Let's take off the cover of common senses - What Sapporo City Book and Information Center changed, and did not change

1. Current Awareness No. 340 (2019.6) National Diet Library of Japan
* Sapporo City Book and Information Center
CA1953 ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■
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-- WWhhaatt SSaappppoorroo CCiittyy BBooookk aanndd IInnffoorrmmaattiioonn CCeenntteerr
cchhaannggeedd,, aanndd ddiidd nnoott cchhaannggee ......
by Takao Asano, director, Sapporo City Book and Information Center
1. How it came about
Sapporo City Book and Information Center (SCBIC) is built in the central area of
Sapporo. SCBIC is located in the corner of the “Sapporo Citizens Exchange
Plaza”. Sapporo Cultural Arts Theater (Hitaru), supporting cultural activities
including opera is also there.
In conjunction with the Sapporo Cultural Arts Exchange Center (SCARTS),
it opened on October 7, 2018.
There is already a central library with 830,000 books in Sapporo. It takes
however 30 minutes from the city center to get there. Therefore, the library in
the middle of the town was desired by many but there were many restrictions
due to redevelopment area buildings.
During the preparation period continuous selection and ingenuity were
necessary.
Especially the total space is only about 1,500m2.
There is a backyard such as a closed rack that is regarded as important in the
library. It was a painful start.

2. This location is close to commercial facilities and offices, and has the clock
tower, the symbol of Sapporo nearby.
Also many visitors for working, business and sightseeing come to this area.
It is an area with a large number of people. We discussed the locality, that
people there are not so active library users and tried to expand the user base.
A concept called “Problem-solution type library that provides information”
was born . Main targets are grown-ups working in the city center, and provide
information on attractiveness of Sapporo, information useful for business and
other problem solutions.
Furthermore, the theme and scale of the books was limited to 1) Work (helpful
for work) target 25,000 copies, 2) Life (helping life) 10,000 copies, and,
3) art (getting in touch with art) 5,000 copies. Without having the corners of
literature, children's book, picture book, etc. we wanted to improve the quality of
information by carefully selecting the limited areas of services.
Exihibit 1 building where Sapporo City Book and Information Center is located

3. 2. "Don't lend a book? Is it a library?"
During the preparation period, many press and media interviewed us.
They caught attention on topics like "Library you can talk", "You can drink coffee at
the library"
Lending books are familiar to library users.
However, from my experience as a librarian before there are always reservations
for the latest popular books and it will take several months before your turn
comes, and for many users who are waiting library is not offering the latest
information.
If the loan period is 2 weeks, it will lend to only about 26 people a year. In our
library, we check how many readers used books using the IC tag attached to the
returned books.
Many books have been read more than 80 times in 3 months.
Always up-to-date information is necessary on business and health information.
We decided therefore to let the customers to read only in the library.
Opening hours on weekdays was extended to 21:00 and prepared confortable
furnitures.
Nearly half of the seats can be reserved online for busy businesspersons.
The usage time is limited to 90 minutes though.
It is possible to extend if there are no persons waiting.
The reasons to allow conversations and drinks, are to help groups to do research
talks and reference services.
Mass media’s attentions are results of characteristics to reach the goals and
purposes we are striving at.
3. Ingenuity of space because of its narrowness
In the halls you can hear comfortable music including the famous board of piano

4. jazz.
The first floor conveys salon space and charm of Hokkaido and Sapporo (about
30 seats)
The second floor is the area of Work, Life and Art (Divided into 170 seats). There
is a café next to the first floor, you can bring in coffee or books.
The traditional library architecture consists of bookshelfs, a counter, and
reading seats.
It was often divided into three zones, but on the second floor I introduced an
oblique flow line from the entrance to the back into the bile.
This allows you to look from the entrance to the back.
In addition, in the central library in Sapporo reference counter is located at the
end of the hall. While we have succeded to put it in the middle of the second
floor. (in our library it is called research counter)
Also, each corner is triangles form to make many corners.
The roof was lowered it accordingly. Seeing from afar, it is easy to understood
what is in the corner.
We do not use hanging sign from ceiling or sign posted on wall to make simple
space so that the books are more visable.
The seats are a working seat (for one person), group seats (2 to 4 people),
meeting rooms (5 people).
For those who want to concentrate on there is a reading room (no conversation
allowed, no personal computer) is also available.
These seate can be reserved online by the seat reservation system.
About half of the seats are free seats with chairs of nice design, or benches
between the shelves so that you can see the bookshelf in the back and feel that
"I'm united with the book". Hopefully visitors become interested to read books
there.

