The first thing you see, close to where the old Victorian public library used to stand, is a cafe. It sells latte, five varieties of gateaux, and prominently advertises business lunches.
The next thing you see - in the run-down east London district of Bow - is a "Surfing Space" for internet terminals, "Sight & Sound" stalls for DVDs, videos and CDs, and a sign pointing to the creche. Invisible round a corner, tucked away at the side and back, are learning laboratories and well-stocked shelves with books on them.
This is Britain's first "idea store". According to the government, it is part of the wave of the future for the country's 101 year-old public library system. It does to the traditional library what an advertising agency did in the 1980s when it controversially promoted the Victoria and Albert Museum in west London as "an ace caff with quite a nice museum attached".
The gimmick did not radically increase the V&A's attendances. In contrast, the Bow branch library's £2m makeover has quadrupled its usage in less than two years. It has achieved this near one of the most depressed high streets in the south-east, full of moneylending shops and cutprice clothes stores, in a borough which had a library use rate of only 28% compared with a national average of 55%.
It is to be followed by six more idea stores in Tower Hamlets within the next five years, costing a total £20m. These will replace five conventional library buildings and three adult education centres.
The project - described as retail-inspired - is based on the conviction that "in our increasingly retail-focused and lifestyle-conscious world" commerce is now the ruling influence on the lives of younger people. This group, it is felt, is far more likely to borrow books or use educational services if the ambience reminds them of a superstore or, as with the colours and signs at Bow, the departure lounge at Gatwick airport.
In its 60-page blueprint Framework for the Future published this week, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport singled out Bow - commending it as a prime "example of how libraries are renewing themselves around a new image, service and sense of purpose".
But its glamorous example cannot be followed by many libraries. Though full of advice, the guidelines offer no new money to local authorities struggling to improve services from existing revenues. Fifteen miles away from Tower Hamlets, at Romford central library, Havering council is as usual "trying to cut our coat to fit our cloth" as it plans its library service for the next financial year. "Cafes and creches are very, very desirable," says the council's leader for cultural services, Andrew Curtin. "But can they be put into the buildings we have? Our focus is on a bread and butter library service. I would not be keen to divert officers' time to these subjects."
Havering's scope for improvement is small. Next year it intends to earmark 0.5% (about £400,000) of its council tax increase for culture. For the first time in recent years £100,000 will be spent on refurbishing libraries. A further £100,000 will be used to increase the book-buying fund.
The noticeboard at its 1960s-built concrete central library at Romford invites readers to scan official figures on the borough's performance. According to estimates based on these, its spending on book buying is only just below the national average. But only 313 books a year are borrowed for every 1,000 people in its population, a rate well below the national average of 502. Its chief librarian, Robert Worcester, said he and his colleagues were trying to improve this by buying more paperbacks, which were more popular than hardbacks.
The first thing you notice when walking into Romford library, unlike Bow, is the sheer tonnage of books on the shelves. But the bright shelf signs and the noticeboards reflect systematic efforts to implement earlier government guidelines aimed at making libraries more popular and socially inclusive.
Internet space
There is a complaints board, a checklist on the introduction of more convenient opening hours, a suggestions box, a publicity stand for the 18 Plus Group, and notices in six languages. The generous internet space includes a terminal for the blind. But Romford library has only a hard-to-operate service lift for elderly and disabled access to its third-storey reference section. The borough's other big library, at Hornchurch, has no lift to its internet terminals.
Tower Hamlets' leap into the future was made possible by proceeds from buildings sales, by a package of grants from national and European agencies, and by private sponsorship chiefly from Sainsbury and Lloyds. Eric Bohl, its corporate director for customer services, said: "To be sure that what you are doing is right means an enormous amount of work in communicating with and consulting the public. If the public is not going to support it, it's not going to work."
Meanwhile - like their readers - Havering and other library services face the prospect of struggling on. "We will get there slowly," Mr Curtin said.
On his way out of Romford library this week, Andrew Townley, 35, a local government worker, said: "The lack of cafes and creches here doesn't worry me, really. There is an excellent variety of books, and good service. I have nothing but praise for the librarians. They always do their best to help. I would not be without my library in my life."
