Review of How to Study Public Life (2013) by Jan Gehl and Birgitte Svarre. Island Press, 200 pp., $40.

by J. Morgan Rowe-Morris

For at least 20 years, librarians have been using third place theory to explain the importance of libraries to their communities.¹ We have seized on Oldenburg and Brisset’s theory² as a way of justifying and conceptualizing the important work that libraries do in their communities. This argument borrows from sociology and urbanism a vocabulary to talk about a concept that both librarians and their patrons knew intuitively. The library as place matters. This isn't a new concept, nor is the idea of a third place necessary to stress the importance of the library as a vital public space.³ The theory of the third place provides a useful conceptual framework and a formal language that extends beyond library science.

We see this concretely in the way our organizations describe themselves. My institution’s Campus Master Plan describes our central library thus: “The library is the second campus hub, alongside the University Center, where students gather for study, collaboration, creative pursuits, and relaxation.”⁴ The library is “a hub of learning, socializing, and creative work” and is “one of the most intensely used buildings on campus.”⁵ On my campus, the library is a vital center of public life and valued alongside other centers of campus life like the University Center. My former institution and our supporting stakeholders used similar language to describe our role as a large urban public library.⁶ My colleagues from school libraries use similar language to describe the role of their libraries in their learning community.

Despite this acknowledgement of the role of libraries in the public life of our varied communities and promotion of the library as a public space, the library literature has little to say about how librarians should evaluate libraries as public space, or what makes some libraries spaces better than others. We look at gate counts and computer usage but know relatively little about what our patrons do while they are in the library. Most library workers have an understanding of what works and what doesn’t in their spaces,⁷ but there is little way to formalize that knowledge or communicate it to the decision makers in our institutions.

Our disciplinary foundation is limited and often focused on assessing limited sets of library use like seating.⁸ Here, we can turn to other disciplines for help. While urban design is largely focused on the spaces between buildings, I would argue that the library as a public space is a suitable object for study using the urban design research method called public life study.

How to Study Public Life by Jan Gehl and Birgitte Svarre is intended to introduce urban designers to the use of direct observation in the assessment of public space. In contrast to the digital surveillance methods of smart city urbanism and algorithmic public management, public life study emphasizes the role of the trained observer in the process of understanding how people behave in public spaces and why they behave that way.⁹ It is an inherently human process that is about transforming observation into understanding.

This is a relatively short book and written in an approachable style that avoids unexplained jargon. The research notes chapter prevents brief case studies of different public life studies. The public life studies in practice looks at the life of a handful of studied cities after observation and intervention. The final chapter discusses the role of public life studies in policy formation. The question framework, tools and case studies are most likely to be useful to librarians. These sections of the book introduce, in general terms, a set of tools that can be readily adapted by librarians evaluating their spaces.

It isn’t hard to see how libraries could adapt the study looking at the effect of fear on traffic patterns in Copenhagen or the examination of how the number and placement of benches affects space use in Oslo. These are questions that impact our space every day. Likewise, the application of mapping, tracing and counting techniques to libraries seems intuitive.

This approach can begin to help us systematize our knowledge of our spaces as spaces. Serious uses of public life study will require additional work and reading,¹⁰ but as an introduction to a way that we can learn from our buildings¹¹ and improve our spaces, it provides a productive starting point.

I believe an understanding of public life study can serve two important roles for librarians. It can help us to better understand the use of our spaces, and it can help us formalize and communicate the things we know about our libraries. In the first case, public life study lets us know our spaces in ways that go beyond our own preconceptions and fears. We can begin to answer the question of what spaces in our buildings are actually of use to our patrons,¹² and to what use our patrons put the spaces that we have provided. In the second case, librarians and library workers know important things about our spaces and services.

Often, we understand through hard-earned experience important details about how our spaces function. If we can formalize and communicate that knowledge we can, perhaps, avoid repeating past mistakes and make our spaces more functional and inviting.

This book doesn’t do that alone—there is much work within the discipline that still needs to be done—but as a starting point for library workers interested in learning from their spaces and administrators interested in making better decisions about the library as a place for people, it serves admirably.

