Learn ways to reimagine your library spaces so that they can be quickly adapted to meet the current and future needs of your library and patrons in our new online course Designing for a Flexible Future starting May 5. 

Discover the short- and long-term modifications libraries can make to prioritize well-being including changes in furniture choice and layout, and designing meeting rooms, outdoor spaces, and creation spaces. Learn about responsive and strategic design, how to ensure your library is providing the safest environment possible, and how to get creative with all the space your library has to offer. 

In a small group workshop facilitated by an experienced librarian, you’ll create a roadmap for your library’s approach to post-Covid spaces, services, and uses. Over  three + weeks, you’ll get feedback from your facilitator and participate in group discussions. 

The speaker program runs on Wednesdays, May 5, 12, and 19, 2-4PM ET (on-demand recordings available) with an ongoing workshop over three + weeks.

Register Today!

Week 1: Wednesday, May 5, 2021, 2-4PM ET

Session 1 | 2:00-2:15 pm ET
Developing Practical and Strategic Designs
In this introduction to our course, you’ll learn about the differences between short-term practical and long-term strategic approaches to library design in response to planned and unplanned events like the Covid-19 pandemic. You’ll see how to apply these approaches to your library’s context, and how to balance the two to continue to safely engage your community, now and into the future, and support your staff along the way.

Emily Puckett Rodgers, Space Design and Assessment Librarian, University of Michigan Library 

Session 2 | 2:15-3:00PM ET
Responsive Design
It’s more important than ever to equip our libraries with spaces that can be quickly and easily reconfigured to address density, ad-hoc (or pop up) services, and public health informed controls (e.g. spacing). In this session, you’ll learn about the components of design functions and features that speak to changes in your community both now and in the future. We’ll discuss furniture choices as well as layout design in this session with a design expert.
Speaker:  To be announced soon

Intermission | 3:00-3:15PM ET

Session 3 | 3:15-4:00PM ET
Healthy Environments: Centering the Senses
Libraries will continue to play an important role in fostering and supporting the health and well-being of individuals, families, and communities in a post-pandemic world. In this session, we’ll consider all the senses when thinking of health and well-being (sight, smell, touch, hearing, and taste/breathing) and what you can do to ensure your library is providing the safest environment possible for your patrons. We’ll discuss the use of HVAC systems, and other health protocols in this session.

Lauren Stara, Library Building Specialist at Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners

Week 2: Wednesday, May 12, 2021, 2-4 pm ET

Session 1 | 2:00-2:45PM ET 
Boundless Libraries: Maximizing Outdoor Spaces
As libraries have responded to the Covid-19 pandemic, creative temporary space takeovers have been instrumental in helping ensure continuity of service. In this session, you’ll learn how libraries can continue to capitalize on their existing outdoor spaces, whether they are parking lots, gardens or plazas, and expand their offerings to meet the immediate needs of their communities. 
Speaker: To be announced soon

Intermission | 2:45-3:00 pm ET

Session 2 | 3:00-3:45PM ET
Creating and Engaging: Activity and Meeting Rooms
In this session, we’ll discuss how you can revitalize your library’s activity and meeting rooms and spaces and transform them into collaborative centers of activity that address emerging needs. Clever meeting room design can open up possibilities for community engagement by creating hubs for hybrid workers and more. You’ll learn how to move beyond meeting rooms as spaces for one-off programs, and turn them into flexible mainstays of your community.

Ruth Baleiko, FAIA, LEED AP, Partner at The Miller Hull Partnership

Week 3: Wednesday, May 19, 2021, 2-4 pm ET

Session 1 | 2:00-2:45PM ET 
Boundless Libraries: Future-Forward Design and Uses
In this session, you’ll learn how, through design investments and creative changes to your layout, furniture, or configurations, your library can expand your pop-up and stop-gap design changes into long-term, flexible benefits for your community. You’ll also see examples illustrating how you can repurpose and invest in space previously used for short-term needs, like parking lots and meeting spaces, and more, for more permanent but agile activities.
Speaker: To be announced soon

Intermission | 2:45-3:00 pm ET

Session 2 | 3:00-3:45PM ET
Closing Keynote: Wellness and the Future of Design
Imagine libraries as sites of robust community wellness. In the age of a pandemic, it’s vital for library design to take not just physical, but social-emotional wellness into account. In this session, you’ll learn how to take into consideration color, lighting, sound, vistas, and patterns of movement through your spaces to create spaces that can calm, energize, or otherwise support your diverse communities.

Speaker: Jeff Davis, AIA, LEED AP BD+C, Senior Principal, Architectural Nexus

View Full Program

Group rates are available.
Send your team and increase your impact!

Contact libraryjournal@edmaker.co for group rates.