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What do you call a place where books are kept?

Taryn McGannBrett Snyder

Brendan Moran

Syracuse University School of Architecture

Spring 2012

Not yet published in the United States in 2012 by Syracuse University Press.

Copyright © 2012 Taryn McGann.

All rights reserved.

This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any from

(beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and

except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publisher.

Additional copies of this book may be requested from the author, who conveniently is also

the publisher, and if she has enough paper and ink for her printer, and you ask nicely,

you might be able to get one.

Printed in the United States of America.

ISBN-13 978-0-8156-2198-9

A cataloge record of this book is not available from the British Library.

This book is set in Adobe Garamond Pro and Tw Cen MT.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

“The universe (which others call the Library)...”

- Jose Luis Borges1

IntroductionContention

Th e Book and the non-BookTh e Book and the PhenomenalTh e Book and the Library

Th e Book and the Divided Library

Th e Book and the Modern LibraryTh e Book and the Urban LibraryTh e Book and the Remembered Library

NotesBibliographyImage Credits

Contents

The Making of the Library

The Social Evolution of the Library

The Formal Evolution of the Library

The Programmatic Divide

The Spatial Divide

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18

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112122126142

159167170

i

Introduction

Th e public library as a single grand building, gated by massive columns and fi lled with rows of dusty tomes, is a severely outdated conception. Th e model of library as a permanent, stable landmark in the city has been debased with the advent of digital technology and a new model is forming that embraces the ephemerality of modern media. However, the image of a building fi lled with books still holds power over architects and bibliophiles and continues to wield infl uence over the design of new libraries. Consequently, the modern library is caught between trying to provide adequate technological and educational resources to its patronage and serving the critical role of storing, organizing, and providing access to knowledge.

Books are caught at the center of this struggle, seen both as unwanted remnants of an outdated age and valuable artifacts to be preserved and treasured. Th e design of recent libraries illustrates this dichotomy but the increasing focus on the importance of the digital is creating conditions that relegate the book to storage. Books in storage may be well preserved, but the power they hold is removed from the public sphere. For books to wield their infl uence they must be seen. Technology has caused a schism in the library and the book must go its own way.

ii

Th e information society born of technology has created a new library, one without walls, even without matter. Th e digital library pervades, instantly accessible and ever growing. Th e institution of the public library, to help its patrons through the maze of its resources, must become a guide and voice of authority as well as a place of education and access.

Th e modern public library is an indefi nite thing; spreading through the city, anchored by nodes of authority, but shifting and changing, appearing and disappearing as it is used. Books, by contrast, occupy a defi nite physical place and need that context if they are to be understood and learned from. Th e repository where books are sent, rather than a blind warehouse of miles of boxes, should provide books with their place in the modern library city. An open and publically accessible component of the larger library, the repository can make visible the value and power of books, even in a digital society. Th e repository is a storage facility and a museum, a resource and an experience.

iii

Contention

In the Information Society, the Book and the Library appear to be opposing forces: the Book exists as a stable point of reference and the Library occupies a visionary trajectory of the potential of information. However, the Book and the Library remain thoroughly co-dependant. Th e Book stands testament to the body of human knowledge accumulated up until the recent past, and remains a critical paradigm in our relationship to ‘information.’ Th e Library cannot ignore books without losing the foundation of its existence, but the utility of the Library is at odds with the requirements of the Book. Th e Library aims to provide “information” to any user, anywhere; to amass the extents of modern cultural production in all forms; and to facilitate the collaboration of minds around the world. Th e modern library is caught between a need to adapt and progress, and the requisite nostalgia of the library as a room fi lled with books. I contend that these entities, the Book and the Library, should be considered separately. By providing a space for the Book that is distinct from the Library the use and experience of each can be better supported. Th is distinction, with a clearer understanding of the qualities and characteristics of each element, will allow for the creation of a productive overlap and condition of mutual support.

The Book and the non-Book

1

Th e book and digital media are not congruent things. It is important to remember this when considering the state of the modern library. Th ere is a thing that is the Book, and then there is another thing that is Digital Media; the two operate on diff erent, although sometimes similar, grounds.

From the perspective of an oral society, written text has completely altered the human understanding of knowledge and information.3 Th e spoken word, however, has maintained its importance as a means of communication. Th e Digital Media currently being developed similarly re-conceptualizes information and knowledge from the written word into something new, but the written word, like the spoken word in a textual society, remains a valid and essential component of communication. As Jerome McGann explains, there is a misconception of the relationship between the Book and Digital Media that assumes the book is somehow inferior to the digital and will be replaced by it. Th is is not the case; the Book cannot be replaced by the Digital:

Nor is one of these instruments “better” or more powerful. They do

different things. Right now and in the foreseeable future, books

do a number of things much better than computers. There is no

“I see a danger … that we may bid farewell forever to the medieval

page without ever having known it in all its variety, thus effectively

erasing numerous potentially innovative models for the representation

of thought.”

-John Dagenais2

2

comparison, for example, between the complexity and richness of

paper-based works, on the one hand, and their digital counterparts

-- hypermedia fiction -- on the other.4

Th e value of a physical book is extolled time and time again by bibliophiles in discussions of the library.5 Th e aesthetic value and metaphysical power of the Book creates a mystique that many fi nd appealing and which contributes to the staying power of books. Having existed in more-or-less its current form for over two thousand years,6 the Book has become a complex artifact of history and thought. It has been developed over centuries into a social and physical construct where the object and the text it contains can each hold meaning for the reader.

Th e format of a book holds meaning that can be interpreted by the observant reader. Changes in format or form of a book may only alter a text in “a few senses,” but “[t]hose ‘few senses’ are never nontrivial, and in many cases -- a list too easy to develop -- they carry the most profound kinds of ‘content.’”7 Th is viewpoint attributes value to the physical book as the result of a specifi c, culturally produced process which can be seen in the resulting object; the book “dramatizes its own production,

≠

3

keeps us mindful of the process which brought the written word to the page.”8

Th is also supposes that the book has a life of its own, after it has been made and put into the world, coming into contact with the lives of others (books, people, places). Th is life leaves marks and records on the book, and these too can be ‘read’ from its form.9 We fi nd that:

It is important to get the feel of a book - the texture of its paper,

the quality of its printing, the nature of its binding. Its physical

aspects provide clues about its existence and an element in a social

and economic system: and if it contains margin notes, it can reveal a

great deal about its place in the intellectual life of its readers.10

In “reading” the book as an artifact we learn more than the content of the text, and the text changes based on this knowledge. A more complete understanding of the text results from this kind of ‘reading.’ Our ability to do this, though, is predicated on there being a standard understanding of what a book is. With a relatively clear set of rules or guidelines defi ning book-ness, we can evaluate a particular book in relationship to these rules and understand it in relation to the repertoire of existing books.

From the centuries-long refi nement of the book, a general consensus has been found as to its basic format. Th is format originated with the manuscript page of the medieval period, but incredibly similar concepts of organization remain in page and book design today.11 Page layout in medieval manuscripts was carefully constructed to establish a hierarchy of information and authority. Levels of gloss analyze, interpret, and continue the text in spatial layers, as seen in fi gures 1.2 and 1.3, that create a sense of “centrifugal movement, from parchment to text to gloss

FIG. 1.1. Opposite, The book and a digital version, here The Picture of Dorain Gray, are not equivalent despite containing the same story

4

FIG. 1.2. This page, Boniface VIII, Liber sextus decretalium, with commentary of Johannes Andreae, Bologna, ca. 1325, Beinecke Libarary, Marston MS 155, f. 70 verso.FIG. 1.3. Opposite, Diagram of the spatial layers of the medieval page and the direc-tion of movement they imply

5

to edge to world.”12 Here, the components of page layout are considered as “semantic, syntactic, and rhetorical features”13 that can alter the meaning of the text. Variations in the format and layout of a book, subversive manipulations, allow the writer to control their text and refi ne the message they send to the reader.14 Th ere is an eternal struggle for supremacy between the text and the author; in this struggle meaning is made.

Th e text of a book, in its codex form, is caught in a relationship between the author and the reader; the page and the volume; the word and the idea. Changing the conditions of this relationship, as occurs with the digitization of a book, changes the meaning created by the book for the text: “the act of examining the paginated text from a digital perspective ‘consciously deforms’ the object of scrutiny.”15 A book contains the text in a page according

TEXT

GLOSSMARGINALIA

WORLD

6

to its principles, in the digitized copy a “scrolling text (like that of the Roman or Greek scrolls) unfurls at a pace that is not dictated by the dimensions of the page and its margins. In fact, on the screen, each page shifts shape endlessly remaining the same size but altering its content, since the fi rst and last line keep changing as we scroll, always within the fi xed frame of the screen.”16

Changing the format of a book, digitizing the object, alters an existing text, but even digitally conceived texts show the tension between text and digital media. Th e importance of the meaning given to a text (imbedded in the form of a book) from its making does not change with the advent of digital means of production. Concepts of hierarchy and authority, ways of reading that are derived from the codex, have been translated into digital forms.

Existing web pages and word processing programs bear striking similarities of layout to a medieval manuscript. Th is means that web pages follow many of the rules of the page of a book, even though they are contradictory to the conditions of digital media. Despite the landscape orientation of a computer screen, the text on web pages remains oriented stubbornly vertical.17 Th e main text remains central with additional layers of information at edges, surrounding and enhancing the text like the marginalia of the medieval page. Th e adoption of forms derived from books in digital media reveals them as essential to our conception of how information is shared. In a variation of the horseless carriage phenomenon, we stretch the limits of something familiar to conform to something new: the medieval page adapted to web viewing.

Digital media, initially confi ned to the existing rules of information provided by books, off er opportunities for developing new rules of information. Unlike the page of a book, “the screen space has been considered three-dimensional.”18 Th is marks digital media as essentially diff erent from the page of a book, which is considered generally in two dimensions only (ironically, as a page is a three-dimensional object and a screen is a two-dimensional image). Current digital design represents a

7

“failure of imagination,”19 but, if the digital ‘page’ fully accepts its diff erence from the physical page and abandons the strictures of ordinatio that still control the production of books, digital media can develop their own set of rules and conditions. Digital media can become, like the book, a complex artifact unto itself.

Attempts have been and are being made to explore the potential of the digital. Sources integrate text with other means of expression and become experiential in a new way. Increased importance can be attributed to spatial terms, like ‘in from of ’ or ‘behind,’20 that draw the digital page further from the confi nes of the physical page. As digital media develop and explore the potential of their forms, the supposed equivalence of books and digital media will be exposed as incorrect.

As the two formats of the book and the digital diverge, the way in which they are accessed will also continue to diverge. For the library to continue to support the book as it adapts to the digital libraries must understand the nature of these two media and what it means to access them. Th e character of digital access spaces will be designed as the format itself is designed, but the book is already deeply entrenched in human culture and society. Th e requirements of the book on the library have been explored through their long history and are known to libraries, but are perhaps being neglected in the wake of the digital revolution.

8

The Book and the Phenomenal

9

Th oughts and ideas are intangible, but through the medium of books they take on a concrete form. Books represent ideas, which exist only in the metaphysical world of the mind, and manifest them in a way we can perceive, so that they can exert their infl uence on us in the physical world. Th e page of a book is, “a body presenting a visible, material form of knowledge, which in turn both refl ects and moulds the invisible, immaterial entity that is our rational self or consciousness.”22

In the process of reifying ideas into words on a page, that page imposes limits on the ideas it contains. Th e book and the page frame their contents, establishing boundaries. Th is transformation from abstract into concrete is essential to the human understanding of a text. In Western society, a text has been defi ned according to the book, it is “stable, has clear boundaries, and is silent.”23

Electronic texts cannot be defi ned according to this understanding. Th ey question the Western notion of a text and raise important questions as to the nature of writing. Th e text of a book does not represent the “inevitable condition of writing.”24 In its emphasis on totality, the traditional text does not allow for the full potential power of writing to be exercised by the writer.

“4 Letizia Alvaez de Toledo has observed that the vast Library is

pointless; strictly speaking, all that is required is a single volume, of

the common size, printed in nine- or ten-point type, that would consist

of an infinite number of infinitely thin pages. (In the early seventeenth

century, Cavalieri stated that every solid body is the superposition of

an infinite number of planes.) Using that silken vademecum would not be

easy: each page would open into other similar pages; the inconceivable

middle page would have no ‘back.’”

- Jorge Luis Borges21

10

Electronic texts allow writing to be “borderless.” A borderless text is, perhaps, the truest form of text,25 but it quickly becomes a dystopian nightmare like that of Borges’s Library of Babel:

Borges’s imaginary book finds its incarnation in the not-quite-infinite

pages of an e-book. The e-book page exceeds the nightmarish

quality of Borges’s book, since none of its pages has a verso.

