In praise of fun palaces

EditorialTest Close readers of Public Libraries News will have picked up that I am slightly suspicious of shiny new initiatives. The fear is that such things – a singer in a reference library, a theatre show in a lending space, a 3D printer sat semi-ignored on a cabinet – takes up time, resources and, worst case, actively puts people off using the unique selling points of libraries like free book loan or study space. At the same time, though, I understand that librariesneed to look u