Category: Field Report

The Art Gallery of Ontario: Visitor engagement in the museum with the application.(HCI)

INFO-601 Foundations of Information Dr.Sula
Juri Rhyu
Observation

Observation—Complete an approximately three-hour observation of an information environment, chosen in consultation with the professor. Your article should describe what happened during your observation and should connect those details to larger issues in the field, citing/using readings where they are relevant.

Observation: The Art Gallery of Ontario: Visitor engagement in the museum with the application.

The About the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO)

Visiting The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) was one of my travel list in Canada.
The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) is an art museum located at 317 Dundas Street, West Toronto, Ontario. Toronto is the largest city in Canada, and the AGO is one of the largest art museums in North America. The museum has nearly 95,000 of various artworks from contemporary art to European masterpiece. They support emerging indigenous Canadian artists and collaborative exhibitions with other museums and galleries around the world. The AGO is also known for their architecture. It was designed by famous Canadian architect Frank Gehry. The AGO is the first place where he experienced art in his childhood. I always admire Frank Gehry’s works because of his design philosophy. He wanted to build a museum that connects a city and its people to great art and art experience. His design intention is exactly appropriate for AGO’s mission: “We bring people together with art to see, experience and understand the world in new ways”1.

Before visiting the AGO, I checked their website to get information about the museum. The website is well designed; the first page has all the necessary information including gallery hours, current events, how to get to the museum, getting admission tickets, education events or classes and museum news which are all I wanted to know. The AGO presents wide-ranging exhibitions and educational programs. The museum is funded by the Ontario Ministry of Tourism, Culture, and Sports and additionally supported by the City of Toronto. The AGO always invites interesting and worldwide known exhibitions as well as developing own educational programs for visitors and publications. Recently, the museum has been crowdfunding to purchase “Infinity Mirrored Room” by artist Yayoi Kusama.2 They encourage visitors to donate for the artworks. More than 3,000 people have chipped in a contribution to permanently acquire Kusama’s brand new installation, even though they haven’t seen it until now. The artwork itself costs $2 million, with $1 million of the price tag paid for by the Art Gallery of Ontario Foundation. With one more week to go, the month-long crowdfunding campaign to raise the remainder sits at nearly $413,000, as of midday Friday. The AGO says it’s hoping more people donate on next week’s “Giving

1 About the AGO. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://ago.ca/about/about-the-ago
2 Here’s a sneak peek at the new Yayoi Kusama infinity room the AGO wants your help to buy | CBC News. (2018, November 23). Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/kusama-infinity-room-first-look-1.4917109

Tuesday,” a day devoted to donations following “Black Friday” shopping. Funding is not enough to buy Kusama’s work yet, but it shows how much people care about the museum and participating in the development of the museum.

Special Exhibition

Anthropocene: The Human Epoch
Anthropocene: dramatically illustrates how we, individually and collectively, are leaving a human signature on our world.3 This show is organized by the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) and the Canadian Photography Institute(CPI) of the National Gallery of Canada(NGC), in partnership with Fondazione MAST.

Anthropocene is the culmination of an ambitious, four-year-long collaboration by the artist and filmmakers Edward Burtynsky, Jennifer Baichwal, and Nicholas de Penciaer. Their goal is capturing the massive scope of human effects on land, sky, and water.

Technology and Art(HCI)

The field of human-Computer interaction(HCI) is expanded alongside the extensive technological developments such as the internet wireless technologies, smartphones. These had created many opportunities for augmenting extending and supporting user experience, interactions, and communication.(New Theoretical approaches for Human-Computer Interaction by Yvonne Roger University of Sussex)

AGO developed an application with the artist to provide a unique experience to the visitor.

The artists created Augmented Reality (AR) Installations which can be activated by simply downloading application AVARA. The museum places the symbol on the floor and wall labels to help visitor identify each AR activation. There are six activations in total, four-videos, and two 3D AR installations which present experiences of confiscated ivory tusks, a northern white rhinoceros and a Douglas fir tree at or near the actual scale.

Conclusion

This museum visit did remind me of the several articles about digitalizing the institution, collecting data and museum heritage. The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) is seeking ways to directly interact with the visitors and to create an impressive museum experience rather than delivering pieces of information. This show is well curated with care and utilized the gallery space as much as possible. I visited this museum during the weekday, and the museum had a number of people and school groups, but it was not too crowded. Since this show encourages you to be on the phone, the show prepared the charging station right below the infographic about pollution and what is co. A museum educator was at the station to explain the works and environment and to answer questions from museum visitors.

