Name: 【TED】Michael Bierut: How to design a library that makes kids want to read (How to design a library that makes kids want to read | Michael Bierut)
Uploaded: 2018-02-02T11:04:36.000Z
Duration: 12 min 27 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Past simple

So there's this thing called the law of unintended consequences.

People hire me because they have consequences that they really intend,

and what they intend is for me to help them achieve those consequences.

So I live in fear of unintended consequences.

And so this is a story about consequences intended and unintended.

I got called by an organization called Robin Hood

Robin Hood is based in New York, a wonderful philanthropic organization

They take from rich people, give it to poor people.

In this case, what they wanted to benefit was the New York City school system,

a huge enterprise that educates more than a million students at a time,

drafty buildings, sometimes buildings that are in disrepair,

certainly buildings that could use a renovation.

Robin Hood had this ambition to improve these buildings in some way,

to fix the buildings would be too expensive and impractical.

So instead they tried to figure out what one room they could go into

in each of these buildings, in as many buildings that they could,

so that they could improve the lives of the children inside

And what they came up with was the school library,

and they came up with this idea called the Library Initiative.

All the students have to pass through the library.

That's where the heart and soul of the school is.

So they did this wonderful thing where they brought in

each one of whom was assigned a library to rethink what a library was.

to reform public schools by improving these libraries.

Then they called me up and they said, "Could you make a little contribution?"

I said, "Sure, what do you want me to do?"

And they said, "Well, we want you to be the graphic designer

And so I thought, I know what that means. That means I get to design a logo.

I know how to design that. I design logos.

So OK, let's design a logo for this thing.

Easy to do, actually, compared with architecture

Just do a logo, make a contribution, and then you're out,

And I'm a great guy and I like to feel good about myself when I do these favors.

I'm going to give you three logos, all based on this one idea.

So you have three options, pick any of the three.

So the basic idea was these would be new school libraries

and so the idea is that it's a new thing, a new idea that needs a new name.

What I wanted to do was dispel the idea that these were musty old libraries,

the kind of places that everyone is bored with,

you know, not your grandparents' library.

This is going to this new, exciting thing,

so instead of thinking of it as a library,

think of it as a place where it is like: do talk, do make loud noises.

Right? So no shushing, it's like a shush-free zone.

That was option number one. OK, option number two.

I'm getting my book from the OWL. Meet you after school down at OWL.

I like that, right? Now, what does OWL stand for?

Or it could be -- and I figure librarians could figure out other things it could be

And then look at this. It's like the eye of the owl.

Option number three was based actually on language.

It's the idea that "read" is the past tense of "read,"

So why don't we call this place The Red Zone?

and I somehow was not focused on the idea

that librarians as a class are sort of interested in spelling and I don't know.

But sometimes cleverness is more important than spelling,

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【TED】Michael Bierut: How to design a library that makes kids want to read (How to design a library that makes kids want to read | Michael Bierut)

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