Magical Models

On Tuesday morning, I removed all of the study carrels from the reference room. Later that morning, I relocated the reference collections from the 90" high full-height shelving units and shelved them all on 42" high counter-height shelving units. Then I took the children's easy readers, which had been on 66" high units and put them on 42" high slotted divider shelves. After that, I added lounge chairs to the periodical reading room, with seven end tables and seven table lamps. After some thought, I put the reference collections back on high shelves and removed the index tables so we could add a few more technology workstations. Then I took a coffee break. Did I have supermovers or superpowers? No. I was using Libris Design, a new computer software to help librarians map out a new facility right down to the cost of a specific type of chair, to plan a building for National City Public Library (NCPL), CA.

In 1996, Richard Hall, a library facilities consultant at the California State Library, proposed that my library beta-test Libris Design, a database that would help us create a building program and cost estimate for our project. Like many libraries, NCPL has strong community support but very real funding constraints. Without money available for an outside consultant, we jumped at the chance to use Libris Design to complete a building program. The database worked great, and now Libris Design is available free to public library planners anywhere in the nation. It has been used by over 250 librarians, library consultants, architects, and interior designers in dozens of libraries in California. Owing to its success in California, library facility planners nationwide are becoming increasingly interested in the use of Libris Design.

Like many of my colleagues, I am computer literate. I mainly use Microsoft Windows/Office® products. However, I do not consider myself a wiz at databases. Libris Design is an Access® database, a program for which I had no previous training, but I had little difficulty learning to use it with a bit of study. Many of its user interface screens are intuitive, and there is excellent onscreen help. Most people should be able to use the database effectively with the standard training. The two-day workshop is critical to understanding both how the software works and how the building program fits into the context of planning a library facility. In addition to the use of the database, the workshop covers space planning concepts, how to conduct a community needs assessment, phases of a building project, cost estimating, and preparing project budgets, as well as creative ways to use the application itself.

Owing to Libris Design's user-friendly interface, I was proficient enough right away to persist and become an expert user. I worked on my library's building program over a period of six years, but I know librarians who have used Libris Design to produce a program in just a few weeks. Diane Satchwell, City Librarian for the City of Murrieta, employed Libris Design to create a quick space plan and project budget for a homework center, just in time to make a presentation to a potential donor. Hilary Theyer of the City of Torrance Library illustrated the overcrowding of the current facility and planned the reorganization of a workroom. Libris Design can help to plan new library facilities as well as remodeling and expansion projects.

The program's flexibility let me create multiple building scenarios, continually refining the library program. At one point, I had a model 60,000 square foot building that included every dream of every staff member. Fortunately, I also had a model for the 50,000 square foot version that our community could actually afford to build.

The magic of Libris Design lies in the expert models. This is especially helpful for novice building programmers. The user starts with an already completed template, not a blank space (although a blank template is available for those who want to start from scratch). These templates, or expert models, were created by library consultants. They reflect current library planning practices for small and large, main and branch libraries. Users select a model based on the size and type of library being planned and then modify it to meet the requirements of their specific community needs assessment and library plan of service, as seen in Figure 1.

Libris Design organizes the library building into departments or divisions, such as Circulation Services or Children's Library, as seen in Figure 2. Starting with these larger areas, the user selects which divisions to keep, delete, or add and then goes on to modify the individual spaces (such as Circulation Desk or Children's Workroom) nested within each division in the same way. Each of the more than 400 prenamed library spaces available contains inventory of preselected pieces of library furniture and equipment, i.e., tables, chairs, or computers from which the user may select.

The square footage of the library building and the cost estimate for the furniture and equipment are built from the bottom up. Every inventory item has a specific square footage and cost assigned to it. The default costs, based on current conditions in California, can be modified to meet various regional or national conditions, which allows Libris Design to be put into action by any one in the country. The software, which calculates the cumulative costs and space assigned to each item of furniture and equipment, automatically generates the total expenditures and square footage required for furniture and equipment. The user can add or delete inventory items at will, as well as override preassigned costs and square footages. When changes are made to furniture and equipment, the square footage and dollar recalculations are updated automatically and accurately, thus saving time and eliminating the possibility of error. Changes can be made with confidence at any time—even up to the last minute before a funding agency presentation.

In addition to this capability, each space includes descriptive text for any functional requirements (adjacency, lighting, finishes, security, power, and telecommunications) and other information that will assist the architect and interior designer in the design phase. This space detail can also be modified.

