Today's libraries are active community hubs that encourage personal enrichment, meaningful collaboration and creation of content. As embedded community institutions, public libraries can provide accessible and flexible infrastructure for community gatherings, activities and civic engagement functions of all kinds, in addition to information access in multiple formats. Expanding library capacity in this community engagement role presents opportunities for evolution in physical space and resources that connect people with both their local and global community.

The 46-page guide, Transforming Library Spaces for Community Engagement, includes sections to help libraries and library staff to:

• Create a Community Vision: Recognize the role of community input in a space planning process, and access strategies for obtaining this input to guide your efforts and related communications with internal and external stakeholders.
• Design Your Space: Gain familiarity with the intersecting technical and creative considerations for launching a space transformation, and how to implement those considerations at your library.
• Sustain Your Space: Consider how community engagement in a space transformation can happen at every stage of the process, whether in the planning, in the design or in the implementation of services or programs in the space.
• Space Planning in Action: Learn more about the space planning process from the unique perspectives of two libraries that have implemented transformations with their communities.

Also included as an Appendix is a section on Project Planning 101, which reviews best practices to launch a space-planning project with a process-oriented mindset, and provides sample worksheets to support the planning and execution of your space transformation.

Space transformations can be big and small, and this free resource from WebJunction can help provide the inspiration and guidance to help you get started and lead a successful project.