The highlight of the evening for me was the plenary talk given by Cynthia Nikitin. Niktin's talk was all about public  libraries and space. I found this to be very illuminating. After a childhood in the highly auto-friendly Toronto suburbs, it was striking to see just how  hostile many libraries (and public spaces generally) are for walkers. There were many examples of how libraries are disengaged from the public and how there is barely any coordination on seemingly basic questions such as putting transit stops nearby libraries. Finding ways to make libraries more community and a destination for a range of services is an interesting idea.  In some ways, her talk was a library-specific version of a TED talk I watched a few weeks ago: James Howard Kunstler Dissects Suburbia. As Kunstler put it, "[suburbia] is a place not worth caring about... " . Interestingly, they both referenced Boston's failed public square as an example of a terrible public space where nobody wants to be.