Since text can always be added to the ‘volume,’ the e-book has no

middle. The e-book page is the frame applied to what is essentially

Borges’s borderless text.26

Th e text defi ned by the page and the borderless electronic text operate in two diff erent spheres: the book attempts to reconcile the metaphysical with the physical, while the electronic text surrenders ideas completely to the world of the metaphysical. Th e diff erence between the text of a physical book and an electronic version of that same text, though seemingly inconsequential, is critical to our conceptual understanding of information and texts. Th e divide between the physicality of a book and the ephemerality of digital texts becomes very important:

“Disputants, many of them writers, say to me, ‘Words are still words - on a page, on a screen - what’s the diff erence?’ … Th e changes are profound and the diff erences consequential. Nearly weightless though it is, the word printed on a page is a thing. Th e confi guration of impulses on a screen is not - it is a manifestation, an indeterminate entity both particle and wave, an ectoplasmic arrival and departure. Th e former occupies a position in space - on a page, in a book - and is verifi ably there. Th e latter, once dematerialized, digitalized back into storage, into memory, cannot be said to exist in quite the same way. It has potential, not actual, locus … And although one could argue that the word, the passage, is present in the software memory as surely as it sits on page x, the face is that we register a profound diff erence. One is outside and visible, the other ‘inside’ and invisible. A thing and, in a sense, the idea of a thing.”27

11

Th e visibility of information created by books clearly diff erentiates it from digital information. When books make ideas into physical objects they become present (visible) even when they are not in use. Th oughts do not need to be intentionally called upon; they exist on their own and can be noticed, and consequently remembered, without being looked for. Th eir presence is infl uential on a space. A room fi lled with books is embedded with their content because the physical manifestations of those thoughts are visible to its occupants.

Digital information, on the other hand, does not exist when not in use. To exist and be infl uential digital information must be specifi cally called up by a searching user, it is not visible and waiting to be noticed. Only when accessed intentionally can digital information exert an infl uence; the presence of a means to information, such as a computer, does not embed a space with ideas, only with the potential for there to be ideas in that space.

Debating the relationship between thoughts and their physical form of book parallels the unending debate on the “philosophical defi nitions of the physical body and its relationship to the human ‘spirit,’ identity or rational intelligence.”28 As our body is the vehicle by which we experience the world, the book is the vehicle by which we experience another’s thoughts; they must be made into something (physical) before they can be shared. Imposing limitations, framing thoughts, is then a critical act in the quest to share our experience. In the same way that architecture is shared because it is physically there, books allow the human experience to be shared through an external object that ins interpreted by two people across time and space, linked only by the shared object.

With physical books, unlike digital methods of reproduction, there is a set ratio between the content and the object that represents it. A book contains, again in its implied totality, a single text (even when composed of multiple texts, they combine to form a conceptual whole). Books, as physical objects and “complete” texts, have a one-to-one relationship between the

12

ideas they contain and the object through which those ideas are shared. (fi g. 2.1) Th e author communicates to the reader through the book in both form and content and, for the reader, the book becomes a stand-in for the author.

E-books, on the other hand, remove the relationship between form and content. Large numbers of “complete” texts can be contained in a single e-book reader, and all of them, no matter how diff erent, are represented by the same form. Th e e-book reader cannot become a stand-in for all the authors whose work it contains, it cannot even stand in for a single author,

FIG. 2.1. Top, Correlation between one author, one book, and one reader.FIG. 2.2. Bottom, Relationship between a collection of authors, a single e-book reader, and one reader.

13

because its form is not related to any author’s text, but is the work of its designer or company and it can only be a stand in for that individual or group. In the case of the e-book, there is a correlation between one object and a great number of diff erent texts. (fi g. 2.2) Th e e-book reader does not tell us anything about its contents and we are left without a critical point of reference in the experience of reading.

Th e book as vehicle provides a point of reference for us to experience the life of someone else. With the page as a unit of perception, a reader “turns inward via the external medium of the book: the book opens up an ‘elsewhere’, where his attention dwells.”29 A reader is caught on the threshold of the physical and the metaphysical, “focused on an ‘elsewhere’ but is at the same time aware of its ‘here.’”30

Th e physical book structures and guides the experience of reading, generating both space and time; anchoring readers in the real world and carrying them far away. Books, as a result of their format, correspond to a linear understanding of time (although some authors have challenged this through manipulation their texts and how the form of book is used to represent that text). In a book there is a relationship between “before” and “after,” for the reader and for the train of thought it contains.31 Th is linear progression is understood by the reader through the “very temporal realization of progress illustrated by the thickening bulk of pages held in the left hand and the diminishing bulk of pages in the right.”32 In this way, the physical relationship of reader to book allows the text to be in constant context with its whole. For a single reader the book registers the time of its reading. For the books the reader records their reading in the book. Th e combined record of all the readers who have explored a books leave their traces behind in the form of the book and entrenches it in the past.

Digital media, however, have no concept of the past. Th e digital exists in a constant state of the present, continuously rewritten without a trace of any alterations, unlike the accumulation of

14

marks on a book which make its life visible. Th e digital text is continuously renewed and expanded by readers who, through their digital access devices, can also be authors.33 Th e reader of digital media can alter the “original” in many ways that change its meaning such that the intention of a single author is no longer the same as the intention of the text. Readers can also be authors and authors are all readers (this situation is much like an extreme version of a gloss, but where the distinction between text and gloss cannot be made as it can in the medieval page) creating a reciprocal relationship between reader and text, see fi gure 2.3. Th e delineation between the roles of author and reader are dissolved and the line between them destroyed.

Th e experience of time is lost in the instantaneous environment of the digital, and the reader is further removed from any point of reference. Th e time of reading is told by the turning of a page, but there is time in turning the page, pauses where the reader returns to the ‘here’ in which they are reading. Th ere is a simultaneous, or oscillating, existence of two distinct places and times in one space and moment. Th is means that the reader, momentarily aware of their surroundings, is aff ected by the space where they are reading; our relationship to a text is

FIG. 2.3. Reciprocal relationship between reader/author and text in digital media

15

altered by the space where we experience it.34 We read diff erently depending on our situation and the

physical space around us. Bart Verschaff el proposes fi ve conditions of reading35 that produce a diff erent experience for the reader:

1. Reading at home.

2. Reading in nature.

3. Reading among the crowd.

4. Reading in the study room.

5. Reading in the library.

Th ese categories could be simplifi ed into only two, where each can be either a public or private space. Th e fi rst three can be grouped together and the last two can be similarly grouped so that the categories are:

1. Reading in the world

2. Reading in a place for books

In the fi rst of these conditions the reader, when raising their gaze, is confronted with a “symbolic image of ‘the world.’” In the last two, the reader is met with and image of more books in their moments of return.36 When the reader is imbedded in the real world (rather than a dedicated place of books) they compare the text and its experience to the world they fi nd, the familiar world they know, in their moments of pause. When the reader is isolated in a world of books, in the study room or the library, they fi nd “History or Culture” when their eyes wander from the page.

Th e former condition is essentially user designed; the space of reading is selected for whatever reasons and repurposed for reading and the user has decided the infl uences they wish to have on their reading. Th e latter, on the other hand, is designed with the express intent of structuring and staging reading. Th e place of books is where the act of reading becomes choreographed;

16

FIG. 2.4. Top, Plan for the Carolingian scriptorium and library at the Abbey at St. Gall, Switzerland, 820 CEFIG. 2.5. Bottom, Plan of the British Museum Reading Room at the time when the building was opened in 1857 CE

17

thought and design are given to consideration of what the space is that a reader is confronted with in their moments of return.

Reading in a place of books with the “presence of all that has been written already and that one hasn’t read and will not be able to read ever” can make reading in the library overwhelming, but readers fi nd solace in “the fact that one is not alone.”37 A place of books balances the isolation of reading with the sense of a community of readers, the visibility and comprehensibility of this community is one that must be carefully considered in the design of such spaces.

When reading in a place of books, not only the image, but the physical form given to that space alters our relationship to the books found there. Author and editor, Alberto Manguel, describes this phenomenon:

”We don’t read books in the same way sitting inside a circle or

inside a square, in a room with a low ceiling or in one with high

rafters. And the mental atmosphere we create in the act of reading,

the imaginary space we construct when we lose ourselves in the

pages of a book, is confirmed or refuted by the physical space

of the library, and is affected by the distance of the shelves, the

crowding or paucity of books, by qualities of scent and touch and

by varying degrees of light and shade. … There are readers who

enjoy trapping a story within the confines of a tiny enclosure; others

for whom a round, vast, public space better allows them to imagine

the text stretching out towards far horizon; others still who find

pleasure in a maze of rooms through which they can wander.”38

He goes on to say that the pure geometric form of a room fi lled with books express styles of reading, a circular space, like the grand reading room of the British Museum shown in fi gure 2.6, “proclaims continuity,” where square rooms “contain and dissect,”39 like the British Museum’s Arch Room shown in fi gure 2.7. Th e basic geometry of a space may not have such a powerful eff ect as Manguel is here attributing to it, but the geometry of

18

FIG. 2.6. Above, The British Museum Reading Room, as depicted in the Illustrated London News, 8 May 1857.FIG. 2.7. Opposite, The Arch Room, as depicted in the Illustrated London News, 7 June 1851.

a space in terms of how it creates the character of that space is very important to establishing the position of a library towards its books.

Libraries structure and choreograph a reader’s relationship to books and design the space of reading. Careful attention to the place attributed to books in a library can drastically change the resulting place of the library in society and the lives of readers, and vice versa. For books to be understood as “History and Culture” left to the present by the past (a role which books fi ll as no other artifact can), the experience of the reader and the manner of their

19

interaction with books in storage and books as they are read need to be precisely considered. Books should not be considered only in terms of the space the take up as dead matter. Instead they should be considered for both their physical and metaphysical qualities and their ability to shape space through their very presence.

20

The Book and the Library

21

Th e Library was born with the Book. From the fi rst instances of writing there has been a need to house the objects resulting from such an undertaking, and so there have always been places dedicated to the Book. Th ese places have been, through history, the result of a similar set of criteria, principles essential to the making of a library against which the diff erent positions of the library can be evaluated. From these criteria, the Library has taken on many conceptual and architectural forms according to the specifi c conditions surrounding its creation. Th e library can be conceived of in any of numerous typologies that have developed in an evolutionary process following the evolution of the book.

Th e presence (or lack thereof ) the book in relationship to the user is the main variable in evaluating the form of a library. Th e library is drawn by two opposing states of information drive in its development: a universal text a universal library. Th e fi rst tries to contain all necessary knowledge in a single text; everything that one could possibly need to know, all in one place, ready for easy access. Th e second seeks to house all possible texts in one place; every book ever published and every book that will ever be published brought together for the benefi t of humanity. All libraries lie somewhere between these two ends of the spectrum.

“The wisdom of the past, the learning of the present, the hopes and

fears of the future--through the written word, all could be preserved

and called upon whenever needed. In this realization lay the birth of

libraries.”40

- Fred Lerner

22

Many words have been used to describe the place where books are housed and each term has described a slightly diff erent confi guration of the relationship between the Book, the author and the reader. All instances of library, though, are the product of three acts: a conservative act, and a critical act, and a social act. Th e diff erent positions libraries take on these acts is what creates the wide range of libraries found through history.

Writing is, in essence, a method of conservation, of preserving things (thoughts and ideas) for later use, by later generations. Making a library is, then, a conservative act, one in which the infi nite preservation of its contents is at the heart of its intentions. Th e collection of a library is backward-looking, providing a reference to the past, rather than radical and forward-looking. Th e library only becomes forward-looking when it is used. Readers process the Library into something new when they access its contents and shape the present and future with reference to the past.

Th e conservative nature of a library is challenged by new media. Information created in new formats needs to be preserved in some way, but their introduction requires a constant reshaping of the library rather than a refi nement of an existing form. Th ere

The Making of the Library

23

have been a series of media shifts in the history of libraries which off er insight into the nature of such a transition.

Awareness of this process is especially relevant wit h the coming of the Information Age to the library. Th e introduction of a digital medium of “books” is causing the copying of as much as possible from the, now outdated, physical book into the new digital medium.

A similar situation to the one in which we currently fi nd ourselves occurred when the codex replaced the scroll as the optimum medium of the “book.” Th e codex used folded sheets of parchment or vellum, sewn into a cover rather than pasted together into one long sheet. Th is new medium had many advantages: it allowed for use of both sides of the paper, it allowed for larger individual volumes such as anthologies, and it made it much easier to locate desired information within a text (a page number rather than a position in a scroll).41 Th ese qualities made the codex more effi cient and user friendly and therefore it eventually became the dominant medium of information.

