What's the Third Place? Third places are environments where people congregate, other than home or work. The first place is obviously home, where concenteate our family life, and the secod place is usually the workplace, where we spend most of our daytime. For kids and teens the second place is their school, which is a kind of workplace for youth. The Third Place should be “the anchor” of community life and facilitate creative interactions between citizens.

According to Ray Oldenburg's concept of third places presented in his book "The Great Good Place", there are six hallmarks of that kind of places. First of all library is free or inexpensive. That's correct. In my town it's totally free. There's no charge for a library card or annual contributions for the purchase of new books. Secondly, food and drink, while not essential, are important. I agree. Although when I only come to borrow books it is not necessary, but during the meetings or workshops coffee, tee or cookies are a very good addition. It's a standard in my local public library.
Thirdly, library should be highly accessible, proximate for many. For me and my family library that's true. We can walk to the library and it takes about five minutes. But it can be problematic for other townspeople. My town isn't big, counts about six thousand inhabitants, but streets and houses extend over a large area. Is library involve regulars? Of course. My library has a senior club, regular workshops for kids, English and German classes, computer workshops and many projects for kids, teens, adults and seniors. Third place should be alsko welcoming and comfortable and my library really is. The building is neither new nor historic. In fact, there's also not enough space. There's no separate reading room nor quiet study. The conference room is small and is both an art gallery and group study. However, there is a friendly atmosphere here. The staff is helpful and with a good attitude, what is very important for me. The last hallmark of third place is “both new friends and old should be found there”. For me and my library it is true. I can meet there my old friends from highschool and people from my neighbourhood. I meet there also a lot of new people: much older and much younger, who live in other parts of town.

For many people the Third Place is a local pub or café. In my opinion in that kind of place occurs not enough crative interactions. It's rather a kind of leisure or “spending time” in the literal sense. For many the church can fill this role, but some scholars define the Third Place as neutral ground with no obligation to be there, which is not consistent with the principles of most religions. Interestingly, some companies also want to be the Third Place. For example, Starbucks goal is to become the Third Place in our daily lives, but for now, there is no Starbucks cafes in small towns.

My public library of course could be better as the Third Place. The main problem is the building. It's to small, with steep stairs, architecturally unattractive. Ironically, there's a beautiful baroque palace in my city. It is located in a park in the center of town at the junction of the main streets. For many years there was a boarding school, but since 2010 the building is empty. It could be a great seat of library with place for art gallery, enough storage rooms, silence studies, bigger conference room and car park, but it belongs to the prefecture and the municipality can't use it for their own needs.

In many publications we can find a lot of criticism about libraries changing into a meeting places with food and drink, cultural and entertain offers. In my opinion library can be the Third Place and still be library. Traditional model of libraries as quiet repositories of books and materials is changing. I strongly belive, that's a good way. More and more people are reading e-books, more and more books are available in the repositories of digital libraries. If local library want to be still an important and living place for local community, it has to evolve and take the challenges of new times. There's no other culture center in my town. The Public Library is the one and only. Also for financial reasons is a good opportunity for the local community to fulfill by the library the role of the Third Place.

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