The Idea Store: Judith St John at TEDxEastEnd
[Music] I'm really excited about being on home turf to talk about idea Stores um for those of you that don't know what they are I'm going to take you on a little journey with me back a few years to tell you what an idea store is and why we think they are the future for uh public libraries and why they're important more widely uh a little bit about me before we start I have lived and worked in East London for 20-some years and I have seen those changes I have seen the things that have impacted on people's lives and I think in a certain sense a lot of what we do in the idea store is very much about understanding the context within which we're working so come back with me back in time back in time before the Millennium just uh I'd say about 1999 998 and Tower hamlets which is just uh west of here had the worst Library service in London 32 London barers including the city and we were 33 can you believe it how did that happen so definitely something had to be done and one of the key things that we decided to do which was it wasn't particularly revolutionary although now when I look back at it it probably was was not to do anything before we spoke to people so we spent two years having conversations with local people about what they wanted what their aspirations were why they thought a public library potentially was a good thing and why they thought it was crap that's a technical term by the way oh I've got to admit something to you I am not a librarian sh don't tell so two years of really intense conversation with people and we did that through a a a relatively wide Network we did it through schools community centers with older people we did it with people who were in the business sector because remember at that time Canary Warf was really starting to take off so we recognized that there was something very different and catalytic happening in East London at that point and it seemed to me really important that we tapped into that so the way that the idea store developed really was we did take a step back and we did listen to what people said and the things that they said were actually pretty straightforward we we want to go to places that are where we go in the normal course of Our Lives we don't want to have to make a special trip to go somewhere to get some information to do a course to take a book out to watch a DVD or whatever it may be Oh I thought makes sense second thing that they told us we want a place that makes us feel good about ourselves we don't want to have to go somewhere and feel that we have to beg for the information that we have to beg people to give us the things that we're interested in I thought fair enough and I think the third key thing that they said which really resonates with us to this day is it needs to belong to us and that message of creating a space and it doesn't matter whether it's a public library a school a sports club it does not actually matter this place here that we're in today Stratford circus is a pretty good example of it doesn't actually matter about the context it's all about people feeling that the place belongs to them and that they can actually get what they need out of it so having gathered that information we then spent a little bit of time with the rich people you have to be able to sell your idea of what it is that you want to people who have got the means to make it happen and as I said we were lucky enough at that point in time to have Canary Warf just starting to really motor and we were able through a challenge where we said for every pound that we raise you'll match us with two quid and they said oh all right then 25 million quid later thank you very much so yeah it's very important set your set your aim high make sure that you get it right on the screen behind me here you'll be seeing images just flicking through and there's some key things about the way in which we do business that I think ring true even now and will take us forward so one of the key things that we did was we did look at what was good in the retail areas and we went and looked at places that we thought were cool and funky and where they had that customer interaction absolutely right and I felt very very strongly that when you go into an idea store you should feel that thing you should feel that love you should feel that there are people in there who are interested in you who have something to say and that those people might be your neighbor they might not necessarily be the staff with the ideas store uniform on but you're going to go into a place where you will meet people from all walks of life all sorts of different backgrounds and be able to have a really good human interaction with them and so as a result we put some key things in place to enable that to happen I have uh few things that I really hate can I share them with you things that I hate number one I really hate going into a place and seeing somebody who's not paying attention because I've come there for a reason and it may well be that I don't need a huge amount of attention but just a little bit and this is what happen to me because I am a bit like Mary um queen of shops I go into other libraries and I observe and this is a true story so this is one of my pet hates I'm not going to name the library because it'd be a bit unfair wouldn't it went in and I stood in front of the desk and I said I've got my card here and I'd really like to know how to use your catalog cuz you know apparently we have a shared catalog in London who knew fantastic and the person behind the desk didn't look me in the eye kept doing something very important sticking it was was a print stick there you know about quite a bit of glue and stuff and she just said you know what computer doesn't work and that was that computer doesn't work in other words there's no way that I am going to interact with you because basically I can't be bothered so one of my pet hates is people who can't be bothered I would say that the flip side of that is a passion you got to have a passion for what you're doing and you have to be able to communicate that passion to people so we've spent quite a lot of time in the idea store which people don't like some people who don't know us they don't like the name ideas store what's that all about you know it's a fantastic name does what it says on the tin Library learning information what more could you want for us it's very very important to communicate that passion so we do have a bit of a brand going and I think that for a library service that was Radical at the time it isn't so radical now everybody's doing it but I like to think we were the first who cottoned on to the fact that you should be able to communicate the things that matter to you through the way in which people look and feel and experience the buildings that you've created the people that you've put in them and the resources that are in there last thing that I want to leave you with we are on a journey here at the moment in the UK Public Library services are under attack and they're under attack because they're not valued by people and politically I think that people feel people who are making decisions often feel that they're an easy target just get rid of them nobody's going to worry about it my feeling is we have to be careful here because not every library is a good library and what we actually want to be doing which I think we've done quite well in the idea stores is communicating with people creating spaces of social cohesion that allow people to come in and create the things that they need in their lives so for me it's not about saving libraries across the board far from it it's about creating excellent Library services that have relevance to people in the future future so last thing that I really wanted to share with you is here we are in the middle of I think one of the worst recessions that we will ever see and in six months time a new idea store will open its stores in one of the most deprived areas of East London Watney market and that building will engender everything I think that is good in terms of Technology access to information and giving people opportunities to do things that they would never never ever have had the chance to do and if there's one thing that I would like to do and leave you with it's to ask you to go back into whatever area of work or life or volunteering whatever it is that you do and have a little think about whether you have really really spoken to the people who you're doing what you're doing for and whether what you're doing is absolutely the thing that is going to take you forward in the future because I think without that we will get stuck and I think that we won't have public services libraries whatever you might want to call them which are fit for the future so I'm Judith