By the end of the fourth century CE, the transition from scroll to codex was widely underway. Th e spread of the codex was aided in large part by its adoption in Christianity as the form of the Bible and Christianity’s rapid spread and powerful infl uence.42 Th ose who were copying texts into codex form realized they could not copy all of their collections, and so made choices as to the value of diff erent works and whether or not they needed be preserved.43 Looking back we can see that there was a great deal of loss involved in this process. Most works that did not make it into codices did not survive as scrolls and so are lost and the wealth of human knowledge is resultantly lessened.44

In the 1930’s to 50’s there was another attempt to transition between information media. Microfi lm, whose production was made easy and cheap with a camera invented by Rupert H. Draeger in 1934, was found to be far longer lasting than a paper book and so was taken on as the medium of choice for long-term preservation. Th e silver halide fi lm on with books were copied,

24

can last seemingly indefi nitely, and not only could a microfi lm survive longer than a book and not disintegrate, but it could be sent out as lending material without risk of loss of the information in the original.45 Th e microfi lm was the way of the future in the eyes of many, but looking back we can see the naïveté of such aspirations.

Use of microfi lm as a resource depends on access to the machinery used to read them. With the pace of technological development this machinery has long been rendered obsolete. Microfi lm fails to off er ready access to the information it stores and instead of aiding libraries becomes a hindrance as libraries must maintain outdated technologies to access information that exists only in microform and whose conversion to yet another medium is not considered advantageous.46

Th e digital conversion of libraries sees the same set of opportunities and challenges as these other moments in history. Digital versions off er a wide variety of advantages over print media. Digital works are more easily searched for a particular piece of information than the codex. Th ey can assume a much greater scale of contents than a codex anthology while remaining portable, the relative diff erence in capacity saves vast amounts of storage space as can be seen in fi gure 3.1.

However, technological obsolescence threatens access to

1 book 1 Kindle 831 books

25

digital versions as it did for the microfi lm. Th e software used to store and access digital collections becomes obsolete incredibly rapidly. Th is adds another layer of responsibility to the library; not only do the texts need to be preserved, but the technology needed to access them also needs to be preserved like the microfi lm readers of the mid 20th century.47 As the library tries to preserve all that it can it clings to relics of past ages or risks losing its precious contents. Preservative eff orts are essential to the activity of a library because at the most basic understanding, the library is “a collection of information selected for use of, and made useable for, a particular community.”48

Th is defi nition of a library as selected for specifi c needs of specifi c people implies the editorial process involved in the making of a library. Not everything can be included in a library so there is always something excluded, and that this decision is made is essential to the nature of the library. Th ere are diff erent collections because in each library diff erent things are included and excluded. Although the library, in imitation of the Library of Alexandria, strives to be inclusive, it is impossible because of spatial limits, and is unnecessary because the community served by a library does not require access to every resource, only relevant ones. Th e collection of a library is designed in a critical manner, the value of each potential addition or deletion is considered carefully and with a consciousness of the implications of any decision.

Th e making of a library is, in this way, a critical act, but libraries are inherently critical in a broader sense. In the act collecting books and texts and putting them in a defi ned space and calling the contents and the space collectively a “library” makes something new from the pieces, diff erent from just the result of their aggregation. Jerome McGann explains this condition of

FIG. 3.1. Opposite, The relative capacity of a single monograph compared to that of a Kindle e-reader device, using Vitruvius’s Ten Books on Architecture as translated by Mor-ris Hicky Morgan for Dover Publications as the unit of 1 book

26

criticality:

A true critical representation does not accurately (so to speak)

mirror its object; it consciously (so to speak) deforms its object. The

critical act therefore involves no more (and no less) than a certain

perspective on the object, its acuity of perception being a function

of its self-conscious understanding of its own powers and limitations.

It stands in dialectical relation to its object, which must always be

a transcendental object as far as any act of critical perception is

concerned. The transcendental condition is a necessity because the

object perceptually shifts and mutates under the influence of its

perceivers. The critical act is a kind of conversation being carried

on in the midst of many like and impinging conversations, all of

which might at any point be joined or merged into any of the

others.49

In this defi nition, the library is the critical representation and the book is its object. Th erefore, the library is not an image of its contents, but a manipulation of them, altering its contents by their presence in the library. What form this manipulation takes is a point of contention that must be constantly revised and rephrased by its makers and its users. Th e library is created critically both by its designers through defi nition of its formal organization and collection, but also by its patrons as they defi ne the function of the space of the library and the meaning of its contents.

For the library to be meaningful, it must be observed and experienced; the critical decisions must be made visible. As books imbue meaning on space they must be visible in order to pass that meaning on to patrons. Th is demonstrates the necessarily social quality of libraries.

Libraries are shared spaces and the activity that they house is observed and interpreted like the books on its shelves. Not only specifi cally community activities that happen to take place in the library can have social meaning and implications; the act

27

of reading is a social act. Reading silently has not always been the norm, throughout history texts have been read aloud for the benefi t of groups of listeners following the storytelling rituals of oral traditions. Modern silent reading is far more individualized than reading aloud, but when it is a public display of reading it still has important social implications.

Th e visibility of readers in a library does more that provide comfort by showing the community of readers present; it allows the nature of that community and its members to be read. Alexandra Lange, contributor to the Design Observer blog, describes reading as a “performance art.”50 Reading made visible educates others, especially children, about patterns of learning and the nature information. Lange, in arguing for the importance of newspapers describes the importance if the visibility of reading:

“If all my son sees is me staring at a screen, I can sometimes call it work and sometimes call it reading the newspaper, but that is not a distinction he can see or participate in. ... Reading the newspaper is a performance, among other things, and as we compress everything into one device which performance you are giving becomes unclear.”51

Reading in the library is not a personal activity, but a shared experience of a community of readers and viewers that defi ne the space of the library and defi ne its position in society, it must be experienced and observed to be understood.

Th ese three conditions - the conservative act of preservation, the critical act of editing, and the social act of shared experience - inform the position of the library. All decisions in the design of a library will aff ect the way the library responds to these requirements.

28

The Social Evolution of the Library

Th e evolution of the library through history has created a number of ideal models, each with a diff erent conception of the place and character of the library. At each stage of this evolution the relationship between the reader and the book has shifted, following the place attributed to the Book and the Library, at a time, by a society.

Ten discrete instances of library can be seen in the evolution of the library, where social and cultural conditions have given rise to distinctly diff erent confi gurations, some of which only previously existed, some which can be found in current library design, and some which are not yet realized, but only constitute an ideal to which real libraries strive.

Th ese classifi cations simplify the multi-faceted situation of the library, ignoring countless variables that go into the specifi c design of a library. Th e conditions of real libraries are generalized by these diagrams in order to consider the conceptually spatial nature of the relationship between the individual/community, the book/information, the librarian/access system, and the physical space of the library.

No library can be described perfectly by the diagram of one category; all real libraries are variations and combinations of these

29

types as they respond to the diff erent variables the encounter. Th ese categories provide a classifi cation of the possible idealized positions of a library and the elements it brings together. Each model fulfi lls diff erent criteria for the benefactor that created it and for the society it serves making them potentially relevant to a wide variety of applications. Each model emphasizes certain motivations as the main driving force on the form of the library, but there is always a complex set of, potentially contradictory, motivations that shape the design of libraries in the world. Th e diagrams described here are combined to meet all of the needs of the society, according to all of its motivations.

Th e categories have been arranged according to the general chronology of their incipience. Th is does not imply, however, that any model has been replaced by those forms that follow; rather, older models have endured and can still be found in the design of modern libraries or old libraries that have endured.

30

library

access systemlibrarian

informationbook

individual community

31

A A

scribe

personal access devicecomputerlibrarian

digital resourceprinted codexmanuscript codexscrolltablet

citizenscholarmonkphilosopher

32

person

information

33

The Oral Tradition

Prior to the invention of writing, human knowledge was limited by the capacity of one’s memory. Th oughts could only be shared when two people were in the same place, at the same time; and death meant the end of one person’s knowledge. Th is created a limit to how far back a shared history could go and how much eff ect history had on a community. In an oral society, thought and action are one-and-the-same, not distinct activities as in the modern, literate understanding. Information is conveyed through sound, a tactile experience in comparison to the cold distance created by sight.52

Before writing allowed the course of society to be tracked through written records, history and other information was passed on from individual to individual, and shared with groups by elders through recitations. Information from oral societies has survived to the modern day, although it has since been written down, but this continuity required the participation and eff ort of generations of members of a society. Reliance on the group for survival in a tribal (illiterate) community53 and the value attributed to elders in the community for their knowledge is a result of the limits of the oral tradition to preserve information.

34

person

information bookbb

35

The First Library

Born of the quest to preserve memory, the written word was the fi rst form of remote access. In the theocratic civilization of Sumer, temples needed to be able to remember detailed records of land holdings and harvests, in a more permanent form than in the minds of their priests. Temple bureaucrats fi rst started making marks in clay tablets with reed styli around 3000 BCE in order to better record economic transactions.54 Sumerian temples kept business records and religious texts, written in a mix of pictographic and phonographic symbols. Th e tablets containing these records were kept in store-rooms; designed more for preservation and less for constant access, these store-rooms were usually accessed via a ladder from above.55

Th e archives found at Ebla in northern Syria off er a well preserved example of the earliest ‘libraries.’ Th e palace archives held over 15,000 clay tablets, shown in fi gure 3.2 as they were found by archeologists, stored on wooden shelves. Th e texts collected recorded not only business records, and religious works, but also defi nitive versions of literary works; scientifi c, medical, and mathematical texts; almanacs of geographic information and place names; bilingual glossaries for translation between Sumerian and Eblaite. Th e archives also included a workspace for the scribes

37

who worked on the records and edited the literary works.56 In the archive, scribes were trained in writing and written works were collected, preserved, and disseminated as needed.57

Th e invention of writing critically changed humans’ relationship to knowledge. Relying on visual, rather than aural, perception, the written word abstracted thoughts and ideas. Th e fi rst alphabets, like Sumerian cuneiform, were pictographic, with each symbol relating directly to an object. Gradually these symbols were replaced with ideographic symbols, as seen in fi gure 3.3, and eventually phonographic alphabets,58 increasing the abstraction between the world itself and the world of written language.

FIG. 3.2. Opposite top, Cuneiform tablets in situ at the excavations of the city of EblaFIG. 3.3. Opposite bottom, A cuneiform tablet found in the excavations of the city of Ebla

38

person

information

information

39

The Personal Collection

In Classical Greece, the general understanding of the world was dominated by books. Th e great philosophers, believing that reading was an essential component of education, assembled private collections of the works they found most valuable. Th ey surrounded themselves with their libraries both for personal reference and to teach their students.59

In Roman times the private library became a symbol of status that identifi ed learned men from the uncultured. Private houses dedicated spaces to the storage and display of their collections.60 Along with philosophers and bibliophiles, rulers took up the library as an important aspect of their image. Rulers founded libraries and surrounded themselves with books to associate themselves with the sense of culture their presence lent. Th e personal collection has remained an important form of library through time; individuals, academics, leaders, and bibliophiles, have created a wide variety of collections and spaces to house them. Th e image of the personal collection still lends an air of power to an individual.61

In the Greek collections the book was actually a scroll. Scrolls were made from papyrus (later also parchment) and written on only one side. Texts were diffi cult to consult and, when made of

40

FIG. 3.4. Top, The Dead Sea Scrolls; The Granger Collection, New YorkFIG. 3.5. Bottom, Engraving of a Roman bas-relief depicting scroll storage

41

papyrus, not very durable. Few examples of scrolls remain today; one of the best preserved set of scrolls is the Dead Sea Scrolls. (fi g. 3.4) Th ese ancient papyrus scrolls show the columnar organization of the scroll text and the production method of pasting together a series of sheets to the desired length. Scrolls of this sort were stored on shelves and marked with label tags to aid in fi nding the desired text as can be seen in fi gure 3.5.62

42

communitty

library

formationinf

43

The Academic Library

At the height of the ancient Greek civilization, there was a desire to preserve the majesty of all that had been accomplished, to establish a great monument to the permanence of Hellenic culture. Around 300 BCE, the Museion in Alexandria was founded by Ptolemy I, dedicated to the Muses and serving as an intellectual center for the arts and sciences. Th e Museion housed scholars and scientists invited by the king and provided them with a wealth of resources for their studies. Th e library at the Museion grew into the “greatest library the world had ever known.”63

Th e Library of Alexandria collected texts with a fervor. It sought “to record everything that had been and could be recorded, and these records were to be digested into further records, an endless tail of readings and glosses that would engender in turn new glosses and readings.”64 Th e scrolls were written in many languages and on nearly any subject. New texts were gathered from ships passing through the port, from trade with other cities, and from the production of the scholars to whom it was home.65

Th e great Library was so famous that it was assumed that it could never and would never be forgotten, so the only descriptions passed on of the design of the library buildings are made in

44

FIG. 3.6. A nineteenth century German engraving depicting a hall in the ancient Library of Alexandria in Egypt; The Granger Collection, New York

45

passing. We are left only with its raisons d’être: an immortal center for the preservation and extension of Greek thought; a monument and workshop.66

Even without a clear understanding of the great Library itself, the Library of Alexandria has been taken on as the vision of aspiration for all libraries to come; the unachievable dream (like that of Borges’s Babel) of assembling all the world’s knowledge.67 All libraries since the Museion have, to some extent, attempted to copy the awe inspiring image of the Library of Alexandria.

