This afternoon I went to Delft and met Erik Boekesteijn and Jaap Van De Geer from the DOK (and the Shanachie Tour) and had a really fun library afternoon.

We started with a tour of the staff backroom. In many libraries, backroom areas are sadly neglected and overrun with stock and stuff. At the DOK they’ve taken as much care to create great staff areas as public areas. The workspaces are open and there’s plenty of places to collaborate and all kinds of technology around, like a really cool jumbo-sized touchscreen for presentations.

Next to an amazing open space that has literature, a cafe, a stage, gaming and music. The building that the DOK is in used to be a supermarket and out of the structure left behind they’ve got an amazing loft-like structure on this floor.

The cafe is just to the right of this picture, so you can grab a coffee and sit to read or watch a band play on Friday nights up at the stage.

It’s so light and bright here that even if the weather’s not so nice it’s still really cozy inside.

The cafe uses the same desk design as desks in the different library departments. It really is part of the library.

The children’s department was next. Gaming, portable shelving and special secret rooms dominate this area. Some of the shelving on the area is on castors so it can be moved to hold special events. There’s two rooms that are a little bit hidden and are wonderful rooms for kids to discover. One is for comics (strips) which are hugely popular in Belgium and the Netherlands, and the other is for picture books.

Also on this floor is the music department, which houses a Wii and an amazing collection of CDs and LPs. I got to try out Wii sports for the first time, battling Jaap and Erik on Tennis and Bowling. One of the kids using the library joined us to bowl for a while, and loved it!

Another thing I really liked is their DIY approach to things. Staff members designed some of the signage, they designed their own ILS (and their catalogue has an awesome recommendation system built in) and they have local teens working on developing a game. They built a CRM system to send more relevant messages to users who opt in. They are innovating and building all sorts of great stuff on their own and encouraging their library users to do the same - you can make podcasts and video and all kinds of media here.
Something I didn’t notice until I was just about to leave was how little instructional signage there was. In a lot of libraries, there’s all sorts of signs telling you what to do. Computers might have notes stuck all over them telling you how to log on or print. DOK is different. It really encourages you to play and work stuff out. The music department doesn’t have a big sign for MUSIC but you can *hear* music over there and it soon becomes obvious what that part of the area is for. Service desks don’t have signs like Information or Enquiries (the wording of which we inevitably fret over) - the design is obvious.

There’s obviously been a lot of thought put into user behaviour and the design of flexible space at DOK. It is an amazing place. Thanks to Erik and Jaap for an awesome afternoon, I had been looking forward to meeting them since I heard about the Shanachie Tour last year and they are such fun, generous hosts.

Lots more pictures on my Flickr page, including the Wii!