Though as it turns out, recent research conducted in the UK showed that 91% of staff would probably use library or book-club facilities at work – if they were available. But only 23% of workplaces actually thought to put such facilities in place, according to the Guardian, and some companies, like T-Mobile, go all out in having a full-scale library available to its employees.
It’s a great space for people to come into to do project work, or just to read or browse for books,” says Belinda Stephenson, who played a key role in setting up the library in T-Mobile’s Hatfield head office three years ago. “It has been placed in a very deliberate area, right in front of the training and meeting rooms, so we get a lot of traffic as people come through to use those facilities. We also use those rooms for interviewing, so people who are thinking about joining the company get to see it – which makes it a selling point for recruitment.”
Even better: no need to worry about overdue fees. “We don’t issue fines, because we can just send a quick reminder email,” says Nikki Wright, T-Mobile’s onsite administrator. “Most of them come back.”
Of course, the publishing world has its own libraries in the form of leftover galleys and review copies, but this does seem like a cool idea worth expanding on this side of the Atlantic…