46

library

community information

47

The Lending Library

Aided by the spread of paper from China, and the development of the codex and its proliferation by Christianity,68 the book trade exploded across the Arab world in the eighth and ninth centuries. Centers of learning, with aspirations like those of Alexandria, were founded, such as the Bayt al-hikma (House of Wisdom) in Baghdad of the Abbasid Dynasty. Knowledge was collected not only from the Arab world, but from the Greek and Roman civilizations of Classical antiquity, preserving many works that would otherwise have been lost with the fall of those civilizations and the turning away from literature in the west that followed their demise.69

Th e fi rst public library was founded in 39 BCE by Gaius Asinius Pollio,70 following the instructions of Julius Caesar.71 Th e public library in Rome, though, was not a public library in the modern sense. It exclusively served a select group of scholars and was not open to the general public, nor did it aim to spread information to more than those who already had it. In contrast, in the Islamic world the public library took on a vibrant cultural signifi cance and adopted many aspects that are associated with a public library today. Th e Islamic concept of waqf (charitable endowment), and the importance attributed to the learning and

48

FIG. 3.7. Qur’an: illuminated page. Special copies of the Qur’an have been made that are beautifully decorated.

49

A

wisdom of all Muslims by the increasingly Sunni population, led to the establishment of true public libraries by the beginning of the tenth century. Usually housed in madrassas, these libraries were called the dar-al’ilm (hall of science) and were open to all Muslims who wished to learn, regardless of wealth or education.72

Books held great power in Muslim society and great care was given to the production and reproduction of the manuscripts made at this time. Th e calligraphy and illumination of texts brought the book into the realm of art, an example of which can be seen in fi gure 3.7. Special and carefully crafted manuscripts were valued as much for their content as the quality of the edition.73

50

library

community

book

book

book

book

book

51

The Monastic Library

In Western Europe, the library lost most of its value after the decline of Rome. Th e now predominantly Christian population had little use for Rome’s literary culture. Th e library receded into the church and monastery; secular learning was replaced with the study of the Word of God.74

In the monastic library, there was only need of a limited collection of religious texts and little attention was paid to the preservation of secular works. Th e texts which were considered worthy enough were copied and devotedly studied by the priests and monks. As at the Abbey of St. Gall, the library was an insular component of ecclesiastical life, all learning supported the education and daily life of the monks at St. Gall and other monasteries, ignoring the secular world.75

Like Islamic manuscripts, the copies produced by church and monastery libraries, were made with fi ne calligraphy and decorations. Great care was also given to the providing accessibility to the text with use of such features as tables of contents and indexes, as well as chapter and verse designations. Th ese manuscripts provide the basis of modern day page formatting and design.76 Th e ornamentation of manuscripts progressively gained importance as the excess of the High Middle Ages spread

52

FIG. 3.8. Chained Libray, Hereford Cathedral, England. Books were chained to shelves arranged in the stall system with attached tables which the books were laid on to read.

53

A

A

A

A

A

to the church.77

Th e high value attributed to individual books prompted the development of the chained library. Books were attached to the lecterns on which they were to be read with chains to prevent theft. Th is organizational method also provided for the, potentially ostentatious, display of the monastery’s collection.78

Th e aspirations of a monastic library coincide with the goal of a universal text, in this case there was an attempt to expand on the Bible, the most important text, so that it could serve, with its layers of gloss, as a single source for ecclesiastical knowledge. Th ere have been more recent instances in which similar aspiration can be seen. For example, in the late eighteenth century Robinson Crusoe and Gothe’s Th e Sorrows of Young Werther were claimed to provide all essential knowledge. More recently, Jack Kerouac’s On the Road and Th e Quotations from Chariman Mao ZeDong have exerted great infl uence when considered as essential texts.79

54

library

alibraarianncommunity informaiton

55

The Closed-Stack Library

In a closed-stack library a level of control has been created over access to the library’s collection. Th is serves to protect the library’s holdings from theft and damage by patrons and presumes a certain value of the books being housed. Th is model of library most clearly originates with the libraries of wealthy individuals or royal families that are opened up to the public or a university.

Great private collection, amassed over the course of many years and sometimes many generations, have been turned over to the public for a variety of reasons (charitable donation or the demise of their owner). Libraries like Th e Morgan Library in New York City, Th e Huntington Library and Art Gallery in San Marino, and the John Rylands Library at the University of Manchester are private collections made public and the preservation of the collection is a top priority.80

Th e national libraries of France and England and the US Library of Congress also operate in this model. While public libraries, access is severely restricted to these collections and use of them takes eff ort and adequate reason. Th ese three libraries all began as collections for specifi c members of the government: the Bibliothèque Nationale de France is the continuation of Charles V’s Bibliothèque du Roi;81 the British Library has its origins in the

56

FIG. 3.9. Top, The circulation desk at the New York Public LibraryFIG. 3.10. Bottom, Closed bool stacks at the New York Public Library

57

Royal Library and the private collections of infl uential citizens;82 the collection of the Library of Congress began with Th omas Jeff erson’s donation of his personal collection to the nation.83 Th ese libraries also share a desire for all encompassing collections, an imitation of the universal library, and so access must be controlled to maintain order and control of the collection.

Th e need for librarian oversight is not new with these libraries, librarians have been charged with the organization and protection of the collection for as long as there have been libraries. Th e closed-stack library takes the role of the librarian and makes it the defi ning aspect of the library’s design. Th e spaces of the library and the experience of the user are characterized by this condition. Th e New York Public Library shows this infl uence very clearly. Books in the library’s collection are housed in dense stacks, seen in fi gure 3.10, that are only accessible by librarians; patrons must request a desired book, wait for it to be retrieved and collect it at the circulation desk, shown in fi gure 3.9.

A

58

library

arrianlibraar n

communityn informaiton

59

The Open-Stack Library

Th e open-stack library is a relatively new development in the evolution of libraries. Th is model was spurred by the need for an educated populace that came with the rise of democratic governments. To have an educated population, information needs to be freely accessible so in the open-stack model the impediments that limit access in other libraries are removed and the book stacks, rather than being only for storage, become the space of activity in the library.84

In this model of library there is a realignment in terms of the library’s user, from upper class gentlemen and clergy to the lower classes. For governments, libraries for the middle and working class serve to shape thought and behavior of the population.85 For the libraries this shift means that individual books cannot be attributed with the same level of value that they once held, this was made possible by mass production printing techniques and the paperback book which allow libraries to be free to lend materials without a signifi cant worry of their being damaged.

Th e rise of the open-stack library in the United States was led most iconically by the eff orts of Pittsburgh steel baron Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie used his fortune to build 1,679 town libraries across the US, as well as many libraries in Canada, the UK, and

60

FIG. 3.11. Stack and reading room at the Brooklyn Public Library, Pacific Branch, a Carnegie funded library

61

A

Ireland.86 A standard diagram of form, described in the 1911 “Notes on Library Buildings,” is visible in Carnegie libraries and they all operate in an open-stack model with a limited set of programs.87 Th ese libraries are usually designed for small communities and generally contain one reading room, like the one depicted in fi gure 3.11, which serves for book storage, reading, access, and library activities. Th e simple typology exemplifi es the values of an open-stack system and makes the Carnegie library easily adapted to many sites and situations.

62

library

rararianlibraalibrarian

community informaitono

63

The Hybrid Library

Th e hybrid library emerges with the advent of digital media and other technologies. Th e contents of libraries shift from books to “information” in any format. Th is expanding scope of the library complicates its responsibilities. Th e library is no longer primarily concerned with the preservation of its collection, although this remains an important aspect of its work, but is increasingly preoccupied with staying up to date with new technologies, media, and the rapid production of new information that needs to be collected and organized.

Libraries can scarcely keep up with the production of information and so turn to others to help with this process. Databases and other digital resources ease the load on the library. Digital resources cannot fulfi ll all of the needs of patrons so the libraries maintain their physical collections in addition to expanding their access to remote information:

Some [resources] will probably continue to rest chiefly on printed

supports, some will divide their existence between print and

digital media, some will definitely migrate, … There will be a

digital revolution, but the printed document will be an important

participant in it.88

64

FIG. 3.12. Computer cluster and reference stacks at the Seattle Central Library

65

A

Along with the diff erentiation of their collections, hybrid libraries see a diff erentiation and explosion of their program. Because digital media have changed the library from a place of books into an access point for ‘information,” librarians are no longer responsible for simply pointing patrons in the direction of the right shelf, but to “help users to thread their way through the maze.”89 To accomplish this requires many more program spaces than a single reading room and user education spaces take over more and more space in the library as the “maze” becomes increasingly diffi cult to navigate.

Digital resources are accessed remotely so they do not take up the space of the library, but the devices needed to access them are attributed that space instead. Th e space of the library is reattributed to “access” in the understanding of the Information Age. Th is space, imbued with ideals of democratization of knowledge, becomes a civic space and that role takes on a greater importance than providing and structuring a space of books.

66

library

community informationcess systeemacc t

67

The Digital Library

A digital library does not need to be defi ned by a physical place. All the resources it “contains” exist only in the ephemeral world within a computer or equivalent access device. Th ere is no longer a direct interaction between the resources and the individual, in order to use digital resources the user must search using an access system and then is able to use the resource through that same access system.

Th is model emphasizes effi ciency of access to resources as the primary goal of the library. Projects like Google Books, or Project Gutenberg, that work to digitize books so they can be made accessible to a wider audience, are at the heart of the current digital library development. Numerous projects by university libraries also explore the possibilities of the digital library. Th e Rossetti Archive at the University of Virginia, like similar projects at numerous other institutions, creates an online version of a special collection to open it up to patrons outside of the rare book room.90

Digitization frees the user from the confi nes of the library and allows for the library to be accessed anytime, anywhere. Th e space of the library, as storage for resources, is no longer valid except for the required rooms of servers that host the library’s

68

FIG. 3.13. The computer lab at the Seattle Central Library, a popular source of free computer use and internet access

69

collection. With a digital library, the library building becomes a place for providing access to systems of access. Th is role is very important in a democratic society based on achieving equality for its members. Th e need for these services can be seen by the high demand on the public computer labs in public libraries, like the one in the Seattle Central Library seen in fi gure 3.13.

Th e public access spaces that libraries become in the digital model easily take on civic roles larger than those of the traditional library. Like the hybrid library, the physical space of the digital library becomes important for its ability to bring together people and activities to create productive and collaborative interactions. Civic and cultural functions, as well as coff ee shops and computer access, serve to draw people to libraries that otherwise have lost their place as a necessity.

Th e physical library retains the role of education center that it acquires in the hybrid library and perhaps expands on this role because of the decrease in other methods of access and so the complete dependence on access systems. Th e digital library must be maintained as a traditionally library is, so spaces for digitization of existing works and the cataloging of new ones as well as other administrative functions are still required, but these functions are more like that of an offi ce building than a library.

70

The Formal Evolution of the Library

71

Th ere is a formal evolution to the library that can be traced through history similarly to the library’s evolution as a social construct. Th is evolution of the library is less clear in its trajectory; formal strategies have been explored repeatedly in history as a result of a variety of variables. A pattern can be distinguished in certain time periods that characterizes libraries of that time and has a resonance with its contemporary books. Th ese typologies help describe the evolution of the library when compared as a series. Each formal confi guration given to a library creates a diff erent contextual environment for the books it houses. Formal characteristics of libraries are related to the needs of the patrons at the time of the library’s design and therefore betray the designer’s attitude towards books. Th e scale of the space, the methods of storage and display, and the organizational system employed change the reading of a book by providing diff erent contextual information against which the book is read. A careful consideration of the context of a book, like a careful consideration of its physical form, increases the insight gained from the book; providing context is then a critical goal of any library.

