I'm fully remote and finding places to get away resonates. I tried the library, but the artificial lighting, lack of infrastructure (especially large monitors) and maybe also the lack of a more social space where you are actually allowed to talk made it a less than ideal experience.

But I concur that libraries as places for people to meet and do some sort of intellectual goal-oriented activity (as opposed to bars and other places of entertainment) are a great idea. I like what cities like Helsinki have done with Oodi, a library that also offers workspaces for people to do all sorts of things.

I totally feel what you mean about design. The library I used back in university was really tasteless and carelessly designed (if we can even call it "designed"), and I wouldn’t have used it if I didn’t have to. This one, I got lucky.

I hope both the authorities and the public will continue, more and more, to do their best to make libraries more valuable and beautiful.