Simon's What How Why 26-9-18

Simon's What How Why

From the books: SLV RBRR 000-099 (FTB: SLV RBRR 000-099) is a publication that explores marks left in over 300 books by visitors to the 000-099 section of the State Library of Victoria (SLV) Redmond Barry Reading Room (RBRR). The tactile materiality of the publication is emphasised by its form; section-sewn, with an unglued spine, allowing it to incorporate other components of the publication; such as a zine (with a commissioned essay by Federico Antonini) tucked inside the front cover, and a collection of 4" x 6" photographs taken at the SLV which are randomly inserted between pages. Transcripts of sounds recorded in the RBRR appear as intermittent typographic spreads within the layout. On the cover of the book is a list of the terms we defined to categorise the types of marks discovered. The preface to the book is an essay I wrote on the changing role of libraries, and in the end-matter there is a tongue-in-cheek "bibliography" which gives publication details and a Dewey Decimal reference of each book that appears in the publication. The marks we catalogued include (but are not limited to) examples such as marginalia, underlined text, dog-ears, stains, wear and tear, and objects left within books, such as photographs, scraps of paper or letters to future readers.

The publication developed from a collaborative research project with graphic designer Masaki Miwa. This initially involved a time-consuming process in which we removed each book, inspected for marks, scanned results, and then identified, catalogued and inserted them into the layout of the publication. The process of identifying marks and ascribing meaning to them prompted questions of intent and conventions within mark-making. Other research included interviews with librarians at the SLV on marks within rare books. A key development from this research was the discovery of how mark-making can indicate provenance, (e.g. markings on a map which can determine that it was owned by Captain James Cook) or give certain historical value to books, that result in relocation to less publicly-accessible areas of the library. The photographs and transcriptions of sounds were included in order to give an impression (beyond the merely textual) of this particular area of the SLV. In order to contextualise our findings within a wider realm of public discourse on the social role of libraries, I wrote an essay on the contemporary shift from libraries acting as repositories of knowledge to active social spaces as collections are slowly being digitised. Federico Antonini's essay explores mark-making as a deliberate creative strategy in the design of artist's books, offering speculative answers to questions of intent and meaning around the marks we discovered in the SLV.

The project began with an interest in this phenomenon, and curiosity about the possible intentions of mark-makers. Part of my own interest was from a typographic perspective, exploring the range of symbols used when marking texts. Through our research we became interested in this phenomenon of books being used as vehicles for communication by readers, and through categorising them and exploring commonalities in mark-making, attempt a kind of subjective taxonomy within the limited context of this section, at that particular time in history. Our interviews with SLV librarians and research into the shifting role of libraries prompted us to expand the scope of our publication beyond the small section of books we surveyed, and connect our research to a wider contemporary discourse on attitudes towards libraries. The publication was (perhaps ironically) acquired by the SLV, and now sits within its collection of artist's books.