@nini @paavi @scottjenson It's right smack middle of the city, right next to the main railway station, so you're right in that it's designed to be a lot more than your average library.

Having said that, a lot of local libraries are in buildings that also house community centres, so they'll also have cafes, small cinemas, small meeting rooms, small spaces for art exhibitions, 3D printers and sewing machines and some other odd pieces you can take out with a library card, besides the books and CDs

@nini @paavi @scottjenson In Finland we have a comprehensive law about public libraries which not only dictates that every municipality has to offer library service free of charge but also what that service should promote. Beyond the expected access to information and reading culture, the law also lists things like "opportunities for lifelong learning and competence development", "equal opportunities for everyone to access education and culture", and "active citizenship, democracy and freedom of expression". Oodi is really a showcase of one way how that can be done. That is why it is not like the traditional image of library most people have.

A sidenote: the movie theater is not run by the library but by The Finnish Art and Culture Agency. One of their main purposes is to preserve Finnish audiovisual history and they show films from times gone by - not the newest hits. Which I think is a great fit with a library.

@anzah @paavi @scottjenson you simply are incorrect about the main library. Pasila still is the main library in Helsinki, even if Oodi is a physically bigger building and a flashier library. It plainly says so also on the Helmet website: https://helmet.finna.fi/OrganisationInfo/Home#84924

What does it mean if something is called the main library? It means a bunch of administrative stuff. Beyond the library services available for customers in Pasila they also have all the cataloguing and handling of new library materials, the logistics center for Helsinki libraries, the Helmet book depository, home base of the two mobile libraries Helsinki has, the national level library services Helsinki has responsibility for (for example the Multilingual Library), and probably a bunch of other centralized services I don't know/remember as someone who works in library but not in Helsinki.