The National Library building would shed its contemporary architecture and decor and adopt a Maori and Pacific attitude in the makeover.

The National Library building would shed its contemporary architecture and decor and adopt a Maori and Pacific attitude in the makeover.

The proposal to reconstruct the facades of the National Library building and bring it down from its podium to street level to make it more attractive to potential users seems like a good idea.

Public, university and school libraries don't look like fortresses and work hard to get as many people through their front doors as possible to justify their existence. So why should the National Library be any different?

The announced goal of the $80 million reconstruction (now expected to cost $100 million) is "to attract more visitors with a variety of interests and abilities by providing unique visitor experiences which cater for diverse interests, learning styles and modes of interaction".

Just like Te Papa. It is planned to triple visitor numbers to 400,000 a year.

The Molesworth St frontage will have a five floor-high glass atrium, with the easily accessible street-level floor, and parts of the atrium, given over to "lounge areas, lecture facilities, meeting and discussion spaces ... exhibition spaces, cafes".

And a retail outlet, "conferencing, theatre concourses", spaces for oratory, welcoming and ceremonial occasions, large moving displays of digitised materials from the Turnbull Library's collections, a "Breaking News cafe where information of immediate interest (including CNN, Al Jazeera, BBC) will be broadcast to patrons", and consoles for access to digitised materials.

No books whatsoever will be seen or available on the ground floor to acclimatise users for the totally digital future of the library.

Unfortunately, according to latest calculations, the allocation of all of the ground floor, and substantial parts of the other floors, to digital screens, lounge areas, meeting and discussion spaces, retail outlets, etc, will mean that when the $100 million has been spent and the collections are ready to be moved back into the building in 2011, there will not be enough space for them.

The building will shed its contemporary architecture and decor in order to align itself with the people it represents and adopt a more deeply Maori and Pacific attitude.

The Molesworth St facade will become a "tattooed face".

The street frontage is designed to be a $65m dynamic glass shopfront for the library's collections and services, directly engaging passers-by, and the greatly increased profile will enable it to engage with and draw more people to the Parliamentary precinct.

Through the exhibitions and projected digital displays the content of the National Library will become "part of the daily life" of Wellingtonians and a "must see" destination for tourists and visitors.