Wow, last month was crazy busy, hence no library updates. This week will be a brief update, featuring my first visit to my current library: Turku Main Library. The pictures are from the first time I visited the library in 2014 (!) and this is probably fairly obvious from how young and promising I look. ^_^
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- Turku Main Library, exterior of old building. It was modelled after the House of Nobility in Stockholm! I think we all know which of these houses are nobler…
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- Turku Main Library, exterior of new building that was built in 2007.
| Library | Turku Main Library |
|---|---|
| Place | Turku, Finland |
| Coordinates | 60.450490, 22.271143 |
The library is part of a region wide collaboration, the Vaski libraries (short for Varsinais-Suomen kirjastot – the libraries of Varsinais-Suomi, biblioteken i Egentliga Finland), so this is my go to webpage for my everyday public library needs. My typical library user behaviour consists of borrowing books, cds, and sheet music, meeting up with a book club, using a study space on the 2nd floor, and from time to time booking the sewing machine, laser cutter, and t-shirt printing press. That probably tells you more about me than the library, but at least I’ve mentioned the library’s role as a meeting place, maker space, and provider of various collections.
Me in Turku Main Library 2014. They no longer have these chairs. :( I no longer have the purple Docs. :/ I still have the dress but it’s falling to pieces. :)
The library is split into two main parts, the old and the new building. The old building dates back to 1903 and was modelled after the House of Nobility in Stockholm. This is very obvious if you look at the two buildings. Obviously the public library is the nobler house of the two (this pun works poorly in Swedish), because public libraries are palaces for the people. The new building was built in 2007, so only seven years old when I visited. These old pictures do not do the light in the building justice – it’s incredibly spacious and the lighting is excellent even in the winter (very much the opposite of the lightning situation in the Lappeenranta library I wrote about a few weeks ago). I could pop down today and take new pictures, I suppose, but I like the retro feeling of these images.
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- Interior view of children’s section, viewed from non-fiction section
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- Interior map of Turku Main Library
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- Interior view of non-fiction section
While the new building hosts non-fiction and children’s literature (and lecture spaces etc etc), the old building hosts fiction, music, and nowadays also a makerspace (I don’t think it was there in 2014). I don’t seem to have a lot of pictures from the old library, a shame since the old building also is a perfect example of excellent library architecture (of its time). Very much Carnegie vibes.
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- Interior view of entrance to the old building, including single sauna bather ready to mingle (the statue, mind!)
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- Unexpected but welcome Morrissey exhibition on the 2nd floor. Maybe I was meant for Turku and Turku for me all along!
The biggest surprise was the Morrissey record exhibition on the 2nd floor in the old building. Looking back at the dates I’ve realised that the exhibition probably was on because of the release of World Peace Is None of Your Business on 15 July 2014 (my photographs are dated 12 July 2014 – thank you, dependable metadata!). This excellent album is by the way available in the library’s collection – significant because of the Harvest Records controversy surrounding the album meaning it was rather quickly quite hard to get hold of. Who to trust for cultural needs when capitalism fails you? Yes, that’s right, public libraries.