Oddities in the Stacks - The Changing Definitions of Libraries
Either through course readings, class discussions or professional listservs and blog posts, in the past few weeks I’ve been exposed to and participating in a lot of debates about definitions for libraries, information, knowledge, communication and community. I’m hoping to present a paper next year in Madison about the emergence of what might be called experimental or subversive libraries, but in the meantime, I thought I’d share some information about the libraries that form the crux of that paper, and more generally represent the ways people are playing with what it means to call a space a library.
The Reanimation Library in Brooklyn offers its users a collection of out-of-date, de-accessioned and generally forgotten about non-fiction books – one might almost call it an Island of Misfit Monographs. In addition to reveling in being an existential outlier of library identity, the Reanimation Library has some concrete, tangible user services in mind, which might be called the provision of source material for artists (textual or otherwise), either directly through copying or scanning images, or indirectly through the inspiration that almost necessarily results from flipping through books on doll repair, taxidermy and animal husbandry. Stop by on Saturdays or e-mail head librarian Andrew Beccone for an appointment. Be sure to ask him about his Master Librarian brass knuckles and the best intern he ever had.
The Public Library of American Public Library Deaccession started out as a project between two artists, was turned into an installation and still exists as a searchable online archive. Deaccession is one of the least understood, most vilified (at least among the general patron population) tasks of traditional library work (it also happens to be one of my absolute favorite tasks when I worked in an academic library.) because the idea of “throwing away” books strikes many as a task precisely opposite to the work of librarianship. In archiving that which has been taken out of the archive, the Deaccession Library blatantly brings deaccession into focus and then plays with it, consequently bringing up issues of archiving, use, preservation and readership.
Then there’s the Interstitial Library. The Interstitial Library was founded (or better yet, recognized and elucidated upon) by Shelley Jackson and Christine Hill in 2004. Expounding upon the Interstitial Library is a task best left to the aforementioned head librarians, but in short, I think that their concept is a wonderful example of the benefits of open-mindedness in definitions of our craft. No need to arrange for a visit or an appointment, you are already (and were always-already) there.
