DE KROOK - DIGITAL COMMUNICATION AND INTERACTIVITY
The new Ghent city library still has a huge influx of visitors many months after opening. Play AV is therefore incredibly proud to have worked on this prestigious project with the installation of no less than 78 screens.
The Project
The Krook is a place where all the locals are welcome, where you can participate, discover and meet above. It therefore presents itself as the inspiration place for knowledge, culture and innovation. De Krook is home to IMEC and research groups at Ghent University, and is the new face for the brand new city library. The building also includes a café, green areas and office spaces. The book and the collection naturally continue to play a very central role with 300,000 in-house materials spread over six floors. The architecture was designed by TVHV Coussée & Goris architects / RCR Arquitectes and was succeeded by principal cvba Waalse Krook.
The difference with the old library? In the far-reaching digitalisation of information and consumption, try to make the citizen familiar and media-savvy throughout the collection and invite visitors to actively search. This also implies a permanent investment in technology.
"A library of the future is often said, but I think we should speak of a library now that has everything it needs to adapt quickly in a changing society," says Carole Gheysen - ICT coordinator.
The Solution
With an area of almost 10,000m² and 6 public floors, workshop spaces, a krookcafé, a large reading room ... it was the choice to use 78 screens with Digital Signage, installed by Play AV. Reasons for digital communication were to guide people through the building, to be able to communicate quickly around events and trends and to invite visitors to interact with the collection in an interactive way. For example, it has been opted to integrate an Elo touch display in the two to three bookshelves into the rack, which must then also allow interaction. In terms of light, these screens had to be able to cope adequately and provide the visitor with the best touch experience.
In the children's library the touch displays are provided with the application 'Bieblo', a recommendation tool, with which children can select their genres by means of striking illustrations that they like and on that basis get an offer of books that are present at that moment.
Imec also wanted a DataWall that could interact with researchers and visitors of De Krook with ten linked screens. The structure with 86 "ultra Stretch Displays from LG has created a new interactive canvas for digital art, citizen participation and informing visitors about research and data in the city.
In addition, the visual installation in the library consists of a beautiful video wall (NEC) at the entrance, a mobile gaming room in the youth library, information touch screens at the collection in the spotlight, displays at each elevator and mobile Samsung screens in the meeting rooms.
The Advantages
The advantages for the library and the visitors are therefore noticeable: besides the fact that everyone is helped in his / her choice and is informed about all sorts of items, the flawless integration of the screens in the furniture ensures more visual peace. It also fits perfectly with the building and the digital framework in which society lives today.
