimately, although there are technical concerns, important and endlessly fascinating, place is about people. Library workers must carry into any place, physical or virtual, a service ethic, a thoughtfulness about the details of the experience, and a profound commitment to the participation of the public in public life.

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