72

pre-1500 BCE

73

3000 BCE - Sumerians invent writing using a stylus to make markings on

clay tablets91, later the Egyptians use papyrus92 and Hebrews use

leather93 to make records. The first libraries emerge as places for

storage and book transcription94 holding government and economic

records, liturgical and secular works, dictionaries, geographical

information, and scientific texts.95

74

1500 BCE - 529 CE

75

1500-1200 BCE - Writing spreads to India along with Indo-European

languages, brought by invading Aryans96

1122-256 BCE - Chou Dynasty libraries have separate institutions for

literature, ceremonies, natural sciences, and archives.97

500-323 BCE - Classical Greek philosophers assemble private libraries,

personal collections to reference and to teach their students.98

c. 300 BCE - Ptolomy I founds the Museion in Alexandria where books

were collected from across the empire, from travelers, and produced

by the scholars who lived and worked there.99

39 BCE - First Roman public library founded by Gaius Asinius Pollio100

1st C. BCE - Paper begins to be used for writing in Imperial China.101

Parchment comes into use and becomes popular among Christians

before spreading to become the dominant medium of the book in

the form of the codex.102

175-180 CE - Printing is developed using carved stone tablets and

moistened paper rubbed over with ink to copy the works of

Confucius.103

c. 500 CE - The library looses its public and political importance and

begins to recede into the abbeys of Ireland and England.104 In

Germany Charlemagne commissions monasteries to translate

liturgical, scientific, and secular texts, into German.105

76

529 CE - 1200 CE

77

7th C. CE - Islam is established and the Koran rises to become a powerful,

and influential text.106

642 CE - During the Arab conquest of Egypt, Caliph Omar is to have

said, “if their contents agree with the Book of God, then having the

Book of God we are wealthy without them, and if they contradict

the Book of God we have no need of them.”107

751 CE - The art of paper making is introduced to Samarkand from

China resulting in a widespread and lucrative book trade across

the Muslim territories.108

9th C. CE - Plan of the Monastery at St. Gall defines the ideal Carolingian

monastery, and with it the ideal monastic library.109 Woodblock

printing is developed by the Sung Dynasty to reproduce books

more quickly and at a lower cost.110

early 10th C. CE - Islamic public libraries, the first truly public libraries,

arise. These are frequently part of madrasas, or founded by

wealthy individuals.111

1078-1144 CE - The first book on librarian-ship is written by Ch’eng

Chü, describing the importance of libraries and how to properly

run, organize, and design a library.112

78

1200 CE - 1452 CE

79

13th C. CE - The Humanist movement seeks to establish the vernacular

as a literary language.113 The growing urban middle class begins

to amass private libraries and fuel the production of popular

literature in the vernacular.114

c. 1200 CE - Monasteries begin to lose interest in maintaining their

libraries. The new mendicant orders embrace scholarship, but in

a very limited vein with minimal secular study. Their libraries are

generally for internal use only, not open to the public except for a

few nobles.115

13-14th C. CE - Universities are founded for secular and religious study,

based on the Greek example, by secular rulers and the church.116

1200 CE - The University of Paris is founded through the consolidation

of smaller schools, the new university receives a patent from King

Philip II.117

1364-1380 CE - The Bibliothèque du Roi is established by Charles V,

transforming the French monarchy’s private library into a national

library.118

1450 CE - The Vatican Library is founded by Pope Nicholas V (Tommaso

Parentucelli).119

80

1452 CE - 1501 CE

81

1452-1476 CE - Gutenberg invents the printing press and reproduces

the Bible. Initially printed reproductions imitated handwritten

manuscripts.120

82

1501 CE - 1600 CE

83

c. 16th C. CE - A new generation rises that accepts the printed book

as well as the manuscript and shows little interest in ancient texts,

favoring modern works.121

1537 CE - The Ordonnance de Montpellier establishes legal deposit

laws.122

1571 CE - The Bibliotheca Laurentiana is established from a library

of works collected by Niccolo de’ Nicoli, Cosimo de’ Medici, and

Lorenzo de’ Medici.123

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1600 CE - 1775 CE

85

c. 17th C. CE - Academies and Learned Societies are founded for secualr

scholarship, outside of the increasingly religious and orthodox

universities, where focus is placed on scientific discovery.124 The

‘learned journal’ rises as an important medium of scholarship. The

Scientific Revolution shifts the use of the book from something to be

memorized to a source for research.125

1667 CE - Gabriel Naudé writes Advis pour dresser une bibliothèque,

promoting the acquisition of as many books as is possible, the careful

cataloguing of them, and that they be open to the public.126

1732 CE - The Library Company of Philadelphia is founded by Benjamin

Franklin and the Junto group as a subscription library, but where

any ‘civil gentleman’ could come and access the books. Its collection

represented both practical and was light reading targeted at lay

people, not clergymen.127

1737 CE - the University of Göttingen is founded, it aims to not only

preserve knowledge, but ‘increase the sum,’ making the library the

intellectual heart of the university.128

1759 CE - The British Museum opens, housing the Royal Library.129

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1775 CE - 1850 CE

87

1789 CE - The Library of Congress is founded as a reference library

for the congressmen of the US.130

c. 1800 CE - Time for leisure reading increases and circulating libraries

bring books into the homes of the middle and working class.131

early 19th C. CE - Children’s literature, intended for enjoyment, becomes

common.132

c. 1800 CE - Literary Societies are established at universities, which

provide students with access to relevant literature and reference

sources, as alternatives to university libraries.133

1812 CE - The Library of Congress burns and a new collection is

established with the books of the library of Thomas Jefferson,

greatly expanding the scope of the congressional library.134

1833 CE - The first modern Public Library in the US is established with

municipal funding in Peterborough, NH.135

1835 CE - New York State establishes school-district libraries, provided

by law, to provide support for those who have finished their

education.136

1846 CE - The Smithsonian Institute is founded to increase and

disseminate knowledge.137

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1850 CE - 1898 CE

89

1854 CE - The Boston Public Library opens, established and maintained

by municipal authorities.138

1876 CE - Melvil Dewey publishes his Decimal Classification to

organize books by topics relative to each other rather than by

shelf location.139

1895 CE - The Universal Decimal Classification is devised by Paul Otlet

and Henri la Fontaine, modifying Dewey’s for materials in different

languages,140 their work establishes ‘information science.’141

90

1898 CE - 1950 CE

91

1898 CE - Andrew Carnegie begins to provide funds for the establishment

of public libraries across Britain, Ireland, and the US.142

c. 1900 CE - Libraries, trying to draw patronage, incorporate increasing

amounts of fiction and other light reading into their collections.143

early 20th C. CE - Universities proliferate and expand possible research

topics, increasing the desired contents of their libraries, especially

into contemporary vernacular literature and popular culture.144

c. 1900 CE - The Library of Congress Classification is developed

for very large collections based on Bacon’s three sciences, which

organized Jefferson’s original collection.145

1934 CE - Rupert H. Draeger invents a camera to rapidly and

inexpensively protduce microfilm copies of documents, allowing for

increased sharing of documents between libraries.146

c. 1940 CE - The paperback novel is introduced and becomes widespread

as a cheap mode of book production for enjoyment.147

post WWII - The television was brought into peoples homes and began

to replace the library as the way to educate the masses.148

92

1950 CE - 1975 CE

93

c. 1950 CE - Mortimer Taube develops the concept of Coordinate

Indexing, changing the way information is searched.149

1951 CE - The Inter-Libratry Center is founded by the University of

Chicago to house materials needed occasionally but that individual

libraries do not have space for, the materials are lent out to

participating libraries and visitors.150

c. 1960 CE - Interactive databases are created by US government

libraries.151

1963 CE - Hypertext is invented as a wtay to link information in

computer systems.152

1971 CE - WorldCat is established to link the digital catalogues of

libraries all over the world to scholars worldwide.153

94

1975 CE - 1990 CE

95

1990 CE - The World Wide Web is constructued by Tim Berners-Lee

using hypertext.154

96

The Book and the Divided Library

97

Th e programmatic divisions of a library vary depending on the form and scale of a library. Basic requirements of book storage and space for reading are divided and combined in a seemingly infi nite number of ways. In modern libraries there is a trend to make the distinction between these spaces very clear. Program zones in new modern libraries are being specialized and carefully programmed to support the library and the needs of its patrons as effi ciently as possible. While intending to bring together people and ideas, the over-specialization of program spaces removes valuable overlaps found in historical libraries.

Currently used libraries represent all models of library from the modern to the ancient, however, four models are most clearly visible in new design: Open-Stack, Closed-Stack, Hybrid, and Digital. Th ese models have associated programmatic arrangements that construct library functions. Typical programmatic confi gurations can be seen in exemplary instances of each type: the open-stack model is clearly seen in the Carnegie Libraries of the turn of the century; newly built Joe and Rika Mansueto Library follows the closed-stack model almost to the letter; the Seattle Central Library is a prototypical example of hybrid libraries; the Internet Archive typifi es the activities of digital libraries.

The Programmatic Divide

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99

Carnegie Library Diagram

FIG. 4.1. Opposite top, The Carnegie funded library in Greenfield, IN (slyck p 149)FIG. 4.2. Opposite bottom, Sample plans for a Carnegie library from the “Notes on Library Buildings” (Bobinski 60)

Th e numerous libraries funded by Andrew Carnegie, can be seen as following a typology of design. For the earliest Carnegie funded projects, communities had authority to build their libraries as they wished. Th is resulted in a wide variety of scales, architectural styles, and program defi nitions. But, Carnegie and his secretary, James Bertram, who dealt with the library funding requests, found that the structures being built were not of the quality and effi ciency of function that was desired in a Carnegie Library. In 1911 a pamphlet, titled “Notes on Library Buildings,” was issued to any town building a Carnegie Library to establish standards of library program and organization.155

Th is pamphlet eff ectively defi ned the Carnegie Library type. Carnegie Libraries built after 1911, following the “Notes,” establish a clear typology of program for the open-stack library. Guidlines were only provided for the plan and section aspects of the library; the facades were left to the local style and the community’s desires. Th e sample plans included in the “Notes”

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FIG. 4.3. This page, Program and secquence diagram for the Carnegie Library typeFIG. 4.4. Opposite, Program space allocation by area in the prototypical diagrammatic Carnegie Library

show the simplicity and adaptability of the Carnegie Library diagram, and the typical programmatic organization it creates.

A Carnegie library is generally small in scale and characterized by a raised axial entrance that leads to a central circulation desk surrounded by a reading room, or a set of reading rooms, with stacks on all sides and spaces for reading, see fi gures 4.2 and 4.3. Th e basement level provides mechanical and service space and also typically houses a community and trustees’ meeting room. Carnegie insisted that, to improve the cost to value effi ciency of his libraries, all non-essential spaces, support spaces, be kept to the most minimal.156

Carnegie libraries combined access, storage and reading into a single space where the librarian could preside over the whole library.157 Although there was frequently a programmatic distinction made between the adult and children’s reading rooms.158

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information desk

adult reading room

children’s reading room

refrence collection

administration

mechanical and janitor

entry

storage

toilets

lecture hall

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Joe and Rika Mansueto Library

FIG. 4.5. Opposite top, The reading room of Mansueto LibraryFIG. 4.6. Opposite middle, Section of Mansueto library showing the reading room and book storage areas (openbuildings.com)FIG. 4.7. Opposite bottom, The automated storage and retrieval system at Mansueto Library

Th e newest addition to the libraries at the University of Chicago, Mansueto Library is designed for maximum storage space. Th is addition to the campus’s main library eliminates the need for off -site storage of the university’s holdings.159 Th e library fully embraces the closed-stack type and its advantages for preservation and space saving. Th e underground section of the library houses a robot controlled automated storage system; stacks are not even open to librarians but exist in a climate controlled safe under the reading room. Th e upper area of the library, under a large glass dome, houses a grand reading room and circulation and preservation spaces. Students access the library’s collection by requesting a book through an online system and collecting it at the circulation desk where it is brought by the automated system and retrieved by a librarian.160

Th is model simplifi es the library program into two very separate spaces, one for storage and one for patrons. Th e support services relate to the patron areas to provide support for use of the

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people

booksall watched over by machines of loving grace

FIG. 4.8. This page, The sectional programmatic split between the reading room and the automated storage and retreival systemFIG. 4.9. Opposite, Program space allocation by area in Mansueto Library

access system and mediate access to the collection. Th e storage spaces are designed for the optimal preservation of the library’s contents, but not for their direct access. Th e motivations of space saving in order to keep the library’s contents in the campus, and the preservation of library resources overpower the need for open access to the collection.

Because the lower section of the library is not accessible to humans, the library activity takes place only in the upper glass volume. Finding information no longer requires contact with the books themselves, but can be done through an intermediary, the computer. Th e preservation spaces also function as digitization labs where the library’s collection is dematerialized, slowly making physical access to books unnecessary, but while access to books is necessary the process for accessing them is also removed as much as possible from the physical library; books can be requested from anywhere via the internet.