The foundation of a library building program must be the library collections, and Libris Design provides an opportunity for collection management. Users can track total holdings, as well as on-shelf holdings for specific collections, as seen in Figure 3. This allows the library planner to take the current collection, plan for future expansion, and populate shelving with all of the collections in the library, reducing the shelving to account for books that are in circulation and therefore don't need shelf space. Libris Design has 165 different types of shelving units from which to choose. The collections module further illustrates the software's ability to let users make changes easily and have calculations made automatically. For instance, when we tested relocating our reference collection to lower shelving units, Libris Design calculated the additional space requirements. We knew right away that we didn't have the additional square footage required, so we quickly eliminated that option without any wasted time. The ability to consider multiple "what ifs" swiftly is invaluable during the planning process.

Libris Design has an extensive (approximately 1700 items and growing) inventory of all other types of library furniture and equipment. The data include a description, cost with ranges to select from (low, moderate, high), and an assigned square footage for each item. The square footage assignments and calculations in Libris Design were prepared by expert space planning consultants. Standard default square footages can be easily overridden. For example, if your library prefers oversized book trucks, you can increase the space allowance from ten to 12 square feet per truck. It is also easy to create a totally new inventory item and add it to pick lists throughout the database. This is important for inventory items that are particular to your library, such as the antique china cabinet in our Local History Room.

Libris Design also provides flexibility with respect to costs. The furniture and equipment prices in the database are prepared and updated by library interior designers and multimedia and computer technology consultants. The ability to set furniture and equipment costs globally at a low, moderate, or high value can reflect the needs of a particular project or regional issue. Although many communities must be frugal, a beautiful building with a less than beautiful interior may not satisfy your constituents. The program allows users to manipulate individual costs; for example, consider that stylish lounge chair, which is a bit more expensive than another, but reduce the price per task chair. With the bottom line always available in a matter of seconds, the user can explore a variety of options.

I realized how effective this program is when I received a phone call regarding cuts to the project budget. Armed with my furniture and equipment list, generated quickly from the database, I was able to defend each item and its associated cost and thus ward off impending reductions that might have crippled my furniture and equipment budget.

Libris Design also allows for multiple scenarios of building size and cost, providing a way to create multiple project budget options easily for funding agencies, boards, or private philanthropists. For example, I could quickly build a videoconferencing center into my building program and demonstrate the cost of that added component to a local benefactor—if I could just find one who would pay for it.

Information from the database can be retrieved via nearly 50 preformatted user reports ranging from total building summaries to detailed space description sheets that include furniture and equipment lists. These reports provide an excellent tool to involve the entire library staff in reviewing the building program in order to improve it. The opportunity to involve all levels of staff and even board members in developing this project will result in an enhanced building program and a better building. For example, I had overlooked one much-needed staff restroom, which Maria Marmolejo, our circulation supervisor, quickly identified.

The project budget section of the database calculates all of the costs and can create a project budget with more than 20 line items. Construction costs can be adjusted to account for regional factors and can be separated, for example, from professional fees, site acquisition, site development, contingency, and furniture and equipment. The project budget provided the information that I needed to justify costs to city government and the architects. Other California colleagues have successfully applied the budget information to fundraising, relying on the program's ability to calculate costs quickly for divisions, spaces, or furniture.

Last spring, we put the final touches on the National City Public Library building program. I moved the lounge chairs back into the periodical reading room, increased the number of stations at the reference desk, deleted the typewriter from the workroom, and swapped flat plasma screens for the monitors in the training room. We're still under budget and within our space allowance.

Turning the building program over to the architect was difficult. The document had been fluid for so many years, but it was time to let go. Six years after beginning the process, National City residents eagerly await their new library, which we plan to open in July 2005. National City's architectural firm, Carrier Johnson, was open to using Libris Design and incorporated it into the design process. Our architect, Kevin Krumdieck, found that Libris Design provided thorough descriptions of program spaces and complete information regarding the function of each space. This information, enhanced by community and library staff discussions, was the basis for his concept, which he concludes was improved by the depth of the material provided by working with Libris Design. Krumdieck also found the library staff to be better informed and more knowledgeable about the building requirements, space, and furniture owing to their familiarity with the software.

Architects, library staff, and, ultimately, communities all benefit from the power of Libris Design. Articulating consistent information about the building needed to support library services to communities can have a profound effect on our ability to build better libraries.