How a small library branch courtyard splash pad in Tulsa, Oklahoma revived summer foot traffic and became a community draw
A composite case study of a struggling neighborhood library branch that converted its underused interior courtyard into a free splash pad and saw library circulation, summer-reading enrollment, and door counts climb meaningfully.
Summary
A 1970s-era neighborhood library branch in north Tulsa with declining door counts and an underused interior courtyard converted the space into a 1,800-square-foot splash pad as part of a $640,000 capital project funded jointly by the library system, a regional foundation, and a state library-services grant. First-summer attendance reached roughly 34,000 splash-pad visits, library door counts climbed 47% year-over-year during summer months, and summer-reading-program enrollment more than doubled. The branch now anchors a regional template for library-courtyard activation.
Key metrics
Background: a struggling branch and an unloved courtyard
The Maxwell Park branch was built in 1973 as part of a wave of mid-century neighborhood library construction in north Tulsa. Its layout featured a central interior courtyard surrounded by reading rooms on four sides — a design idea that read well in 1970s architectural journals but had aged badly. By the mid-2010s the courtyard was fenced off because of liability concerns over an aging fountain, and weekly door counts had fallen to roughly 380, well below the system threshold for branch viability. The surrounding neighborhood had lost its only public pool a decade earlier and had no spray feature within three miles. A new branch manager who took over in 2022 spent her first six months walking the neighborhood and identified two paired observations: families with young children were the demographic least represented in the branch, and the unused courtyard was the branch's largest underleveraged asset. She approached the library system director in early 2023 with a proposal to convert the courtyard into a public splash pad — an idea the director initially considered eccentric but agreed to study formally.
Funding stack and the library-services grant pathway
The $640,000 capital budget came together through a three-source funding stack reflecting the library's institutional context. The largest contribution, $310,000, came from the city library system's deferred-maintenance and branch-revitalization capital fund, which had been accumulating across the system but had never been deployed at scale on a single branch. A second $180,000 came from a state library-services grant program funded through federal Library Services and Technology Act pass-through dollars, awarded specifically because the project demonstrated measurable potential to increase library use among under-served family demographics. The remaining $150,000 came from a regional foundation that had been quietly looking for an unconventional library-revitalization project to support, attracted by the unusual character of the proposal. The funding mix preserved the project's character as a library project rather than a parks project — a distinction that mattered for both operating responsibility and ongoing programming integration. Importantly, the parks department was kept informed but not made a co-funder, which simplified governance considerably.
Design choices: integrating water play with quiet study
The design firm faced an unusual challenge: the splash pad sat at the geometric center of an active library, with the children's room on one side, a reading room on another, and computer terminals on a third. Acoustic management was non-negotiable. The design specified a gentle feature mix oriented around lower-decibel water elements — bubbling ground jets, slow rain canopies, gentle laminar arches — and avoided high-spray bucket-dump features entirely. The courtyard's existing windowed walls were retrofitted with acoustic glazing, and the children's room was repositioned with the fenestration facing the courtyard so that pad activity became visible programming rather than acoustic interference. The 1,800-square-foot pad accommodates approximately 35 simultaneous users and includes 14 features arranged in a loose ring with seating along three sides. The fourth side features a small interpretive wall describing the branch's history and the courtyard's original 1973 design intent, creating a quiet narrative bridge between the building's past and present.
Operational integration with library staff and aquatic certification
Operating a splash pad inside a library required a hybrid staffing model with no clear precedent. The library system worked with a regional aquatic-facility-management consultancy to develop training and certification pathways for library staff who would oversee pad operations during open hours. Three Maxwell Park staff members completed Certified Pool/Spa Operator coursework, and the system added a new part-time pad-attendant role specifically dedicated to summer operations. The pad operates during library open hours (10am to 7pm Tuesday through Saturday, noon to 5pm Sunday, closed Monday) on a no-fee no-registration drop-in basis. Library staff continue their normal reference and circulation duties, with pad-attendant coverage providing the dedicated water-quality and safety oversight. Caregivers can move between pad and reading rooms freely, an integration pattern that has produced surprising operational benefits — the pad has become an informal waiting area for older siblings while parents help younger children navigate the library, and vice versa.