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reading

books

information desk

preservation

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107

Seattle Central Library

FIG. 4.10. Top, Facade of the Seattle Central Library at duskFIG. 4.11. Bottom, Diagram of program in section for the Seattle Central Library

Hybrid libraries can be defi ned anywhere in a wide range of confi gurations, depending on their relative focus on digital or print media. Seattle Central Library, designed by OMA, is only one possible confi guration, but can be seen as a powerful infl uence on the development of the hybrid type. Th e design aims to remake the library into a thriving public space, a “living room” for the city; rather than a stubborn institution left behind in the dark Seattle Central embraces the age of “access.” Th is emphasis on formerly secondary programs is what distinguishes the hybrid library from previous models, and makes Seattle Central such a good example.

Traditional uses and new cultural uses have been assigned specifi c spaces within which they can change over time without outgrown their boundaries.161 Th e programmatic functions of the library have been divided, subdivided, recombined, reorganized to create a stacked series of spaces each intended to have a diff erent character and generate a diff erent experience for the user.162 Th e

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FIG. 4.12. This page, Sectional separations of general program zones in Seattle CentralFIG. 4.13. Opposite, Program space allocation by area in Seattle Central Library

traditional program spaces of a library, information desk, book stacks and reading spaces have been split up to improve the effi ciency and clarity of patron access, and conform to a diff erent type of fl exibility.163 Th ere is also a bloating of the administration and support services proportionally to book and reading spaces compared to earlier libraries like the Carnegie type.

Hybrid libraries manipulate their programs to create a Public Space out of a library. It is in the hybrid model where the plethora of programs being absorbed by the library can be seen. Programs to meet community needs not fi lled elsewhere and programs to breathe new life into the empty library of an older model. Th e focus shifts from preservative eff orts for the benefi t of the community to providing a commoditized experience of shared space and information to the community in order to support the library itself.

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parking

arrivalcollective

study & research

reading

public service

support

non-print

books

operationsadministration

110

FIG. 4.14. Top, The homepage of the Internet ArchiveFIG. 4.15. Bottom, The physical archive of the Internet Archive

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The Internet Archive

Th e digital library is essentially placeless from the perspective of the user, but there are places where the library is created and managed by “digital librarians.” Frequently these are actual university libraries whose special collections have been digitized. Th ere are also digital libraries that are not derived from an actual library; the Internet Archive is one of these. Th e Archive collects and organizes purely digital resources, it also partners with a variety of libraries to digitize their collections. Th e books that the Archive digitizes are returned to their home libraries who, the Archive has found, promptly de-accession many of them to make room for work spaces.164

Th e makers of the Internet Archive believe that in order for a digital library to be possible in the long run there needs to be a sort of “seed bank” of texts, authoritative copies preserved in case their digital versions become corrupted or lost. To create this level of preservation, the Internet Archive has created a corresponding Physical Archive, housing all the digitized books that libraries do not want back in retrofi tted shipping crates full of boxes, seen in fi gure 4.15.165 Th e Physical version of the Internet Archive is typical of the off -site storage measures taken by many libraries as they adjust to a hybrid or digital model.

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The Spatial Divide

Th e designs of modern libraries manipulate patterns of movement and visibility to create programmatic divisions. Frequently these divisions separate zones for people from zones for books. Th e specialization of the diff erent uses is rendered as a diff erent space formally and/or aesthetically. In a conceptual way these program spaces are adjacent zones, with their separation made visible through a series of delineating layers. Th e Gran Bibliothèque du Quebec, Seattle Central Library, and Hespeler Library in Cambridge, Ontario off er examples of this trend to spatially and experientially diff erentiate between book storage areas and patron activity zones. Each of these three libraries display a diff erent attitude towards the separation between books and their users.

At the Gran Bibliothèque du Quebec the division of spaces for books and people is used to create diff erent aesthetic environments. Th e space of the library is defi ned by three layers of space moving from the city into the library, as seen in fi gures 4.16 and 4.18. Th e exterior layer of the library is made of copper and glass that allows the library to be very visually connected to the surrounding city. Th ere is then another layer of envelope within the library, a wooden box that houses the libraries collections.

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FIG. 4.16. Gran Bibliothèque du Quebec, view into the main concourse and the general collection divided by a wooden screen

Th is wooden box varies in its opacity allowing views in and out at certain points, making connections between the city and the books. Openings in the wooden wrapper structure the patron’s movement through the library.166 Th e slatted structure allows light to fi lter in from the glass façade and give a sense of warmth to the light in the stack space.167

Th e experiential separation corresponds to separated programmatic spaces. Reading rooms and other work spaces lie outside the box of the collections, stacks and some circulation spaces are contained by the wooden volume. Patrons must move back and forth between the two characters of space as they inhabit the library. Th e Gran Bibliothèque values the clarity of the separation it makes, the layers from exterior world to interior stacks are very carefully revealed by changing levels of visibility and patterns of movement.

At the Seattle Central Library the distinctions are both more extreme and more subtle. In Seattle Central the main volume

114

FIG. 4.17. This page, Gran Bibliothèque du Quebec, the facade at night looking through to the stacksFIG. 4.18. Opposite top, Sectional layering of spaces in the Gran Bibliothèque du QuebecFIG. 4.19. Opposite bottom, Diagrammatic plans showing the separation of books and reading spaces on the thrid and fourth levels

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116

117

of book stacks is isolated as a “spiral” within the section of the building. Th e stacks are mostly isolated from the mixed use spaces elsewhere in the building. Th e reading room intersects the “spiral” volume at the top of the building. At the reading room level, the spaces are still kept distinct, separated by a level change, and patrons are forced to wander back and forth between reading spaces and stacks as they use the library, as seen in fi gure 4.21. Where the meeting room and stacks meet there is a visual connection between the two spaces; the books are held at a distance, viewed as though a completely disparate condition, which is how they two spaces have been rendered.

In the mixed use fl oors of Seattle Central, the delineation between book zones and reading or access zones is made through manipulation of the space planning. Th e mixing chamber level, shown in fi gure 4.23, contains a variety of work spaces, a computer cluster and a set of reference stacks. Th ese stacks are spatially isolated in the plan and separated from the adjacent

FIG. 4.20. Opposite top, Diagrammatic section of the reading room level of Seattle Central LibraryFIG. 4.21. Opposite bottom, Diagrammatic plan of the reading room level of Seattle Central LibraryFIG. 4.22. This page, Seattle Central Library, view of the reading room level and the book spiral

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119

computer area by a large truss that, while open enough to allow for movement between the two sides and a free visual connection, clearly diff erentiates the two sides as can be seen in fi gure 4.23. Subtle distinctions and edges are made throughout the library to show the separation of programs in Seattle Central.

Hespeler Library, a renovation of the library in Cambridge, Ontario also makes the programmatic separation between books and user spaces incredibly visible. Th e expansion of the town’s existing library was planned due to the community’s outgrowing of the modestly sized Carnegie funded library built in 1922.168 Rather than tear down the old structure a new library was built around the existing one to increase the size of the library. Th e resulting “library inside a library” separates programs into the two layers of library.169

In the Hespler Library there are actually two libraries; an inner library, the original Carnegie library, surrounded by an outer library, a glass and steel box. In the Carnegie library are the book stacks and in the surrounding space are reading areas, meeting spaces and other community programs. Quite literally the library has been wrapped in a new set of functions.

Th e transparency of the outer layer allows the older structure

FIG. 4.23. This page top, Seattle Central Library, view of the mixing chamber with reference stacks and computersFIG. 4.24. Opposite top, Diagram-matic section of the mixing chamber level of Seattle Central LibraryFIG. 4.25. Opposite bottom, Diagram-matic plan of the mixing chanber level of Seattle Central Library

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FIG. 4.26. This page, Diagrammatic plan showing the book storage and reading zones of Hespeler LibraryFIG. 4.27. Opposite top, Hespeler library, the zone between the old library and the new library structures (logo 65)FIG. 4.27. Opposite top, Diagrammatic section of the two “libraries” in Hespler Library

to be visible to the passer-by and links the patron back to the outside world. Both libraries are understood simultaneously as one library and separate conditions of space. With the spaces divided in this way two characters are developed for the two libraries, one remains linked to the history of library design seen in the Carnegie library, and the other takes on the modern requirements of library.

All three of these libraries separated the programs of reading and book storage in the modern trend, and made this separation visible in the spatial qualities of their designs. However, they all took diff erent stances on what value and meaning that separation had for the library.

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Th e evolution of the library shows certain trends that represent the modernization of the library. From the fi rst libraries to modern libraries, which are generally operating in the hybrid library model, there is a shrinking of the space for books relative to other programs, a dematerialization and delocalization of the library, and there is an essential shift in the understanding of information.

Th e program of the library has expanded to include a wide variety of functions and the basic activities of a library have been specialized so that the activity contained in a single room can now occupy entire departments. New program spaces take up the room once occupied by books and this shift is made possible by technologies that remove the need for physical books.

Digital technologies turn very physical, spatial and temporal relationships between user and resources in the library into incorporeal and instantaneous processes that are mediated by access interfaces rather than physical forms. Th e place of the library loses its importance, or rather changes the basis of its importance to be something else as its previous position loses ground to the demands of modernization.

Th e changing position of the library corresponds to a

The Book and the Modern Library

123

changing understanding of what it contains. Libraries originated a places dedicated physical objects, but the modern conception of a library’s content is not in terms of the physical presence of anything within its walls, but instead is concerned with “information,” “an essentially quantitative abstraction, something to manage rather than use - in short, a commodity - not as the lifeblood and substance of scholarly inquiry and endeavor.”170 Th e library has become entrenched in the modern fascination with effi ciency and has restructured its typology to cater towards the commodifi ed understanding of access that advocates the library to be as unobtrusive as possible in the activities of its patrons.

FIG. 5.1. Top, The library has been infiltrated by new programs and the books ave books pushed out to make room for these new functionsFIG. 5.2. Middle, The space of the library has been dematerializedFIG. 5.3. Bottom, The relationship between user and resource has been removed and an external mode of access has been added

124

FIG. 5.4. This page, Daemen College Research and Information Commons FIG. 5.5. Opposite top, Information Commons ModelFIG. 5.6. Opposite top, Information Commons Users

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126

The Book and the Urban Library

127

Th e separation of the book and the reader within the library is emblematic of the trajectory of the physical library. Th e modern library system had been redirected, its priorities have changed and it has taken on new roles while eliminating others. Th e institution of the public library, to help its patrons through the maze of its resources, must become a guide and voice of authority as well as a place of education and access. Th e resources that patrons access are increasingly remote while the space of the library is fi lled with the assistance needed to access those resources.

Remote resources, though are not only accessible within the confi nes of the library building: the digital library pervades, instantly accessible and ever growing. In the transient digital realm of the new library, the physical library becomes a moment of stability without clear boundaries, one point of focus bleeding out into the cloud. Th e modern public library is an indefi nite thing; spreading through the city, anchored by nodes of authority, but shifting and changing, appearing and disappearing as it is used.

With this understanding of the library it is no longer possible to conceive of the library as a single building, and the library must designed at a larger scale, that of the city. Th e modern library

128

FIG. 6.1. Previous, The diagram of the library re scales to the city.Fig. 6.2. This page top, The parks become the reading rooms of the city.FIG. 6.3. This page bottom, The urban fabric becomes an extension of the library.FIG. 6.4. Opposite, Urban Infrastructure can extend library functions into the city.

129

needs to be seen as a series of inter-connected permanent library spaces providing focal points in the fi eld of temporary library created by personal technology and digital resources. Th e library designed at the scale of the city can support far more than a single instance of library; it can embrace the whole urban network to support itself. Th e urban space linking the permanent libraries becomes an extension of the library, an urban library that can also be designed to support library goals and the needs of patrons. Parks, coff ee shops and even streetscapes become the reading rooms of the modern library and through the consideration of these spaces as an extension of the library they can be outfi tted to better provide library services unconfi ned to a single building.

Where the focal points are, the moments of stability, the library takes on a more familiar form, off ering the support and education patrons require to navigate the new library as well as alternative resources for when the digitized version does not provide enough. Each node of the library city provides a diff erent set of resources, of program spaces, of experiences, and of user groups so that the range of demands can be supported within the library as a whole. As the library embraces the digital age there are new programmatic and spatial additions made to these library nodes; there must

130

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also be distinctions between the component libraries within the system, resulting in programmatic subtractions to rebalance the off erings of the library with the requirements placed on it. One set of resources that requires considerable rebalancing is books which, while not sustainable within every library space, maintain a place in the library system as a whole.

In small ways books can remain present in the fast-paced, ephemeral library needed by patrons on a day-to-day basis, but in general books become reserved as an exception. Books become one of the fi xed points in the library; they, by contrast to information, occupy a defi nite physical place and need that context if they are to be understood and learned from. At a library node a space for books can be given the space to be meaningful and therefore a rich resource with layers of contextual readings.