5. Exhibit 2 Group seats (2nd floor)
Exhibit. 3 Plan view

6. 4. Selection book to snuggle up with people
Although this library aims at problem solution type library, the challenge to the users
may be “Isn't it hazy?”
We asked librarians, including myself, with friends, family what kind of problems
and challenges people have.
We try to get close to the problems and make the issues clearer. "I was troubled
with such things"
We set a small theme and make selection of books accordingly.
Once you can clarify the issue, we can help to lead the solution through a
consultation desk or seminars.
A large tapestry-style sign at the entrance of the library is expressing the
concept of our service in an easy-to-understand manner – “Enjoy working”.
It's basically fun to work, but sometimes is painful.
There is a time that a book or words in a book can help you to feel better.
We try to select books to make people enjoy working.
We wanted to know what are really required to support for business persons.
We carried out a survey to ask on what sort of services are really needed to the
companies located within a radius of 1.5 km from our building.
In response to the question "What books and materials do you want most?"
"business manners, work technique" was asked most, followed by "professional
book for occupation", third place was "personal relation and communication.
It was a big surprise. We thought that "professional book of occupation" were
most asked for.
5. Librarians, sticking to shelf making
The biggest element supporting the real value of this library is 16 librarians. Without

7. these librarians it would be impossible to have these book shelves. It is also very
important to have feelings on Sapporo and Hokkaido they have had contacts for a
long time or born here, living with friends and family。
We do not sort and layout books by the Japan Decimal Classification (NDC) in our
library. 16 librarians take charge of shelf carefully.
Is may be easier for you to understand that librarians plan exhibitions and put books
in the shelf.
However, this is a new way of challenge that I have never done before. We
encountered problems and at that time, we asked Mr. Haba, Yoshitaka) for advice
and could be helped.
In the Work area you can find all the necessary information if you go to the shelf of
your business branch. In the Life area we discussed what are most necessary
information for working people thoroughly and books are displayed. It is a new
approach to decide the themes first and select books thereafter among public
libraries. We try to put easy-to-understand expressions of topics like,
"I want to write better, Yes! “,
"Problems to be a chief",
"If there is an encounter ... (shelf on divorce)",
"Tell me someone! (shelf on love)"
In addition, there is a red frame that can be attached and detached to a part of the
bookshelf with a magnet.
This corner is called Hakoniwa and handles topics that stimulate seasonal topics and
curiosity for a limited time.
We hope to let people interested in books or areas they were not interested before
by these inventions.

8. Exhibit. 4 Hakoniwa "Society where women can work just normally"
6. And what happened
The expected number of users before the opening was 300,000 annually.
It has been about half a year since opening. 10,000 people came on the opening day.
The number of users has been around 3,000 a day since then.
It is expected to reach 1 million people a year.
This library has only 1,500 square meters.
In fact, many users say, " I came back to the book world thanks to this library.
During the evening times, reserved seats are often full mainly by business people.
But unexpectedly even in the afternoon hours are also much occupied for general
users.
Although the book publishing industry is facing a recession, we have found out that
books are still much attractive by librarians’ innovative ways to display and
comfortable space to sit.
The other day, one store manager of a major bookstore in the city stated at a public
forum , “We had expected our sales to go down due to the new library. However,
the results are the opposite, with a lot of new customers!”

9. We hope to grow the world of books together with the publishers and bookstores.
7. Libraries from now on - you can see from our center
Many inspections groups have been visiting us but more and more groups are
coming from the city planning or area management sectors.
They say that even this small space could contribute to change the flows of people
and connect people.
It is often difficult to build new libraries in Japan due to budget problems. Joint
project with private sectors have been tried.
My suggestion is “embedded library”. To offer small scale libraries to owners of
buildings by offering knowhows and staffs of libraries.
I believe that the next challenge of libraries is “output, not just input”.
A lot of customers are talking, thinking and designing ideas with our books every
day. We began also “business talk live” on the first floor where customers can
present their business ideas.
What can I do when many people believe that smartphones can solve the problems?
Libraries should offer places for people to meet. When you discuss on local foods
for example, you should also be able to taste the foods on the spot. We could name
it as “values that cannot be downloaded”.
Our endeavors to continue.
(tentative translation by Kazuhiko Kawasaki)
References:
(1) “札幌市図書・情報館”. 札幌市民交流プラザ.
https://www.sapporo-community-plaza.jp/library.html, （参照 2019-04-18）.
“札幌市図書・情報館”. 札幌市の図書館.
https://www.city.sapporo.jp/toshokan/infolibrary/index.html, （参照 2019-04-18）.

10. (2) “札幌市図書・情報館開設にむけての取り組み”. 札幌市の図書館.
https://www.city.sapporo.jp/toshokan/infolibrary/torikumi.html, （参照 2019-04-18）.
(3) 札幌市, （仮称）市民交流複合施設整備基本計画. 札幌市, 2013, 78p.
http://www.city.sapporo.jp/kikaku/downtown/project/documents/kihonkeikaku_honpen.pdf, （参照 2019-04-18）.
(4) 札幌市図書・情報館. “進化する図書館 ～本の話をしよう”. 札幌市民交流プラザ.
https://www.sapporo-community-plaza.jp/event.php?num=444, （参照 2019-04-18）.
一般社団法人北海道デジタル出版推進協会. “セミナー「進化する図書館～本の話をしよう」が開催されました。”. 一般社団法人北海道デジタル出版推進協会.
2019-02-18.
http://www.hoppa.or.jp/archives/2117, （参照 2019-04-18）.