[Library Tour] Birkenhead Library

Birkenhead Library is known for its view. You pick a book or open a laptop with the harbour spread out in front of you, in a building that is generous with space and light. If any library has been designed around how its space is used, it is this one. Spread over two floors, it is divided by glass walls and tall windows so that nothing gets in the way of the outlook. There are rooms for community groups and meetings, and the shelves on both levels are set far enough apart that the whole place has a polished kind of calm.

A calm reading space for children

The libraries I have visited so far put their children's area on the ground floor, wide open and filled with toys and child-friendly everything. Birkenhead does it differently. Its children's corner is built for reading. The children's shelves are upstairs, at the top of the stairs. The low door onto the staircase has a safety catch, so with small children you take the lift in the centre of the building instead. Low shelves and front-facing bookcases sit at child height, and in the middle of the room are colourful modular seats in slightly muted tones and small tables with rounded edges, all neatly arranged. A long bench sofa runs along the wall. Follow the sunlight coming through the floor-to-ceiling glass and you reach a door out onto the deck. The children's collection is solid and well curated. Korean books, though, are thin: one bay of children's shelving and one bay in the adult section. We usually leave a library with an armful of children's books. This time, for the first time in a long while, we walked out with fewer than ten.

A den for teenagers

The other thing that caught my eye is that Birkenhead has a separate teenage area. Like the rest of the building it has a big window, with a long desk for studying built along it. In the middle, large modular sofas are arranged loosely, and there is a big separate table as well. What makes the space unusual is that it is enclosed on three sides, with only the entrance left open. A tall bookcase faces the window, and there is smaller shelving along the side wall. There is no floor above it, so the ceiling rises the full height of the building and the room feels open despite the walls. It is a small refuge for teenagers, a bit like a den: out of other people's line of sight, snug, and theirs.

Read more on this series:
[Library Tour] Albany Village Library
[Library Tour] Glenfield Library