To test the implications of this new model of library, this design proposal considers Iowa City, Iowa, a UNESCO City of Literature. Th e city is home to an especially well supported library and a rich range of related institutions. Along with the city’s public library and a wealth of community supported library activities, the city is home to the University of Iowa and its collection of libraries. Combined, the public and academic

131

FIG. 6.6. Opposite, The positions of Iowa City and the University of Iowa.FIG. 6.7. This page top, The area of downtown inhabited by the campus.FIG. 6.8. This page bottom, Pedestrian connection between the ICPL and the University of Iowa Main Library.

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132

FIG. 6.9. Opposite, Sample of the library institutions in Iowa City.

library spaces represent an ideal range of patrons and resources to explore the potential for books in the modern library.

Iowa City and the University of Iowa Campus sit together in the valley of the Iowa River. Th e boundary between the two is not clearly defi ned and they become blended in the city’s downtown, where campus and non-university buildings mix around pedestrian spaces creating a primarily pedestrian city center. Within this center the majority of the city’s library resources can be found, fi gure 6.10 shows the locations of the existing library spaces in Iowa City. Th e city’s downtown is also anchored by its two largest library institutions, the Iowa City Public Library and the University of Iowa Main Library, which sit at opposite ends of a pedestrian pathway that links the city center with the campus.

Because of the full range of library types supported within the downtown of Iowa City, the city is in eff ect already developing as a library city, but unintentionally and with a great deal of both overlap and missing components. Figure 6.11 shows the range of library types represented in Iowa City and the resources they cater to. Physical books are still present in the majority of existing library spaces, and most of these spaces can support books as critical resources due to the exceptional support the library and books receive in the City of Literature. Books are still threatened though, even with exceptional support; the University of Iowa Main Library is currently undergoing major renovations to transform its ground fl oor into a Commons, resulting in the rearranging of many of the library’s programs and the eventual removal of a substantial part of its collection, either to an annex or to be recycled (fi gure 6.12).

Th is renovation, takes advantage of the position books occupy in the information society. Books (as physical texts) are now only

133

Main LibraryRita Benson Music LibraryArt Library

English Philosophy Building

UI InternationalWriters Program

Hardin Libraryfor the Health Sciences

FIG. 6.10. Map showing the positions of the library institutions in Iowa City.

C Book FestivalGibson Square

Adler JournalismBuilding

LichtenbergerEngineering Library

Iowa City Public Library

Prairie Lights Books

State Historical SocietyLibrary

Sciences Library

Pomerantz Business Library

The Gazette

Haunted Books

North HallUI Center for the Book

Schaeffer LibraryDey HouseUI Writer’s Workshop

A

A

A

FIG. 6.11. Map showing the types and collection materials of the library institutions in Iowa City.

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A A

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138

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FIG. 6.12. The shifts of program happening as part of the University of Iowa Main Library renovations.

one method of preserving thoughts and can be circumvented in large part by more convenient digital media. Books are then only needed occasionally, which allows them to be segregated into off -site storage; this still allows that when the readily available digital resources are not enough, a book can be requested and retrieved for patron use without devoting library space to their storage.

An off -site book repository supports the on-demand nature of the modern library, but it does not adequately support the needs of books and readers. While digital media are not tied to physical space and allow the library to spread out eff ortlessly

139

into the urban fabric, the staunchly corporeal nature of books requires them to be experienced in a physical context in order to be understood. Pseudo-remote access, like that provided by off -site storage, negates the power of a collection of books when experienced by an individual. Virtual browsing of books may be convenient, but yields far less rich results as an afternoon spent in the stacks.

Books experienced in a physical setting are connected in more ways than their keywords -- the knowledge gained from books, rather than the information they contain. For their greater value to be available in the library system, the place of books cannot only be in a closed-off warehouse where they are only seen by a select few. For a library to consciously, and valuably participate in the larger library system it must provide a way for books to be experienced as richly as possible, and read in as many ways as possible. Th is means creating an environment with layers of context in which to read a book.

As the University of Iowa moves to create an annex there does not need to be the addition of one type of resource, the intellectual support off ered by the Commons, at the expense of another, books. Th is renovation can be made into an opportunity to further develop Iowa City as a library city. Th e creation of an annex for the University of Iowa libraries does not need to separate the books it houses from its readers. A new type of library space can be created, dedicated to storing large volumes of books, while still making them visible, experienced, and accessible resources in the library system. Th e creation of a repository is the expansion of the Iowa City library to make a place for books.

Th e repository can then serve as the permanent place of books in the changing library system. As digital technology continues to expand, books will be pushed out of other library spaces in the library system, an initial stage of which is hypothesized in fi gure 6.13. Th e repository will be the space where all the displaced books can be kept as the library system continues to shift and change in the information age.

reading

books

administration

communityprograms

service

Prarie Lights Book Store

removed added

communityprogramspaces

UI Main Libstudy

computers

books

referenceadministrationpreservationassistanceclassrooms

circulation

service cafe

removed added

computer lab

IT help deskand training

collaborative work andstudy spaces

ICPLreading

computers

books

movies and music

administration

assistancecommunity rooms

circulation

service

removed added

computerresourcesassistanceand educationcommunityactivityspaces

Haunted Bookshopreading

books

administration

assistance

service

non-print

removed added

communityprogramspaces

142

The Book and the Remembered Library

143

For the comprehensive modern library a physical place dedicated to books is essential; operating as a node in the larger system and critically examining and re-presenting the books it contains. Th e repository is designed not only as a warehouse in which to store the library’s physical collection, but also a museum, where books are not only used but understood. Books written and made at diff erent points in history are given richer meaning by reading them in the context of their contemporaries, when found in a formal setting with meaning of its own, and when seen within the chronological evolution of libraries, books, and the ideas they contain.

While the modern place of the book is moving towards a warehouse and the contextual reading of such a space can be seen as the true setting of the book in the information society, historical books read in such a setting would be lacking certain critical elements of their context. Th e repository of books in the modern library, being an open and accessible component of the library system, can provide readers with this rich context.

By organizing a part of the repository’s collection onto a chronological sequence, here corresponding to the stages of the formal evolution of the book and the library, books are placed

144

in a context of ideas, books, and a space designed to present that collection according to the position books held at the time. Th ese layers of context inform reading in the space in ways a warehouse could not. Th e collection of spaces designed to house these collections becomes a record of the form of libraries that can be compared between themselves and to the modern version of library, represented by the majority of the storage in the Repository, designed for maximum effi ciency, ease of access, and little intentional context.

In the Repository, a choreographed pathway links the volumes creating a journey through the evolution of the library and the book (fi gure 7.1). Th e volumes are enclosed with varying opacities, changing the extent to which they can be observed from inside the repository. As a visitor moves along the pathway they see, experience, and compare the diff erent typologies of library represented. In this way, context is returned to books in the placeless, ephemeral modern library.

FIG. 7.1. Opposite, The chronological sequence of collections in the Repository.FIG. 7.2. Next, The images of the library through history are projected into public space by the presence of the collection volumes.

145

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146

147

148

149

Th ese volumes not only become the experience of the library in the repository, but the image of the Repository. Rather than hide the books away, the Repository makes them visible so that even when not being directly used, books maintain a presence in, and therefore an infl uence on, the library city. Th e collection volumes are framed in the façade so that they may all be viewed at once, a collection of pictures of the library through history (fi gure 7.2).

In Iowa City this façade of images becomes the end of a library spine that runs along the pedestrian pathway linking the Iowa City Public Library to the University of Iowa Main Library and now continuing on to the adjacent Repository (fi gure 7.3). Th e Pathway that runs in front of the University Library now continues into a public plaza in front of the repository where it branches off into the Repository and continues into the campus (fi gure 7.3). Th e repository separates two public spaces, to the south an extension of the library spine from where the façade of images can be viewed and understood, and a campus quad to the north around which sit the schools for book arts and writing (fi gure 7.4).

Th e repository houses its warehouse book stacks, held above

FIG. 7.3. Opposite top, Extension of the library spine past the UIML and the Repository between two public spaces.FIG. 7.4. Opposite middle, The public plaza at the end of the library spine and the south façade.FIG. 7.5. Opposite bottom, Warehouse stacks held in Repository wrapper.

150

UP

UP

151

the ground plane, in an wrapper that forms the exterior of the building (fi gure 7.5). Th is wrapper is sided by two glass facades that allow the collection to be viewed from the public space outside the Repository. Voids separate the façade from the warehouse stacks, in these voids a series of volumes hang, reaching from the stacks and pushing out through the glass facades. Th e volumes carve away at the book stacks creating atria where patrons can view between the volumes.

On the south façade, facing the library spine pathway, the chronological collection volumes are arranged so that they can be viewed from both within and without the Repository. Th e pathway connecting these volumes winds between the volumes themselves and the Repository’s warehouse book stacks. On the north façade the volumes contain administration spaces needed for the operation of the repository and also for its participation in the larger library system. Spaces for circulation, preservation, and cataloguing look out on the University of Iowa. Th e two sets of volumes have their own internal systems of circulation: the collections have their chronological sequence, and the

FIG. 7.6. Opposite, Exploded axon showing the layers of the Repository and an immedi-ate site plan.

152

administration volumes have internal circulation for practicality.Th e warehouse book stacks that occupy the center of the

building are accessed by a central circulation core which extends down to the ground fl oor of the Repository. At the ground fl oor the wrapper reaches down to the ground in the form of a grand stair. At this level the contents of the repository meet the larger library system; the repository’s contents can be requested and received for busy patrons and research assistance can be provided. Also at the ground fl oor the repository’s contents can be transformed into the stuff of the information society with digitization initiatives that allow the repository to support the larger library framework.

FIG. 7.7. Opposite, Third floor plan showing the interaction between the collection vol-umes and the warehouse stacks.FIG. 7.8. Next, Transverse Section Showing the atria formed by the volumes carving away the book stacks.FIG. 7.9. Following, Perspective showing the Repository from the library spine pathway.

153

154

155

156

157

158

159

Notes

Jorge Luis Borges, “The Library of Babel,” in On Mysticism, ed.

Maria Kodama and Suzanne Jill Levine (New York: Penguin

Books, 2010), 9.

John Dagenais “Decolonizing the Medieval Page,” in The Future

of the Page, ed. Peter Stoicheff and Andrew Taylor (Toronto:

University of Toronto Press, 2004), xx.

Marshall McLuhan, The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of

Typographic Man, (Toronto; Buffalo: University of Toronto

Press, 1965), 18-21, 25.

Jerome McGann, “Visible and Invisible Books: Hermetic Images

in N-Dimensional Space,” in Stoicheff and Taylor, Future of

the Page, 144.

Robert Darnton, “The Library in the New Age,” The New York

Review of Books, June, 2008, http://www.nybooks.com.

libezproxy2.syr.edu/articles/archives/2008/jun/12/the-

library-in-the-new-age/?pagination=false; Frederick Andrew

Lerner, The Story of Libraries: From the Invention of Writing

to the Computer Age, 2nd ed. (New York: Continuum, 2009),

200; KT Meaney, “The Library: A Museum,” The Design

Observer Group, November 1, 2010, http://observatory.

designobserver.com/feature/the-library-a-museum/20928/;

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

160

Alberto Manguel, The Library at Night, (New Haven, CT: Yale

University Press, 2008).

Lerner, Story of Libraries, 22-3.

McGann, “Visible and Invisible Books,” in Stoicheff and Taylor,

Future of the Page, 157.

Dagenais, “Decolonizing the Medieval Page,” in Stoicheff and

Taylor, Future of the Page, 40.

Ibid., 44.

Darnton, “The Library in the New Age,” The New York Review of

Books, June, 2008.

Peter Stoicheff and Andrew Taylor, eds., The Future of the

Page, Studies in Book and Print Culture (Toronto: University of

Toronto Press, 2004), 9.

Dagenais, “Decolonizing the Medieval Page,” in Stoicheff and

Taylor, Future of the Page, 58.

McGann, “Visible and Invisible Books,” in Stoicheff and Taylor,

Future of the Page, 155-6.

Alberto Manguel, “Turning the page,” in Stoicheff and Taylor,

Future of the Page, 29-30.

Stoicheff and Taylor, Future of the Page, 18.

Manguel, “Turning the page,” in Stoicheff and Taylor, Future of

the Page, 29-33.

Stoicheff and Taylor, Future of the Page, 9.

Joseph Tabbi, “The Processual Page: Materiality and

Consciousness in Print and Hypertext,” in Stoicheff and Taylor,

Future of the Page, 207.

Stoicheff and Taylor, Future of the Page, 9.

Tabbi, “The Processual Page,” in Stoicheff and Taylor, Future of

the Page, 207.

Borges, “The Library of Babel,” 17.

Allison Muri, “Virtually Human: The Electronic Page, the Archived

Body, and Human Identity,” in Stoicheff and Taylor, Future of

the Page, 232.

