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An abandoned Wal-Mart store in McAllen, Texas, has been transformed into a functioning library. The interior space is the size of 2 1/2 football fields making the library the largest single story library in the U.S. Since the building opened user registration has increased by 23% While a great idea for reusing a building--incorporating everything a library needs except aesthetic appeal, I wonder about the heating and cooling costs of the building, which can be monumental.

The city of McAllen, Texas converted a Wal-Mart into a spacious public library and won the 2012 Library Interior Design Competition in the process.

The city of New York has been investigating ways to reuse obsolete or underused phone booths. The number of phone booths nationwide has dropped by more than half from 1999 to 2007, and 13,000 booths will likely be unused when contracts expire in 2014. Ideas that have been tested include wireless hotspots, touch screen maps, and bolt in bookcases to make a small library. However, unlike other lending libraries that are community supported by an honor system where a book is donated for one removed, the New York libraries tend to disappear within days to weeks. Despite this some publishers and some neighborhoods have been interested in contributing books.

Create the Library Your Community or Campus Needs Join Library Journal and a roster of design experts for our latest 4-week interactive online course. Starting January 27, 2016, Library Design Workshop will guide participants through complex issues of library space design projects such as space programming, fundraising, and finding the right design team.

The Harvard Graduate School of Design's website for their "Labrary" (Library Laboratory) that tests out library design ideas on a real world 1:1 scale.

Most exciting article I've read about responsive web design!

Wayne Bivens-Tatum at the Library Journal offers a general criticism at how current copyright law is designed solely with the benefit of publishers in mind.

We should do this with Help Desk requests!

On the heels of our keynote speaker, whose presentation has been weighing on my mind, this makes me worry that what will cause things to be lost is not things simply not being updated, but also things not being findable-- if some information doesn't have any sort of access point, it may as well not exist.