{"id":23973,"date":"2013-05-29T10:30:14","date_gmt":"2013-05-29T14:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=23973"},"modified":"2013-05-29T11:47:04","modified_gmt":"2013-05-29T15:47:04","slug":"taking-a-look-at-japans-kanazawa-library","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=23973","title":{"rendered":"Stay and Linger: Japan\u2019s Kanazawa Library"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Matthew Tansek, Head Editor, <\/i>INALJ Rhode Island<\/i><\/a><\/p>\n

Stay and Linger: Japan\u2019s Kanazawa Library<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"japanlibrary1\"<\/a>At first glance the Kanazawa Library looks like a giant white shoe box with holes punched in the side, but it\u2019s quite an impressive library.\u00a0 Built for the rapidly urbanizing city of Kanazawa, the library represents Japan\u2019s new shift its public library philosophy.\u00a0 With more than 6,000 porthole like windows on the exterior, a 12 meter high cavernous reading room and a compact automated closed stack storage system it really is quite a striking facility.\u00a0 It\u2019s chief architects Kazumi Kudo and Hiroshi Horiba of Coelacanth K&H Architects say that they took inspiration from Paris\u2019s National Library and designed a space with a similar openness and \u201catmosphere\u201d, reminiscent of being outdoors.<\/p>\n

According to Japan\u2019s Ministry of Education the country is slowly converting towards a \u201cstay and linger\u201d model for their libraries instead of a \u201ccollect and lend\u201d model.\u00a0 I personally think that there really should be a balance between the two (clientele dependant) but if it means the construction of more libraries like this one, more power to them!<\/p>\n

\"japanlibrary2\"<\/a>If you are wondering how Japan stacks up when it comes to libraries I\u2019ve got a few numbers for you.\u00a0 According to a 2008 national survey, Japan has 3,165 public libraries.\u00a0 This translates to roughly 1 library for every 40,000 people.\u00a0 This number seemed a bit high for me, but when you take into account the concentration of people in the urban areas, having more centralized larger libraries instead of a greater number of smaller institutions is understandable.\u00a0 26.7% of its population have library cards, and in 2007 more than 600,000,000 books were borrowed.<\/p>\n

Those seeking employment in the field of library and information science in Japan may be disheartened to learn that it is at most an undergraduate degree, and worst a short set of additional training that can be combined with ANY other undergraduate degree.\u00a0 Once the schooling is completed and the official library exam is passed, you\u2019re good to go!<\/p>\n

Libraries can be such important learning and community centers, its good to see people taking the time to make them truly striking and unique.<\/p>\n

\"MTansek\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Resources<\/b><\/p>\n

Photographs via dezeen.com <\/a><\/p>\n

Kanazawa Library information via japan-architects.com <\/a><\/p>\n

Japanese library statistics via mext.go.jp<\/a> (Ministry of Education)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Matthew Tansek, Head Editor, INALJ Rhode Island Stay and Linger: Japan\u2019s Kanazawa Library At first glance the Kanazawa Library looks like a giant white shoe box with holes punched in the side, but it\u2019s quite an impressive library.\u00a0 Built for the rapidly urbanizing city of Kanazawa, the library represents Japan\u2019s new shift its public…<\/p>\n

Read more \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":23134,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[145],"tags":[69,3592,3626,1391,4467,4466,3942],"class_list":["post-23973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","tag-article","tag-blog","tag-inalj-rhode-island","tag-japan","tag-japanese-library","tag-kanazawa-library","tag-matthew-tansek"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/matthewt.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1WoMK-6eF","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23973\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}