The Library Laboratory of Chemnitz Public Library

Digitization of society is going ahead and is also invigorating libraries. Due to social change, they redefine their role and develop themselves from well-known places of media consumption and media reproduction to places of media production. The Chemnitz Public Library is trying to answer the question of how libraries can fulfill this role with a project of a library laboratory called “Biblab-C”. The project started in autumn 2020 and will run until the end of 2022. The laborary, which is intended to be a place of experimentation, consists of digital and analogue intervention areas, in which social participation is made possible and people are offered a platform for progression. On the project were created environments with the areas “Perceiving” with media selection and a gaming zone, “Producing” a makerspace with audio studio and media studio and “Sharing” an open space. Together with a network of project partners from the Chemnitz cultural and creative scene, a wide variety of event formats are tried out and implemented. The project aims to support library users in developing analog and digital media skills in a low-threshold and non-commercial way. The provision of easy-to-use technology and software opens up new fields of activity for users. In this way the Public Library would like to enable the citizens of our city not only to participate in digital development, but also to help shape this transformation process actively. In addition, the aim is to strengthen civic engagement as well as to enable social negotiation processes at a central and safe space and in the long run to create an area for testing sustainable library offers and thus to achieve even greater participation by the city society of Chemnitz with its public library. The poster will illustrate the work of the library laboratory and make clear observations on the development process of the new role of libraries.