Notes

• 1. Going back at least to Kevin Harris, “Your Third Place or Mine?,” Public Library Journal 18, no. 2 (2003): 26–29.
• 2. Ramon Oldenburg and Dennis Brissett, “The Third Place,” Qualitative Sociology 5, no. 4 (1982): 265–84, https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00986754; Ray Oldenburg, The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Community Centers, Beauty Parlors, General Stores, Bars, Hangouts and How They Get You through the Day (Paragon, 1989).
• 3. For a good conversation of alternate theoretical groundings see Gloria J. Leckie, “Three Perspectives on Libraries as Public Space,” Feliciter 50, no. 6 (2004): 233–36.
• 4. SMITHGROUP, UTA Campus Master Plan Update (University of Texas at Arlington, 2025).
• 5. SMITHGROUP, UTA Campus Master Plan Update.
• 6. This was constant during my time at Dallas Public Library and has continued after. See Bethany Erickson, “Eric Klinenberg Is Keynote Speaker for Friends of Dallas Public LIbrary Luncheon,” D Magazine, April 21, 2026, https://www.dmagazine.com/arts-entertainment/2026/04/dallas-public-library-eric-klinenberg-literary-lions/; Maria Ramos Pacheco, “Residents Oppose Library Closures, Want Funding,” Metro & State, Dallas Morning News, The (TX), March 18, 2026, America’s News – Historical and Current.
• 7. This very definitely includes paraprofessional and support staff. As librarian numbers reduce and librarians are moved off of service points the expertise in our spaces often moves to library assistants, security guards and others. These staffers often have even less access to decision makers than librarians.
• 8. Two excellent examples of the literature in the field are: Lisa M. Given and Gloria J. Leckie, “‘Sweeping’ the Library: Mapping the Social Activity Space of the Public Library,” Library & Information Science Research 25, no. 4 (2003): 365–85, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0740-8188(03)00049-5; Gricel Dominguez, “Beyond Gate Counts: Seating Studies and Observations to Assess Library Space Usage,” New Library World 117, no. 5/6 (2016): 321–28, https://doi.org/10.1108/NLW-08-2015-0058.
• 9. Jan Gehl and Birgitte Svarre, How to Study Public Life (Island Press/Center for Resource Economics, 2013), https://doi.org/10.5822/978-1-61091-525-0.
• 10. Helpfully, Gehl and Svarre provide a fairly comprehensive reading list in the history chapter.
• 11. And how they can learn from us. See Stewart Brand, How Buildings Learn: What Happens after They’re Built(Penguin Books, 1995).
• 12. Harkening back here to Ranganthan. Our spaces, like books, should be for use. S. R. Ranganathan, The Five Laws of Library Science (Madras Library Association and Edward Goldston, 1931), https://repository.arizona.edu/handle/10150/105454.

Bibliography

• Brand, Stewart. How Buildings Learn: What Happens after They're Built. Penguin Books, 1995.
• Dominguez, Gricel. “Beyond Gate Counts: Seating Studies and Observations to Assess Library Space Usage.” New Library World 117, no. 5/6 (2016): 321-328. https://doi.org/10.1108/NLW-08-2015-0058.
• Erickson, Bethany. “Eric Klinenberg Is Keynote Speaker for Friends of Dallas Public LIbrary Luncheon.” D Magazine, April 21, 2026. https://www.dmagazine.com/arts-entertainment/2026/04/dallas-public-library-eric-klinenberg-literary-lions/.
• Gehl, Jan, and Birgitte Svarre. How to Study Public Life. Island Press/Center for Resource Economics, 2013. https://doi.org/10.5822/978-1-61091-525-0.
• Given, Lisa M., and Gloria J. Leckie. “'Sweeping’ the Library: Mapping the Social Activity Space of the Public Library.” Library & Information Science Research 25, no. 4 (2003): 365–85. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0740-8188(03)00049-5.
• Harris, Kevin. “Your Third Place or Mine?.” Public Library Journal 18, no. 2 (2013): 26-29.
• Leckie, Gloria J. “Three Perspectives on Libraries as Public Space.” Feliciter 50, no. 6 (2004): 233-36.
• Oldenburg, Ramon, and Dennis Brissett. “The Third Place. ” Qualitative Sociology 5, no. 4 (1982): 265-84.https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00986754.
• Oldenburg, Ray. The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Community Centers, Beauty Parlors, General Stores, Bars, Hangouts and How They Get You through the Day. Paragon, 1989.
• Pacheco, Maria Ramos. “Residents Oppose Library Closures, Want Funding.” Metro & State. Dallas Morning News, The (TX) March 18, 2026. America's News – Historical and Current.
• Ranganathan, S. R. The Five Laws of Library Science. Madras Library Association (Madras, India) and Edward Goldston (London, UK), 1931. https://repository.arizona.edu/handle/10150/105454.
• SMITHGROUP. UTA Campus Master Plan Update. University of Texas at Arlington, 2025.