Paper Short Abstract:

In the 2030s the 'library of the future' will arise in the neighbourhood of Amsterdam Zuidoost. This presentation will discuss the value of observations made during ethnographic fieldwork in the transition to this 'Next' library, focusing on themes of future-making and (re)imagining libraries.

Paper Abstract:

In the early 2030s a brand new library building will arise in the neighbourhood of Amsterdam Zuidoost: OBA Next. This new addition to the Amsterdam public library family will consist of 8000m2 and has to be a place that attracts people from all of over Amsterdam, and caters to the needs of the neighbourhood (OBA Next, 2023). OBA Next (Openbare Bibliotheek Amsterdam/Public Library Amsterdam), or ‘the library of the future’ is currently being developed through a set of different future-making practices (Wenzel et al., 2020). One of these is a think tank with people working or volunteering for the library. Throughout 2024 the thinktank got introduced to the concept of ‘Next’, the innovative thinking that lies behind it, and invited to deliberate what a library of the future is to them. As part of my postdoc research in the project ‘Imaginations in Transitions’ I followed the journey of the OBA Next think tank, using ethnographical methods in an organisational setting (Gaggiotti et al., 2017). In this presentation I will reflect on some of the questions and connected observations central to this project; what futures are imagined in the OBA Next think tank? How is OBA Next imagined in the existing social ecosystem of Zuidoost? How is the library (re)imagined in the think tank? And to conclude, what does this mean for the development of the library of the future? Last, I will share the (potential) value of my research work for the further development of OBA Next.