Summer-reading-program lift and the door-count surprise
The most striking outcome of the first summer was the magnitude of the library-use lift, which exceeded even optimistic projections. Library door counts during summer months (June, July, August) climbed 47% year-over-year, with the largest gains concentrated in midweek afternoons when the pad was busiest. Summer-reading-program enrollment among children aged 4 to 12 climbed 118% year-over-year — more than doubling — and completion rates among enrolled children rose from roughly 31% the prior summer to 58% in the splash-pad summer. Library staff theorize that the pad created a low-barrier gateway interaction: families came primarily for the water, encountered the children's room while toweling off, and left with both a wet bathing suit and a stack of summer-reading-program books. Circulation of children's books rose 71% year-over-year during summer months, and program attendance for in-person children's events rose 86%. The branch's circulation per door visit also improved, suggesting that the new visitors were not merely passing through but actually engaging with library services.
Construction realities and the courtyard-renovation surprises
Construction ran from January through May 2025 and encountered several conditions specific to the courtyard context. The original 1973 fountain had to be carefully demolished, with crews discovering the fountain's mechanical room had been informally repurposed as branch storage, requiring a six-week material-relocation effort before construction could proceed. The courtyard's drainage tied into the library building's storm system rather than a dedicated outdoor connection, requiring a substantial subsurface re-routing project that added roughly $58,000 to the budget. The acoustic-glazing retrofit on the surrounding interior windows required scheduling around library operating hours; the system maintained partial branch operations throughout construction, with staff working from a temporary trailer in the parking lot during the most disruptive demolition phases. Despite these surprises, construction completed two weeks ahead of the planned summer-2025 opening, allowing for an extended commissioning period that proved valuable for staff training before public access began.
Replicability and the broader library-water-amenity question
The Maxwell Park model is replicable in many library systems but only where specific architectural and operational conditions converge. First, the building must have an interior courtyard or analogous semi-enclosed exterior space — most modern library branches were designed without such spaces, making the model far more applicable to mid-century stock. Second, the branch must have a ground-floor entry pattern that allows wet patrons to leave the courtyard without crossing through quiet study areas — a circulation pattern that requires careful attention. Third, the library system must be willing to take operational responsibility for an aquatic facility, which is institutionally unfamiliar territory for most library boards. Fourth, water-quality regulatory compliance must be navigated alongside library-system governance, often requiring agreements between the library, parks, and public-health departments. Fifth, the staff-training and certification commitment is non-trivial — three to five staff members per branch, with annual recertification. Where these conditions converge, the library-courtyard splash pad has demonstrated unusual potential to revitalize struggling branches and reframe library use among family demographics that conventional outreach has failed to reach.
Voices from the project
“We tried six different summer outreach programs to get more families through the door. None of them worked. The splash pad worked the first weekend.”
“I came for the water and stayed for the books. My kids signed up for summer reading because they were already in the building.”
“Funding a library project that includes a splash pad sounds odd until you see the door-count data. Then it sounds like the most efficient family-engagement intervention we have ever supported.”
Lessons learned
- Treat unused interior courtyards as candidate splash-pad sites in mid-century library stock — the architectural fit is often unusually strong.
- Use library-services grant pathways (LSTA pass-through) alongside library system capital funds rather than parks budgets to preserve project character.
- Invest in staff aquatic-certification training before opening — three to five certified staff per branch is a sustainable baseline.
- Specify low-decibel water features and acoustic-glazing retrofits to manage sound bleed into adjacent study areas.
- Track library use metrics (door counts, summer-reading enrollment, circulation) alongside pad attendance — the secondary outcomes are often the biggest story.
- Plan circulation patterns so wet patrons can leave the courtyard without crossing quiet study zones.
- Budget contingency for legacy mechanical-room and drainage surprises in older library buildings.
FAQ
Can library staff legally operate a splash pad?
With Certified Pool/Spa Operator credentials and a written operating agreement covering water-quality compliance, yes. Most state public-health departments accept library-system-employed CPO-certified staff as the responsible aquatic operators for non-pool spray features.
How do you keep wet patrons from damaging library materials?
Through circulation pattern design (wet exits separated from book stacks), towels-only policies before re-entering interior spaces, and dedicated drying zones near pad exits. The Maxwell Park branch has reported negligible material damage in the first season.
What library-services grant programs fund unconventional capital projects like this?
State-level Library Services and Technology Act pass-through programs increasingly fund branch-revitalization capital with measurable family-engagement outcomes. Eligibility varies by state library agency, but the pattern is becoming more common across the country.
Related reports & data
Pair this case study with our original-data reports for citation and benchmarking.