Editorial
A real page-turner

BENJAMIN BENSCHNEIDER / THE SEATTLE TIMES The Seattle Central Library looms over Fourth and Madison.

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A bookish city like Seattle deserves a shrine to its favorite pastime. With today's opening of the stunning new Central Library, the community will have such a place.

The library designed by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas is a spectacular, if a little odd, soaring glass-and-steel structure. It will be a grand addition to the downtown renaissance under way since former Mayor Norm Rice pushed to re-invigorate the central city.

Architectural critics are running out of superlatives for the dazzling polygonal library, calling it the most exciting, most important and most exhilarating building they have seen in years.

Seattle is not like other cities, content to build only sports stadiums and concert halls. At our core we are a city of book lovers who clamor for a gathering place to read, do research and while away a rainy afternoon.

The new library is equal parts vision and persistence. Dynamo librarian Deborah Jacobs combined the best of both to achieve a triumph.

For a decade, citizens have wanted a more fitting monument to reading than the old dark, cramped library that stood on the same block. Voters approved the Libraries for All bond measure in 1998, but the push began in 1994 when the Rice administration tried to convince voters to approve new branch libraries and a new downtown library.

The proposal fell short of a required 60-percent threshold, but 57 percent of Seattleites, even at that time, wanted to invest in and improve libraries. The city is passionately bookish and proud of it.

Fortunately, the vision was bigger than one mayor or one City Council. Former Mayor Paul Schell, capitalizing on the optimism of the roaring 1990s, persuaded voters to invest in a state-of the-art-library system downtown and new, improved libraries in the neighborhoods. It was a forword-looking vote that proved Seattle cared about more than downtown monumentalism.

The new Central Library is a brilliant blend of old-fashioned ink on paper and the latest technology. It has 400 public computers; the old library had 70. Librarians are wired for easy communication anywhere in the building.

A most important feature is a place dubbed the mixing chamber, the central reference area also referred to as the "trading floor for information." This fifth-floor spot will be the starting point for many library users who eventually will be guided to the innovative, gradual zigzag ramps of the book spiral.

There, book stacks follow the Dewey Decimal System in ascending order. Other libraries have subjects defined by floor; this library features materials filed by number, no matter how many new books arrive at the library every year.

If the old library was dingy and dark, the new place is airy and light — designed to capture every possible view of the cityscape and the water. The light, as one librarian remarked, is very close to enlightenment.

If the old library was Seattle gray, the new one is a box of bright crayons. Yellow chartreuse defines vertical transportation — the escalators, elevators and inner stairs. Interior modern-art furniture is purple, pink and orange. Carpeting in select locations is filled with vivid colors and jazzy patterns.

The downside of the new building is the library hours. The library debuts at a time when city government has limited operating dollars. The new building will be open only 58 hours a week, down from 70 hours a few years ago; that's only 1 p.m. to 5 on Sundays, only three weekday evenings until 8. Skimpy hours are destined to disappoint. Once the city reaches sounder financial footing, hours should be expanded.

The Central Library was designed by Koolhaas and Joshua Ramus and has modern Dutch flourishes, including use of inexpensive materials made to look elegant. They worked in a joint-venture partnership with local architects LMN, led by John Nesholm.

Seattle's new library is a winner. It will be loved. It will be a destination attraction. And it will serve book lovers well for a very long time.