Stoicheff and Taylor, Future of the Page, 7.

Ibid.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

161

Ibid.

Manguel, “Turning the page,” in Stoicheff and Taylor, Future of

the Page, 33.

Muri, “Virtually Human,” in Stoicheff and Taylor, Future of the

Page, 231.

Ibid., 232.

Huib Haye van der Werf, ed., The Architecture of Knowledge:

The Library of the Future = De architektuur van kennis: de

bibliotheek van de toekomst, (Rotterdam: Eelco van Welie; NAi

Publishers, 2010) 87.

Ibid., 89.

Tabbi, “The Processual Page,” in Stoicheff and Taylor, Future of

the Page, 208.

Manguel, “Turning the page,” in Stoicheff and Taylor, Future of

the Page, 33.

Manguel, The Library at Night, 223-5.

Ibid., 131.

Haye van der Werf, Architecture of Knowledge, 90.

Ibid., 91.

Ibid., 92.

Manguel, Library at Night, 132-4.

Ibid., 135.

Lerner, Story of Libraries, ix.

Ibid., 23.

Stoicheff and Taylor, Future of the Page, 7.

Lerner, Story of Libraries, 23.

Ibid., 197.

Ibid., 187.

Ibid., 196-7.

Ibid.

Michael Keller, Vicky Reich, and Andrew Herkovic, “What is a

Library Anymore, Anyway?” First Monday 8, no. 5 (May 5,

2003): http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.

php/fm/article/view/1053/973.

McGann, “Visible and Invisible Books,” in Stoicheff and Taylor,

25.

25.

26.

27.

28.

29.

30.

31.

32.

33.

34.

35.

36.

37.

38.

39.

40.

41.

42.

43.

44.

45.

46.

47.

48.

162

Future of the Page, 148.

Alexandra Lange, “Reading Out Loud,” The Design Observer

Group, March 7, 2011, http://observersroom.designobserver.

com/alexandralange/post/reading-out-loud/25418/.

Ibid.

Marshall McLuhan, The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of

Typographic Man, (Toronto; Buffalo: University of Toronto

Press, 1965), 20-1.

Ibid.

Lerner, Story of Libraries, 1-2.

Ibid., 2.

Ibid., 3.

Ibid., 4.

Ibis., 1.

Ibid., 12-13.

Encyclopædia Britannica Online, s. v. “library,” accessed

November 02, 2011, http://www.britannica.com.libezproxy2.

syr.edu/EBchecked/topic/339421/library.

Manguel, Library at Night, 94.

Lerner, Story of Libraries, 22-3.

Ibid., 14.

Manguel, Library at Night, 28.

Lerner, Story of Libraries, 14-6.

Manguel, Library at Night, 26-8.

Ibid., 29-31.

Lerner, Story of Libraries, 23, 56.

Ibid. 56-7.

Ibid., 22.

Encyclopædia Britannica Online, s. v. “library.”

Lerner, Story of Libraries, 57-9.

Ibid., 56, 60-1.

Ibid., 24.

Ibid., 31-3.

Ibid. 34, 75.

Ibid., 67-8.

49.

50.

51.

52.

53.

54.

55.

56.

57.

58.

59.

60.

61.

62.

63.

64.

65.

66.

67.

68.

69.

70.

71.

72.

73.

74.

75.

76.

163

Ibid., 73.

Sascha Hastings, Esther E. Shipman, and Cambridge Galleries.

Design at Riverside Gallery. Logotopia: The Library in

Architecture, Art and the Imagination, (Cambridge, Ontario:

Cambridge Galleries Design at Riverside, 2008) 21.

Lerner, Story of Libraries, 99-100.

Ibid., 100-1.

Ibid., 102-3.

Ibid., 104-8.

Ibid., 125.

Ibid.

George S. Bobinski, Carnegie Libraries: Their History and Impact

on American Public Library Development (Chicago: American

Library Association, 1969), 3.

Ibid., 57-8.

Tatiana V. Ershova and Yuri E. Hohlov, “Migrating from the

Library of Today to the Library of Tomorrow: Re- or

E-volution?” Paper presented at 66th IFLA Council and

General Conference, Jerusalem, Israel, http://archive.ifla.

org/IV/ifla66/papers/063-110e.htm.

Ibid.

McGann, “Visible and Invisible Books,” in Stoicheff and Taylor,

Future of the Page, 143-158.

Ershova and Hohlov, “Migrating from the Library of Today.”

Bobinski, Carnegie Libraries, 57-8.

Lerner, Story of Libraries,1.

Ibid., 5.

Ibid.

Ibid., 2-3.

Ibid., 2-6.

Ibid., 49.

Ibid., 39.

Ibid., 12.

Ibid., 14-5.

Ibid., 22.

77.

78.

79.

80.

81.

82.

83.

84.

85.

86.

87.

88.

89.

90.

91.

91

92.

93.

94.

95.

96.

97.

98.

99.

100.

164

Ibid., 41.

Ibid., 22-3.

Ibid., 41.

Ibid., 24-5.

Ibid., 30-1, 742-814.

Ibid., 55.

Hastings et al., Logotopia, 15.

Lerner, Story of Libraries, 56.

Ibid., 31-3.

Ibid., 45.

Ibid., 57-9.

Ibid., 45.

Ibid., 84.

Ibid., 79

Ibid., 67-70.

Ibid., 70-1.

Ibid., 70.

Ibid., 100-1.

Ibid., 87-9.

Ibid., 83.

Ibid., 90.

Ibid., 100.

Ibid., 87-8.

Ibid., 93-4.

Hastings et al., Logotopia, 18.

Lerner, Story of Libraries, 90-1.

Ibid., 129-30.

Ibid., 112.

Ibid., 102.

Ibid., 104.

Ibid., 129.

Ibid., 141.

Ibid., 116.

Ibid., 104-5.

Bobinski, Carnegie Libraries, 4.

101.

102.

103.

104.

105.

106.

107.

108.

109.

110.

111.

112.

113.

114.

115.

116.

117.

118.

119.

120.

121.

122.

123.

124.

125.

126.

127.

128.

129.

130.

131.

132.

133.

134.

135.

165

Lerner, Story of Libraries, 131.

Ibid., 105.

Ibid., 131-3.

Ibid., 120-1.

Ibid., 185-6.

Ibid., 191-2.

Bobinski, Carnegie Libraries, 4.

Lerner, Story of Libraries, 134-5.

Ibid., 122.

Ibid., 107, 121.

Ibid., 187.

Ibid., 143.

Ibid., 139.

Ibid., 189-90.

Ibid., 123.

Ibid., 190.

Ibid., 188.

Ibid., 123.

Ibid., 188.

Abigail A. Van Slyck, Free to all: Carnegie Libraries & American

Culture, 1890-1920 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,

1995), 36.

Ibid.

Ibid., 42.

University of Chicago Library. “Joe and Rika Mansueto Library.”

http://mansueto.lib.uchicago.edu/.

Ibid.

Michael Kubo and Ramon Prat, eds., Seattle Public Library:

OMA/LMN, (Barcelona: Actar, 2005), 14-5.

Ibid., 18-26.

Ibid., 14-5, 26.

Ibid., 26.

Brewster Kahle, “Why Preserve Books? The New Physical Archive

of the Internet Archive,” Internet Archive Blogs (blog), http://

blog.archive.org/2011/06/06/why-preserve-books-the-

136.

137.

138.

139.

140.

141.

142.

143.

144.

145.

146.

147.

148.

149.

150.

151.

152.

153.

154.

155.

156.

157.

158.

159.

160.

161.

162.

163.

164.

166

new-physical-archive-of-the-internet-archive/.

Ibid.

Hastings et al., Logotopia, 47.

Ibid., 41-2.

Ibid., 54.

Ibid., 54-5.

Ershova and Hohlov, “Migrating from the Library of Today.”

165.

166.

167.

168.

169.

170.

167

Bobinski, George S. Carnegie Libraries: Their History and Impact on

American Public Library Development. Chicago: American Library

Association. 1969.

Borges, Jorge Luis. “The Library of Babel.” In On Mysticism, 9-17. Edited

by Maria Kodama and Suzanne Jill Levine. New York: Penguin

Books. 2010.

Colomina, Beatriz. “Introduction: On Architecture, Production and

Reproduction.” In ARCHITECTUREPRODUCTION, edited by Joan

Ockman, 6-23. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Architectural Press. 1988.

Dagenais, John. “Decolonizing the Medieval Page.” In Stoicheff, The

Future of the Page, 37-70.

Darnton, Robert. “The Library in the New Age.” The New York Review

of Books, June, 2008, http://www.nybooks.com.libezproxy2.

syr.edu/articles/archives/2008/jun/12/the-library-in-the-new-

age/?pagination=false.

Encyclopædia Britannica Online, s. v. “library,” accessed November 02,

2011, http://www.britannica.com.libezproxy2.syr.edu/EBchecked/

topic/339421/library.

Ershova, Tatiana V. and Yuri E. Hohlov. “Migrating from the Library

of Today to the Library of Tomorrow: Re- or E-volution?” Paper

presented at 66th IFLA Council and General Conference, Jerusalem,

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1.1 author; 1.2 http://www.usask.ca/english/architectures/pages2/contents/marginalia_illustration.html; 1.3 auhor; 2.1 author; 2.2 author; 2.3 author; 2.4 Alberto Manguel, Th e Library at Night, (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008), 136.; 2.5 P. R. Harris, A History of the British Museum Library, 1753-1973, (London: Th e British Library, 1998), plate 42.; 2.6 Ibid., plate 41.; 2.7 Ibid., plate 26.; 3.1 author; 3.2 ebla.it; 3.3 Ibid.; 3.4 Manual of Discipline, Photograph, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online, accessed December 8, 2011, http://www.britannica.com.libezproxy2.syr.edu/EBchecked/media/15778/Dead-Sea-Scrolls-Manual-of-Discipline-columns-2-4-Qumran.; 3.5 Manguel, Library at Night, 57.; 3.6 Alexandria, Library of: German engraving, Photograph, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online, accessed November 2, 2011, http://www.britannica.com.libezproxy2.syr.edu/EBchecked/media/107764/A-19th-century-German-engraving-depicting-a-hall-in-the.; 3.7 Qur’ān: illuminated page, Photograph, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online, accessed November 2, 2011, http://www.britannica.com.libezproxy2.syr.edu/EBchecked/media/90095/A-page-of-the-Quran-has-been-beautifully-decorated-and.; 3.8 Frederick Andrew Lerner, Th e Story of Libraries: From the Invention of

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Writing to the Computer Age, 2nd ed. (New York: Continuum, 2009), plate 10.; 3.9 http://www.nypl.org/blog/2010/12/21/stack-tour; 3.10 Ibid.; 3.11 Abigail A. Van Slyck, Free to all: Carnegie Libraries & American Culture, 1890-1920 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), 122.; 3.12 Huib Haye van der Werf, ed., Th e Architecture of Knowledge: Th e Library of the Future = De architektuur van kennis: de bibliotheek van de toekomst, (Rotterdam: Eelco van Welie; NAi Publishers, 2010) 2.; 3.13 http://www.spl.org/; 3.14 author; 3.15 author; 3.16 author; 4.1 Van Slyck, Free to all. 149.; 4.2 George S. Bobinski, Carnegie Libraries: Th eir History and Impact on American Public Library Development (Chicago: American Library Association, 1969), 60.; 4.3 author; 4.4 author; 4.5 shrosa814, http://www.fl ickr.com/photos/shicksba272214/5727702524/.; 4.6 http://openbuildings.com/buildings/joe-and-rika-mansueto-library-profi le-39354.; 4.7 http://www.worldarchitecturenews.com/index.php?fuseaction=wanappln.projectview&upload_id=16686.; 4.8 author; 4.9 author; 4.10 http://www.oma.nl/projects/2004/seattle-central-library.; 4.11 http://www.spl.org/locations/central-library/cen-building-facts/cen-omalmn-concept-book.; 4.12 author; 4.13 author; 4.14 http://www.archive.org/.; 4.15 http://blog.archive.org/2011/06/06/why-preserve-books-the-new-physical-archive-of-the-internet-archive/.; 4.16 Sascha Hastings, Esther E. Shipman, and Cambridge Galleries. Design at Riverside Gallery. Logotopia: Th e Library in Architecture, Art and the Imagination, (Cambridge, Ontario: Cambridge Galleries Design at Riverside, 2008) 42.; 4.17 Ibid., 50.; 4.18 author; 4.19 author; 4.20 author; 4.21 author; 4.22 Michael Kubo and Ramon Prat, eds., Seattle Public Library: OMA/LMN (Barcelona: Actar, 2005), 133.; 4.23 Haye van der Werf, Architecture of Knowledge, 2.; 4.24 author; 4.25 author

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