It has been quite a first day at ALA Midwinter Meeting. I just saw Bill Clinton and Martha Coakley in my hotel (entirely by accident- quite a surprise), I managed to see a really fun holography exhibit at the MIT Museum, and I walked a very, very long way around Boston on an unseasonably mild day. The highlight of the day was finally getting a chance to see the Chinatown Storefront Library though.

Its lucky I got to check out this innovative little storefront today because this will be its last weekend in operation. The Storefront library is (was) an agile, flexible, library space designed to act as an advocacy effort and publicity piece supporting the creation of a Chinatown branch of Boston Public Library. It was a very successful project, and it will be exciting to see what its effect will be. No doubt the community will miss it greatly. I met Leslie and Sam Davol of
Below, Simmons LIS students Adam Robinson and Sharon Tomasulo show off their customer service skills…

Below, the children’s book ‘pod’. Furniture and program for the space was done by a team of Harvard design students.

Below, the popular newspaper reading room…

Below, the Drawing Lab, by artist Deborah Putnoi

Kudos to the Boston Street Lab and everyone who participated in this innovative project that boldly rethought public library service from the ground up. Other libraries should look to the discoveries made here and consider their own service models closely.