As a museum educator, getting feedback is as important as curating shows. They set up a pathway at the end of the exhibition to make people experience interactive activities with touch screens which helps museums collect data. They invite people to upload photos of the show with hashtag#. Once you upload a photo with hashtag#, it is also automatically uploaded on the museum website (https://ago.ca/exhibitions/anthropocene). In my opinion, they should not post personal pictures until they get permission. Even though people tag the museum and the show, they would not expect that their pictures could be uploaded on the museum website.

In addition, I hardly believe that digital museums can replace traditional ones because a museum is where not only provides information and archives historical heritage but also where allows people to have a physical experience with art. The Museum building itself is

3 Anthropocene. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://ago.ca/exhibitions/anthropocene

also an art piece, and viewing digital contents does not give people the same experience as physically being in the space.

Posted on by jrhyu 0

Observation- Larchmont Public Library: The Provisions of a Small Local Library

Despite having consistently been a resident of New Rochelle, I have had a long-lasting connection with the nearby Larchmont Public Library. As a senior in high school I volunteered there, but quite a bit has changed both physically and technologically since I was last there on a regular basis. Extensive renovations were made in 2016.

The circulation desk is straight ahead as you walk in. Beyond that is the newly added and beautifully constructed Technology Commons, an open space with computers and tables. This serves as an excellent location for such a center. It is in close proximity to the circulation desk which always has at least one person there to assist patrons. I went on a Sunday, which usually is a relatively quiet day and most of the librarians are not there. Nonetheless, there was one man there who had quite a few patrons approach him for technological assistance. He maintained his affable demeanor throughout his exchanges with the patrons despite having quite a few people approach him. One patron’s issue seemed to be persistent and he returned repeatedly to the librarian for help. I did not detect any sense of frustration from the librarian despite the patron getting rather flustered. The librarian simply set him up at a different computer and the issue seemed to have been resolved.

Surrounding the Technology Center are enclosed areas designed for private tutoring sessions. Overlooking the Technology Center is a balcony area which hosts the adult fiction books. On the floor below is the adult non-fiction section. There is a diminutive art gallery (the Oresman Gallery) on the way to the Burchell Children’s Room which was completed in 2010. For a small public library which only has 100,00 items, there are many services which are offered.

Slightly unusual for a public library of its size, there is quite a lot of French items. The Children’s Library  has an entire section of French books and there are an abundance of French options in the adult sections as well. There is a regular French/English story time offered on Sundays. Larchmont has historically had a large number of French speaking residents. The Lycee Franco-Americain de New York is right next door to the library. It is clear that the library has this community in mind when developing the collection and organizing the programming.

The library has been wheelchair accessible since 1995, although this is possibly an area where there can be room for improvement. On the bottom floor, there is a wheelchair lift next to the staircase so as to accommodate the physically handicapped. However, it can be a bit of a pain to use. In order to operate the lift, one needs to have a key which must be obtained from the circulation desk. It would probably be simpler to have a ramp instead.

Another issue I overheard someone complain about was that the book drop was underneath the computer kiosk for searching the catalog. It is possibly a slight inconvenience and perhaps not an intuitive place for it to be, but to be honest, I found the complaint to be rather petty. Still, I suppose it is something worth considering when creating an information space.

I was also surprised by the number of research resources that are provided at the Larchmont Public Library. There are four full-time reference librarians and one part-time reference librarian (she actually used to be the assistant director of the library and my supervisor). The reference librarians are not there on Sundays, but there is permanent use of the online resources, which include materials on Arts and Literature, Biographies, Genealogy, Health and Science, History, Business and Law, Social Science, Newspapers, Serials etc. I was astounded by how much this small public library has to offer.

 

Posted on by Benjamin Ottenstein 0

Observation of The Rubin Museum of Art

I’ve never heard about The Rubin Museum until I had a conversation about cultural differences between Taiwan and China with my English Literature Professor Terri Bennett. After the interesting conversation with Professor Terri, I’ve decided to choose The Rubin Museum of Art to do my observation due to cultural, religious, and political related reasons. I was really excited to see how different audience behaves in such place that I defined as a “controversial museum”.

Objective

Understand how the visitors from different backgrounds (includes culture, nationalities, and even ethnicities) behave or interact with the artworks in The Rubin Museum of Art. Below are something I’d like to know from this observation:
1. Rough demographic of the visitor (age, ethnicity, gender)
2. General behavior when browsing all artworks between Asian visitors and others
3. Interaction with the installation in “The Shrine Room” on the fourth floor.

Brief intro of The Rubin Museum of Art

The Rubin Museum is a museum that aims to “stimulate learning, promotes understanding, and inspires personal connections to the ideas, cultures, and art of Himalayan regions (The Rubin Museum, 2018)” by displaying collections of Himalayan arts.

