Problem

Many people think of the library as a place to sit by themselves for hours, deep in research or homework, in complete silence only broken by the occasional typing of keys or turning of a page. While this is an important capacity, it can create an overall depressing, sterile, and oppressive atmosphere and deter people from going if this is their sole experience of what a library is.

Libraries, at their core, are more than just study spaces or resources for checking out books. When we talked to the children’s librarian at Ottendorfer Library in the East Village, she emphasized the idea of library as community center:

“A library is really one of the only spaces in a community open to anyone, free of charge, where people of all ages and demographics can congregate and benefit from the shared resources.”

This idea of a social library experience really captivated us, as we felt that it had been overlooked in our preliminary interviews and other libraries we had visited. My team wanted to focus on ways we could introduce more community engagement within libraries, and open up opportunities for socialization and conversation.

Research

User Research

As part of research, we visited libraries in the New York Public Library (NYPL) system and cold-interviewed people we found there. Talking to the children’s librarian inspired us to focus on interviewing parents who brought their children to the library, as we felt that they would especially benefit from a more community- oriented library experience. In total, we interviewed 9 members of our target demographic (4 caregivers and 5 parents).

From interviewing people at the library, we found that a lot of parents and caregivers (babysitters, nannies, etc) agreed that the library should be a social environment — a place where kids can socialize on their own and develop interpersonal skills. Many of them took advantage of the free library events for that reason, which ranged from weekly storytime and playtime to special/seasonal events like outdoor concerts and film festivals. However, they still faced some difficulties when it came to staying up to date on events, planning ahead, and figuring out which new events to go to.

“I’ve never thought about taking my child to an event before.”	“I mostly find events through word of mouth.”
“Sometimes it’s hard to keep track of which events are on which days.”	“Physical event flyers and calendars aren’t as helpful for non-English speakers.”
“Often I’ll get an email about an event and by that point it's too late to sign up.”	“I forget to go on the library calendar website unless I’m looking for something specific.”

We also interviewed parents who did not use the library for social purposes at all, and found that a lot of them simply lacked awareness of these free activities but would be interested in participating if it were easier to find out about them. Currently, they are only advertised through physical flyers in the library and a hard-to-use event search page on the NYPL website.

User Persona

We created a user persona based on the parents we interviewed, to summarize their needs and pain points and guide our thinking in the design phase.

Our findings naturally pushed us to ask:

"How might we help parents and their kids better connect with their communities through library events?"

Current NYPL Event Calendar

Before we could design an improvement, we had to research the current event search interface on the NYPL website.

The main problems we found with the current system are:

• Not conducive to browsing (just a long list of events to scroll through)
• Text-heavy, with little emphasis on important event details
• Requires user to adjust many filters each time they open the event calendar
• Hard to use for people who aren’t already familiar with library offerings

Rather than redesigning this, we wanted to design a completely new way for parents (and New Yorkers in general) to engage with their communities through their local libraries. We aimed to incorporate three aspects:

1. Personalization: Find events targeted to suit your demographics and interests.
2. Socialization: Interact with other members of the community to go to events together, or just keep in touch.
3. Organization: Make it easier to plan events around a busy schedule.

Competitive Analysis

To see how other platforms addressed these goals, we analyzed event apps (Ticketmaster, Eventbrite, Facebook Events) as well as social apps (Instagram, Discord).