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Describes the new library building of the University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Nigeria, completed in 1992. Gives a brief history of the existing library as background. Highlights the planning processes involved, including critical choices made, location of the building, preparation of architects′ briefs, architect‐librarian relationship, choice of building contractors and features of the building. Discusses problems of supervision, security and maintenance likely to arise from the use of the building. Concludes that the library building meets the required functional and aesthetical standards required of libraries in the tropics and should be critically studied by other Nigerian universities planning to put up their own libraries.

Adapted library buildings hinder rather than aid the optimum organisation and use of the library and information services, a situation which often puts librarians in difficulties by their reacting to problems, rather than anticipating them. A survey of some ten community libraries of the Kenya National Library Service (KNLS) was carried out in September 2000, the findings of which revealed to the contrary that most buildings had fulfilled their changed function and are effective functional libraries that provide “customers” with a choice of best value. In the survey, overall characteristics of the buildings are reflected in terms of type, size, method and calculations. Factors affecting use were examined using interview and observation methods.

Aims to provide an outline of the history of the library buildings in Albania, from their establishment up to the present. Provides summarized information on buildings used by the university libraries, academic libraries, public libraries, the National Library, etc. Describes storage rooms and book‐preserving conditions in them as well as the capacities of reading rooms and the working conditions for users and library staff. Almost all Albanian libraries operate closed‐access systems but over the last two years a tendency to operate open‐access reading rooms has appeared. Today Albanian libraries have to face several difficulties related to the economic problems the country is going through. Points to some possibilities for improving library buildings.

The Library of the London School of Economics and Political Science is the largest library in the world devoted to the social sciences, with some four million items. In a major redevelopment project, the library’s building, which also houses the LSE Research Laboratory, has been radically re‐designed by Foster and Partners. Key features of the re‐design include a central atrium with a glass dome and stepped helical ramp as well as a double height space on the lower ground floor. During the building programme, the library operated from temporary premises nearby, remaining open throughout two book moves. Describes the planning process involved in the redevelopment, the maintenance of services and the book moves. User reaction to the re‐designed building has been positive and there has been a great deal of interest from librarians and members of the public.

This exploratory study, a Ph.D. dissertation completed at the University of Western Ontario in 2013, examines the materially embedded relations of power between library users and staff in public libraries and how building design regulates spatial behavior according to organizational objectives. It considers three public library buildings as organization spaces (Dale & Burrell, 2008) and determines the extent to which their spatial organizations reproduce the relations of power between the library and its public that originated with the modern public library building type ca. 1900. Adopting a multicase study design, I conducted site visits to three, purposefully selected public library buildings of similar size but various ages. Site visits included: blueprint analysis; organizational document analysis; in-depth, semi-structured interviews with library users and library staff; cognitive mapping exercises; observations; and photography.

Despite newer approaches to designing public library buildings, the use of newer information technologies, and the emergence of newer paradigms of library service delivery (e.g., the user-centered model), findings strongly suggest that the library as an organization still relies on many of the same socio-spatial models of control as it did one century ago when public library design first became standardized. The three public libraries examined show spatial organizations that were designed primarily with the librarian, library materials, and library operations in mind far more than the library user or the user’s many needs. This not only calls into question the public library’s progressiveness over the last century but also hints at its ability to survive in the new century.

Research into the library as place investigates the role of public library buildings as destinations, physical places where people go for various reasons ranging from making use of the library's resources and services or seeking to fulfill an information or reading need to less easily identified reasons that may include using the library's building as a place to make social or business contacts, to build or reinforce community or political ties, or to create or reinforce a personal identity. This study asks: How are one rural US public library system's newly constructed buildings functioning as places? The answer is derived from answers to sub-questions about adult library users, user, and staff perceptions of library use, and observed use of library facilities. The findings are contextualized using a framework built of theories from human geography, sociology, and information studies.

This case study replicates a mixed-methods case study conducted at the main public libraries in Toronto and Vancouver in the late1990s and first reproduced in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 2006. It tests methods used in large urban settings in a rural, small-town environment. This study also expands on its antecedents by using thematic analysis to determine which conceptualizations of the role of the public library as place are most relevant to the community under investigation.

The study relies on quantitative and qualitative data collected via surveys and interviews of adult library users, interviews of library public service staff members, structured observations of people using the libraries, and analysis of selected administrative documents. The five sets of data are triangulated to answer the research sub-questions.

Thematic analysis grounded in the conceptual framework finds that public realm theory best contextualizes the relationships that develop between library staff members and adult library users over time. The study finds that the libraries serve their communities as informational places and as familiarized locales rather than as third places, and that the libraries facilitate the generation of social capital for their users.

Provides the sequential history of Kalamazoo Public Library’s $18,700,000 building project. How the library strengthened its relationship with its community through the building project is the most important message. Information about the project’s inception, how decisions were made, and the tax levy are included. The establishment of a building committee and the nuances involved with fund development for art are addressed.

In November 2001, Scott Carlson, in the Chronicle of Higher Education wrote an article on library use titled “The deserted library: As students work online, reading rooms empty out—leading some campuses to add Starbucks” (Carlson, 2001). The essence of this chapter is that many librarians, facing dramatic declines in library gate counts resulting from the wealth of electronic resources accessible remotely, were beginning to move away from traditional conceptions of the library as primarily a repository for print collections. Carlson describes the “tough sell” that the Georgia College and State University in Milledgeville had experienced when planning a $19.5 million library addition in the mid-1990s. In response librarians had begun “fighting back” with “plush chairs, double-mocha lattes, book groups, author readings.” Still, no one knew whether these stratagems would enhance learning or bring its readers back.

Gives a brief history of the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, Bauchi, Nigeria. Points out that this university first had to use a temporary building for nine years even though the facilities in it were inadequate. Focuses on the new library building of this university commissioned on 10 November 1990. Describes the main sections of the new library including its facilities. Draws attention to inadequacies of the building. Finally concludes that the new library building is by all standards a functional one.

This study identifies factors affecting brand building for academic libraries affiliated with the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology (MSRT) in Iran.

This research applied the grounded theory method based on the three open, axial and selective coding steps (Strauss and Corbin, 1998). The research tool was interviews conducted with 20 experts in librarianship, marketing and branding.

Library building architecture, library information resources and services, librarians' branding, marketing activities and library management are the causal conditions affecting brand building. The national economic situation, the digital publishing situation in the country and different characteristics of the new library community are the intervening conditions affecting brand building. The role of other libraries in society in the scientific education of the new generation provides contextual conditions for brand building. The higher education system and the library parent organization play a part in the operative actions/interactions for brand building. The consequences of brand building are brand image development, brand excellence and brand behavioral loyalty for libraries. Library brand identity is also a core category in brand building.

Facing steep challenges by emergent services, academic libraries are ill-prepared to meet the needs of the new information society solely with traditional services and functions. Academic libraries are required to rebrand themselves to be more successful at delivering a strong performance within a changing information environment by enhancing their brand image and establishing a more effective relationship with users.