Outdoor library book sale as an opportunity for "social bridging"/triangulation

Outdoor book sale, Friends of the Salt Lake City Library, Glendale branch

 

A couple weeks ago, I volunteered to help at an outdoor book sale held by the Friends of the Salt Lake City Library.  The Friends group is a master group, serving all of the libraries, and they work to do programming at all of the branches, including book sales.

 

Earlier this year they hit upon some serious innovation--they place the books on library rolling carts and they are organized by subject.  Heretofore they and most others I presume, had the books in boxes and then placed them on tables.

Fortunately, the Library is willing to drop off the carts, since they have to go around moving items from branch to branch anyway.  This means it takes just a few minutes to set up.  The process has been super simplified with all these changes.

Anyway, we set up the carts in three rows, with a decent sized aisle between each.  It was roomy but not overly wide.

And it turned out to provide the opportunity for people to talk to each other about books.  For example, someone picks up a book, while another person who has read the book noticed, and commented.

William H. Whyte and "triangulation."  Whyte, who had been editor of Fortune Magazine, became interested in cities and public space, and pioneered methods of urban observation, including filming people and how they used public space.  He wrote a couple of very important books on cities and activation, The Social Life of Small Urban Places and The City: Rediscovering the Center.

One of his concepts is what he called "triangulation," where people who didn't know each other talk to each other.  Triangulation is the process: 

in which a stimulus provides a social bond between people. Strangers are more likely to talk to one another in the presence of such a stimulus. The stimulus might be musicians, or street entertainers, or apiece of outdoor sculpture. Museum professionals will note the relation of these stimuli to landmark exhibits which have a similar effect.

Anne Lusk, in her dissertation on greenways, calls this a social bridge. and I like that term better, it sounds less "social sciency." 

I joke that in neighborhoods, kids--walking them around the block, in strollers, on playgrounds, etc., and dogs--walking them, are the primary social bridges in neighborhoods. 

The opportunity for triangulation is fostered by designing spaces that provide for these kinds of opportunities. 

It was serendipitous at this book sale, and in part it was a function of people into books wanting to share their experiences, with others. It was fostered by the way the tables and books were organized, that there were sections for kids books, bagged book specials where you paid a low price but got multiple books, but you didn't know what was in the bag til you bought and opened it, DVDs, etc. 

Lusk wrote about how to design greenways to promote social interaction: 

Except for a minimal number of elements, the environment does not facilitate interaction between strangers. While someone could hold open a door and a person passing through could say thank you, necessary ADA regulations are making many doors automatic. 

If social capital is to be increased and interaction between people who know one another and people who do not know one another improved, environments that might foster positive interaction should be built. At the destinations, social bridge elements could be incorporated in the built environment. These social bridge elements include four types:  

1) Assist, 2) Connect, 3) Observe, and 4) In Absentia. 

An assist social bridge is the built element that allows one person to assist another person. A connect social bridge is a form of William Whyte's triangulation where a third element is watched, such as people kayaking, and strangers talk as friends. An observe social bridge is the positive feeling when a kindness is witnessed and that kindness is facilitated by the element in the built environment. An in absentia social bridge could be experienced in the perception of the person who created or maintained the space for the enjoyment of the recipient. 

And we need to think about that more broadly, in terms of both design of spaces but also programming ("The layering effect: how the building blocks of an integrated public realm set the stage for community building").  And once again, David Barth's integrated public realm framework.

 

Also see "Strangers are good for us," an op-ed by David Sax in the New York Times.  From the article:

Far from random human inconveniences, strangers are actually one of the richest and most important resources we have. They connect us to the community, teach us empathy, build civility and are full of surprise and potentially wonder. 

 

“I’ve spent many years studying the people who are the furthest out of our social networks, and they really do add a richness to our life that we miss when we’re not there,” said Gillian Sandstrom, a senior lecturer at the University of Essex, whose research has demonstrated how the small, transactional relationships we create by talking to strangers are important pillars of our social and emotional well-being.