---
title: Libraries
type: taxonomy_archive
taxonomy: topic
slug: libraries
term_id: 240
permalink: "https://worldcitiescultureforum.com/topic/libraries/"
post_count: 10
---

# Libraries

Posts in this archive: 10

- [Heritage Infrastructure: Transforming İstanbul’s 19th-century Rami Barracks into Rami Library](https://worldcitiescultureforum.com/wp-content/uploads/wp-mfa-exports/city-project/istanbul-rami-library.md) — The transformation of İstanbul’s 19th-century Rami Barracks into the Rami Library has created one of Türkiye’s largest cultural hubs, blending heritage conservation with innovative services to support lifelong learning, research, and community life.
- [Library Strategy: How Lisbon Library Network is strengthening libraries as a cultural and social ecosystem](https://worldcitiescultureforum.com/wp-content/uploads/wp-mfa-exports/city-project/lisbon-library-network.md) — The Lisbon Library Network functions as an integrated municipal system connecting libraries across the city’s neighbourhoods. The network’s Strategic Programme 2025–2035 ensures that this ecosystem continues to thrive, adapting to technological, social and urban transformations while reinforcing the library’s role at the heart of Lisbon’s cultural policy.
- [Cultural Infrastructure: How Paris integrated a media library and a refugee house](https://worldcitiescultureforum.com/wp-content/uploads/wp-mfa-exports/city-project/james-baldwin-media-library-and-refugee-house-paris.md) — The James-Baldwin Media Library and the Refugee House form a pioneering dual institution located in the former Jean-Quarré High School in Paris’s 19th arrondissement. Designed to serve both local residents and newcomers, this collaborative cultural and social hub fosters community integration, mutual understanding, and inclusive access to public services. The two facilities represent a bold response to contemporary urban challenges through innovative use of public space.
- [How Seoul's Outdoor Libraries redefined public reading spaces across the city](https://worldcitiescultureforum.com/wp-content/uploads/wp-mfa-exports/city-project/seoul-outdoor-library.md) — Seoul’s Outdoor Library initiative, launched in 2022, redefines urban public spaces by transforming them into open-air reading environments. With installations in Seoul Plaza, Gwanghwamun Square, and Cheonggyecheon Stream, the programme offers diverse literary and cultural experiences. Attracting over five million visitors by 2024, it has revitalised reading habits, inspired nationwide adoption, and earned international recognition, showcasing the power of innovative cultural policy in urban settings.
- [Library Lab: Stockholm using UX methods to improve libraries](https://worldcitiescultureforum.com/wp-content/uploads/wp-mfa-exports/city-project/stockholm-library-lab.md) — To deepen cultural participation, Stockholm City Library has embedded user experience (UX) methods into daily practice across its 40 branches. At the Library Lab in Liljeholmen, launched in 2024 as a four-year experiment, staff use agile, user-led sprints to co-design future library services with local residents. From parent breakfasts to youth-led space redesigns, the Lab gathers insights to inform a major new library. The initiative has become a model for inclusive, needs-driven cultural infrastructure.
- [How Cologne used culture to revive Neumarkt Square](https://worldcitiescultureforum.com/wp-content/uploads/wp-mfa-exports/city-project/cologne-cultural-activation-of-neumarkt-square.md) — Once Cologne’s historic Neumarkt square was better known for decline than community. In 2023, the city launched Take a Seat—a cultural programme combining temporary architecture, performances, and community co-creation—to reclaim the square as a safe, vibrant civic space. Over two summer months, Neumarkt was transformed into a hub of cultural life, offering a model for how cities can use culture to spark urban renewal.
- [One Dublin, One Book brings the city together through literature](https://worldcitiescultureforum.com/wp-content/uploads/wp-mfa-exports/city-project/one-dublin-one-book-2.md) — Every April since 2005, Dublin residents have been encouraged to read the same book either written by a Dubliner or connected with the capital city, through the One Dublin, One Book campaign. To mark the 20th year of this mass cultural participation event, Dublin City Council and Dublin UNESCO City of Literature commissioned an anthology of 22 poets and writers to capture Dublin in the first quarter of the century.
- [How are cultural spaces in cities tackling the loneliness epidemic?    ](https://worldcitiescultureforum.com/wp-content/uploads/wp-mfa-exports/post/loneliness-in-cities.md) — From libraries reimagined as “people’s homes,” to outdoor reading plazas in Seoul and community gardens in New York, cities are finding creative ways to transform public spaces into places of connection. These cultural spaces aren’t just venues for books, art, or history—they are lifelines for belonging, wellbeing, and social bonds in an increasingly isolated urban world.
- [Overview of Key Data](https://worldcitiescultureforum.com/wp-content/uploads/wp-mfa-exports/report/data-headlines-report-5th-edition.md) — Key data headlines from the 5th edition of the World Cities Culture Report, covering cultural infrastructure, events and participation in culture across cities.
- [3rd Edition](https://worldcitiescultureforum.com/wp-content/uploads/wp-mfa-exports/report/world-cities-culture-report-2018-3rd-edition.md) — Exploring global cities' cultural impact on life through their policies, emphasising their pivotal role in shaping urban culture. Against a backdrop of a changing world order, increasingly divisive national politics and crises of national identity in countries around the globe, the World Cities Culture Report 2018 highlights a change in approach from local governments in world cities. Recognising that cultural investment over the last 20 years has sometimes unintentionally contributed to social pressures in global cities, the report finds that urban cultural policy is shifting towards more egalitarian and citizen-centred models.