What is a building program?
A building program is a document that outlines the requirements of public building project. In the context of a public library, the building program articulates the library’s vision of its future and serves as a set of instructions to the architect. Throughout the project, the building program serves as a yardstick to determine how true the design remains to the original vision for the project.
To be eligible for funding under the Massachusetts Public Library Construction Program, a community must have a building program approved by the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners (MBLC) by the time of its application. Communities are required to base their programs on a 20-year planning horizon, and the development of each program must occur independently and in advance of any designer selection.
Under Massachusetts regulations 605 CMR 6.00, a MBLC-approved building program must include the following:
- A current community analysis including demography, location, governmental organization, and community structure.
- An institutional analysis including history of the library, philosophy of library services, staffing, library collections, finances, and a brief history of the previous and current planning efforts for improvements to the physical library.
- A section on facility space requirements including a description of space needs by program area and relationships between the areas and addressing the requirements and implications of new technologies and new information formats.
- A summary of facility space requirements in the form of a table.
The Town's Library Building Program was prepared by Heritage Planning and Design of Cambridge and was approved by the MBLC in June 2016.