futureacademy

A model for the future library?

The Prelinger Library is currently being set up in San Francisco. Billed as "an appropriation-friendly setting", the library will be equiped with all manner of digitizing equipment to allow copies to be made of the items for use away from the library itself.

"Though libraries live on (and are among the least-corrupted democratic institutions), the freedom to browse serendipitously is becoming rarer. Now that many libraries have economized on space and converted print collections to microfilm and digital formats, it's become harder to wander and let the shelves themselves suggest new directions and ideas. Key research libraries are often closed to unaffiliated users, and many libraries keep the bulk of their collections in closed stacks, inhibiting the rewarding pleasures of browsing. Despite its virtues, query-based online cataloging often prevents unanticipated yet productive results from turning up on the user's screen.
...
We are interested in exploring how libraries with specialized, unique, and arcane collections such as ours can be liberated from protected academic environments and made available to people working outside of those environments, especially artists, activists and independent scholars."

See also this article about the idiosyncratic shelving method.

posted by Chris @ 1:10 pm