NS Library
Starting from the fact that the goal of public libraries is to contribute to the quality of life and the development of people's awareness of themselves and others, these institutions are faced with the need to design very numerous and diverse functions. In this sense, the City Library of Novi Sad, located in a non-purpose building and one of the oldest buildings in the city, requires elementary technical and functional remodeling.
The question about the role and position of libraries today and in the future is often asked. We would like to believe that library funds in electronic form are not a replacement but a supplement to existing collections so that even the Internet will not reduce the need for classic libraries. However, this belief must be doubted - the company "Google", for example, is planning one of its projects to scan all the books that have ever been published. The practical need to visit libraries will be reduced, the question is whether these comprehensive electronic collections will reduce the desire of users to read certain books traditionally. In the "fight" for users, every public library today, including the City Library, asks itself specific questions: How to approach new generations of users? How to take care of young "readers"? How to adapt the offer and the way of presentation of the content and work of the library to the perception of the modern user, who is most often looking for entertainment? Dealing with the typology of museum objects, Nikolas Pevsner came to the conclusion that their architectural articulation oscillates between two models: monument and instrument. Something similar can be said for libraries. Like museums, they have been cumulative points of nations, states, and cities throughout history, so the buildings in which they are housed were built as an expression of identity and the embodiment of permanence. Thus, the City Library is housed in a building that, although not particularly pompous, still belongs to the oldest city core and as a cultural monument is part of the collective consciousness of immutability. Therefore, the use of modern architectural language in achieving the mentioned goals is a necessity, but also a challenge.
