How Do We Library That?: Difference between revisions
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== Background == | == Background == | ||
Libraries | Libraries do much more than simply give access to knowledge; they produce sociality. The sharing of texts is a fundamentally social practice, bringing readers, writers and editors together in an exchange of positions, ideas, knowledge and know-how. So, a library is more than a collection, or the place it is kept, it is also the readers' act of collecting and moments to share texts. | ||
Despite all this, the 19th century dream of the public library as a knowledge commons driven by social practices is dying. Public libraries continue to close at an alarming rate, only to be replaced by self-service models where there is no librarian and reduced access to physical library spaces. | |||
In a 2014 interview, David Pearson, then Director of Culture, Heritage and Libraries at the City of London Corporation acknowledged that the core idea of a public library as "a place where a collection of books is available to borrow... is ultimately, a failing business model".[1] Pearson, a senior librarian and author of Books as History: The importance of books beyond their texts (2008), worries at the incursion of a corporate logic into public space; one that sees public services as businesses and libraries as simply places to keep books and files. | |||
In a 2019 interview Dubravka Sekulić, architect, researcher and a librarian of the Memory of the World[2] project, vents her frustration at the commonly-held perception of physical libraries as "containers for books".[3] For Sekulić, this disregards the importance of physical libraries as places where the practices of reading together, annotating, organising and structuring are performed. She calls for ambitious responses to address the issue of "what is useful knowledge for people to understand what surrounds them? Or for example, what can help to understand the politics of knowledge distribution".[4] | |||
== Special Issue 19 == | == Special Issue 19 == | ||
Revision as of 13:49, 5 September 2022
Background
Libraries do much more than simply give access to knowledge; they produce sociality. The sharing of texts is a fundamentally social practice, bringing readers, writers and editors together in an exchange of positions, ideas, knowledge and know-how. So, a library is more than a collection, or the place it is kept, it is also the readers' act of collecting and moments to share texts.
Despite all this, the 19th century dream of the public library as a knowledge commons driven by social practices is dying. Public libraries continue to close at an alarming rate, only to be replaced by self-service models where there is no librarian and reduced access to physical library spaces.
In a 2014 interview, David Pearson, then Director of Culture, Heritage and Libraries at the City of London Corporation acknowledged that the core idea of a public library as "a place where a collection of books is available to borrow... is ultimately, a failing business model".[1] Pearson, a senior librarian and author of Books as History: The importance of books beyond their texts (2008), worries at the incursion of a corporate logic into public space; one that sees public services as businesses and libraries as simply places to keep books and files.
In a 2019 interview Dubravka Sekulić, architect, researcher and a librarian of the Memory of the World[2] project, vents her frustration at the commonly-held perception of physical libraries as "containers for books".[3] For Sekulić, this disregards the importance of physical libraries as places where the practices of reading together, annotating, organising and structuring are performed. She calls for ambitious responses to address the issue of "what is useful knowledge for people to understand what surrounds them? Or for example, what can help to understand the politics of knowledge distribution".[4]
Special Issue 19
Rather than looking only at what a library stores, we will also discover what it produces. We will consider collections as not only comprised of things, but also people and actions.
In other words, we will attempt to collectively and individually answer the question "How do we library that?", approaching a particular, situated library-in-the-making as a set of collective actions that sustain it.
Schedule
Week 1:
Monday, September 19th, 2022
11:00-13:00 Introducing SI19
14:00-17:30 Introduction to Prototyping
Tuesday, September 20th, 2022
11:00-18:00 Prototyping with Manetta & Joseph
Week 2
Monday, September 26th, 2022
Week 3
Monday, October 3rd, 2022
Week 4
Monday, October 10th, 2022
Week 5
Monday, October 17th, 2022
Week 6
Autumn Vacation
Week 7
Monday, October 31st, 2022
Week 8
Monday, November 7th, 2022
Week 9
Monday, November 14th, 2022
Week 10
Monday, November 21st, 2022
Week 11
Monday, November 28th, 2022
Week 12
Monday, December 5th, 2022
Week 13
Monday, December 12th, 2022