“Hanging out at Oodi without a reason is welcomed and even recommended.” So says the brochure for Helsinki’s Central Library, named Oodi (meaning ‘ode’) – a vast ship-like, spruce-clad building that opened five years ago. It describes itself as “an open space for culture and creation”, and “everyone’s shared living room”. I don’t think that’s overstating it: you can use a 3D printer, or go to a concert, or play video games, or read under a real tree. Or just come in and get warm. I’ve always loved public libraries; entering Oodi on a dark, freezing December afternoon recently, to find rows of chess sets ready to be played and huge open spaces to stroll through, reminded me why. 

Helsinki’s architectural pride is one of a crop of modern European libraries offering not just books but “meeting places for the mind”. Of course, access to books matters too. Research shows, for instance, that poverty can hinder brain development among children, but that reading for pleasure can help to counteract this.

But libraries also matter because they provide indoor spaces that anyone can use without spending money. That’s becoming all too rare. In the UK, experts warn that local places where people can gather to learn, play, create or access services have been “in precipitous decline”, in many cases because they’ve been sold off by our cash-strapped local councils.

Libraries help people, sometimes in the most basic ways. “This building, which just happens to house books for improvement and entertainment, is in greater demand as a sanctuary,” wrote UK librarian Chris Paling in his 2017 book, Reading Allowed. “It’s warm. It has a roof, running water, toilets, and as such, when the nights are cold, it’s a tough place to leave.” By winter 2023, amid sky-high energy prices, more than 90% of UK libraries were gearing up to provide warm spaces for people. A similar story in the US, according to Lisa Bubert: “We are a lifeline for populations that have slipped through the spaces in a weakening social safety net.” Being a librarian, she says, is more about “community survival” than anything else.

Libraries help people, so it’s fitting that the open-access library became widespread thanks to a well-known philanthropist, Andrew Carnegie. He funded 2,500 of them around the world, starting in his birthplace in Dunfermline, Scotland in 1883. One feature of Carnegie libraries was providing space and books specifically for children, a novelty at the time, and thus “a major contribution to literacy”, as one public library director puts it. Carnegie’s philanthropy is not without controversy – the steel tycoon also oversaw some pretty dubious treatment of his workers – but it’s hard to argue with investing in the foundations of today’s sanctuaries and living rooms.

Photos of Oodi by Kuvio; Jonna Pennanen