Our library as an Athenaeum

The new library at Goucher College is called the Athenaeum because it hopes to be the heart of the campus; assuming many of the roles of a classic athenaeum as "a central gathering point where people came for a variety of purposes—serious, frivolous, cultural, artistic, and social."

To that end it features not only book stacks and computer labs, but also an art gallery, a restaurant, an open forum with seating for 700, and exercise machines. The college is trying to anticipate the boundaries of what a library might be by revisiting an old idea that funneled social interaction, the arts, and learning into a place that was as much a concept as a building.

I like the idea that to accommodate our digital-networked lifestyle they are willing to try an ancient solution.