The future next to the bookshelf

A swarm of cockchafer robots buzzes across the sun-warmed parquet floor of the Central Library. One step forward, turn left, one step forward, turn right. Two girls in leggings conduct the beetle ballet, their primary school class is a guest in the "Robolab" today. Teaching how to train mechanical beetles has long been part of the remit of the staff at Hamburg's largest bookshop, as has picture book cinema and looking after a colony of ants. Because what happens next to the shelves is at least as important for the future of the library as the stock between the bookends.

The tour with bookshop director Frauke Untiedt goes quickly because she is always one step ahead of us. We meet: People in comfortable chairs, many of whom are reading on screens, crumbling toddlers in the café and a debating couple of older newspaper readers; in the youth library, a couple poring over biology books and four boys in winter jackets and woolly hats playing Fifa on the Playstation.

Who needs knowledge in book form anyway?

"Anyone who works here should enjoy the people who come in the door," says Frauke Untiedt. Before the coronavirus pandemic began, 4,500 people visited the Central Library on a normal weekday - "we're not quite back to that yet". But since the end of the restrictions, many people have been coming back, and since November 2022 between 2,000 and 2,400 people have visited the library during the five opening hours on Sundays. Measured by this, the Bücherhallen are one of the city's most popular cultural institutions.

It's amazing when you consider that many municipal libraries were as good as written off in the early 2000s. Who still needs knowledge in book form in the age of the internet - and then a whole library full of them? According to Frauke Untiedt today, the bookshops' desire for change was also initially born out of necessity. Under her predecessor in office, public funding for the Hamburger Bücherhallen Foundation was drastically cut, and from 57 locations in 1995, 33 were left in 2009 that still exist today.

In order to counter the austerity measures, even in existing centres, the foundation's management opted for complete automation of core operations. In the central library, the large sorting machine - which can be seen behind glass in the foyer - is evidence of this, as is the fact that all visitors from primary school to retirement age have to borrow and return their books themselves at a computer terminal.

Freedom for innovation

"It was only the elimination of stereotypical tasks that created the freedom to do new things," says Frauke Untiedt today. Because at its core, it has always been about more than just books.

The Hamburg Kreativ Gesellschaft's Cultural Innovation Lab is about precisely this "more than", about broadening one's own perspective and developing new, complementary business areas. Programmes like these support organisations in breaking new ground. Step by step, what seems ubiquitous is scrutinised and confronted with ideas that have not yet been thought of in this way. New perspectives quickly emerge and, in the case of the Bücherhallen, ideas for completely new programmes.

"The greatest value of the Cultural Innovation Lab is that the programme encourages people to think outside the box," says Frauke Untiedt. A team from the Bücherhallen took part in the innovation programme in December 2022. In a process lasting several days, they developed specific approaches for new business models - including in the context of the sharing economy - with the support of creative consultants Melanie Obrist and Ralf Harder.

"For example, the question was: Why shouldn't we also lend out things that don't belong to us?" says Frauke Untiedt. There is already some initial experience of this. The Bücherhallen have collected Ukrainian-language literature from private collections for refugees from Ukraine, on loan until their own collections have been replenished. "But of course we could take this further" - from lending out media or other useful items from private collections, to more flexible returns at network locations, to automating logistics - "we move large quantities of material around the city every day."

Looking back, Frauke Untiedt says that the workshop resulted in concrete proposals. But they also learnt to think about their own topics in a new way. An approach that falls on fertile ground in the bookshops. The team recently massively extended the opening hours of the district libraries with the help of an automated access system. Anyone who wants to go to the library in Lokstedt at 9.30 pm today simply opens the door themselves. Perhaps to borrow a book. Or not. There are plenty of options.