LeipzigRoom

This project by the Leipzig municipal libraries built a knowledge and creativity centre featuring a range of projects which organisations and members of urban community can use both experimentally and informally. For this purpose, the organisers created a “LeipzigRoom”, a 170-m2 room that now serves as an inspirational meeting place throughout the joint development process. The LeipzigRoom has a dual function. First, it allows the library to highlight its extensive collection of regional literature and authors and make selected historical holdings digitally and interactively accessible via a “virtual display window to the treasure vault”. Secondly, the room is available to residents, groups and organisations for use as a platform to develop and test their own formats, share ideas and knowledge with others, and find partners for their projects. By creating this common space, the municipal library hopes to strengthen social cohesion.

During the course of the project, the team at the municipal library set out to determine to what extent such a platform requires the supervision and direction of the library itself. One of its cooperation partners, the Stiftung Bürger für Leipzig (Citizens for Leipzig Foundation) held curated events and workshops in order to encourage visitors to participate and actively use the LeipzigRoom as a platform for their own ideas. In the long term, the municipal library would like to apply the same concept to its other branch libraries.

Partners: Stiftung Bürger für Leipzig (Citizens for Leipzig Foundation), Natural History Museum of Leipzig, Leipzig adult education centre, VILLA gGmbH Socio-Cultural Centre