<story><title>Helsinki Central Library chosen as the best new public library</title><url>https://www.oodihelsinki.fi/en/helsinki-central-library-oodi-chosen-as-the-best-new-public-library-in-the-world/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>enra</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m a Finn but been living in SF for the last few years. Went to Oodi couple of weeks ago was impressed by the facilities and the building. In addition to books, there were workstations, 3D printers, large format printers, sewing machines, video games, board games, kids play area, restaurant, and a cafe. Our startup also worked there for one day. There is free Wifi, a lot of chairs and places to sit and even meeting rooms you can book. Noise levels are also quite low that you can read or work, much better than in a regular cafe even in the large open spaces. They have seemed to have worked a lot on the acoustics.&lt;p&gt;There are also books you can read, borrow and return. The book selection seemed more recent&amp;#x2F;popular, not a lot of old books (still it has 100k books). To those that comment on the how little books there are: There are several other libraries in Helsinki that house old and vast amounts of books. Helsinki has nearly 40 public libraries and numerous scholarly libraries: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.myhelsinki.fi&amp;#x2F;en&amp;#x2F;see-and-do&amp;#x2F;sights&amp;#x2F;helsinki%E2%80%99s-most-beautiful-libraries&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.myhelsinki.fi&amp;#x2F;en&amp;#x2F;see-and-do&amp;#x2F;sights&amp;#x2F;helsinki%E2%8...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Overall it feels like a great place for people to go outside of their home or office to read, meet with people, take their kids to, and for free.&lt;p&gt;I uploaded a few mobile photos and videos if anyone is interested: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.dropbox.com&amp;#x2F;sh&amp;#x2F;z7ez8rhisktpaac&amp;#x2F;AAD7xd6xsCESP6LhJkC1Wmi9a?dl=0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.dropbox.com&amp;#x2F;sh&amp;#x2F;z7ez8rhisktpaac&amp;#x2F;AAD7xd6xsCESP6LhJ...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Helsinki Central Library chosen as the best new public library</title><url>https://www.oodihelsinki.fi/en/helsinki-central-library-oodi-chosen-as-the-best-new-public-library-in-the-world/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>zaroth</author><text>This is absolutely the new definition of “library”, and honestly though I came here to criticize an egotistical architectural exercise, after reading more about Oodi I am suitably impressed.&lt;p&gt;$100 million is an extremely good deal for what they got, and they say that &lt;i&gt;includes&lt;/i&gt; the equipment? I don’t quite believe they built it for that little.&lt;p&gt;My town (population ~15,000) wanted to build a new library last year — it was voted down as unnecessary — at a cost of almost &lt;i&gt;~$30 million&lt;/i&gt; for a two story 30,000 sq. ft building.&lt;p&gt;Oodi’s 185,000 square feet is an exquisite leisure center, and with up to 20,000 visitors a day sounds like a fantastic investment for Helsinki.</text></comment>