Architectural Spaces of Libraries in the Expectations and Opinions of the Librarians of Krakow’s Public Libraries

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Public Libraries in Krakow – Poland’s second-largest city – operated as four independent cultural institutions up to January 2017, each with a main library and over a dozen smaller branches. The organisational structure stemmed from the previous administrative division of Poland (1975-1998), in which the city of Krakow consisted of four large districts. In July 2016 the Krakow City Council decided to merge the four public libraries into one institution to be operating under the name of Krakow Library (Biblioteka Kraków), with one main library and nearly 60 branches. Preceding the consolidation process, the Krakow Municipality commissioned the Malopolska Institute of Culture (Małopolski Instytut Kultury, MIK) to conduct a research & consultation project in order to diagnose the existing network of libraries and to formulate recommendations for strategic planning of the new institution. Librarians’ expectations regarding the architectural space of libraries and their opinions on the space of existing branches were surveyed by means of a participatory workshop for library employees. The paper presents the findings of the participatory workshop for the librarians and discusses them in the context of current library design guidelines.