Brief intro of “The Shrine Room”

“The Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room evokes the aesthetics and atmosphere of a traditional Tibetan sacred space and offers visitors the opportunity to experience Tibetan religious art in its cultural context (The Rubin Museum, 2018).” This is actually not a “room”, it’s more like an open space with a fence to prevent visitors get too close to the installation.
  

Results
These results are based on a three-hours long observation I did on Oct 26th, from 6:00 pm-9:00 pm. The Rubin had a free admission opening night for the renewed art installation called “The Shrine Room” on the fourth floor. All results might not be able to represent the general phenomena of The Rubin.

General

1. There were only a small amount of visitors are Asian (Only 3-4 Asian per visit group, each group has around 45-50 visitors). Most of the Asian visitors are female (Oftentimes there was only one man in the Asian visit group, each group has 3-4 visitors).
2.  Most visitors who are not Asian tend to take close-up photos for art objects like the statues of the deity. Asian visitors are opposite, few of them even pray to the statues of the deity.

The Shrine Room:

There were three types of visitors during that three hours:
a. Believer/disciple-they either prayed with beads or special hand
    gesture.
b. The curious ones-they just came and sat on one of the eight chairs in
    front of the art setting.
c. Selfie lover/Social media enthusiast-they took selfies with the
   “art installation”, and some of them upload to social media.
2. Believer/disciple are most likely female, across the races/ethics.
3. Staying time is 15-20 min for almost every group of people, no matter
     they came for praying/meditating, taking selfies, or just sitting.
4. Most of the visitors who took the seats in front of the installation did not
     cross their legs, and did not even slightly open their legs. My assumption
     of this posture is the audiences were aware of the installation is solemn
     from a religious aspect.

Reflection

1. Broad stating “Buddhist art” to “Himalayan art” doesn’t justify the misperception of The Rubin Museum of Art.
If you check the definition of Himalayan art online, no matter from academic resources or Wikipedia, the strong connection between Himalayan art and Buddhist art is undeniable. In this case, the way to display artworks and do storytelling need to handle with care, otherwise, the outcome might be misleading toward to a religious display in a disrespectful manner. When The Rubin claimed they did try to avoid creating a “faux Tibetan temple”, I can’t really find the supporting pieces of evidence while browsing their available collections. As a Taiwanese Buddhist (Which is highly influenced by Chinese Buddhism, it combines both Taoism and Confucianism), how the exhibits display in The Rubin bother me a lot for three major reasons:

A. No comprehensive review or introduction of all collection they display-
This brought up a cultural related issue: the misperception of the so-called “Himalayan art”, and how other types of Buddhists perceive the collections in The Rubin Museum. My Buddhism culture oftentimes sees religious art creations as a solemn representation of god’s wellness. Unlike Himalaya Buddhism, we worship the sculptures/paintings of deity, the mysterious powers are in those”solemn objects”. The daily ritual practice is to pray in front of those”solemn objects”, any disrespectful behavior would cause some serious punishment by the deity. The relationship between believers and the “solemn objects ” is pretty restricted to a top-down affiliation from a religious aspect, and this might be the major difference between Taiwanese/Chinese Buddhism and Himalayan Buddhism, but there is no emphasis on the differences in The Rubin as a comprehensive overview of it’s “Himalayan art” collection. I assume people have a similar religious background like me would misinterpret those art objects with existing understanding, and might not willing to visit at all.

B. Major collection/display generate a strong religious vibe like a temple-the major collection are paintings and sculptures, only a few other types of “Himalayan art” like masks or photographs are collected and displayed in the museum. The deity paintings or sculpture are the main objects of traditional ritual practice. If a place displays religious paintings or sculptures mostly without a proper storytelling or introduction, it would more likely to be treated as a “temple-like” space, I will share my findings with photos as supporting evidence later.
C. Lack of deep understanding of broad Buddhism culture leads to a weird contemporary “Himalayan art” outcome- there were some animated arts put Buddha and other main Buddhism figures into neon arts with some crazy cartoon-ish images. Not sure it’s because of cultural difference or other superstitious reasons, it’s pretty rare in Asia to see artist “play with” the Buddha figures. Often times people are afraid of this kind of recreation since that could consider as a disrespectful behavior and would receive a curse as a punishment. I personally feel so uncomfortable about those type of artworks, and I doubt if the museum ever considers their audience might interpret the artworks like me or not.

The Shrine Room experience is the most tricky part to me. I can’t define it as a type of recreation to provide an immersive visit experience like an “artwork”, or, it represents a type of preservation of religious art and culture. I am more tend to believe that’s a preservation, to showcase how it looks like in Himalaya’s family house, and what’s the vibe. The reason why I don’t consider The Shrine Roon as a recreation artwork, it’s because there is no obvious storytelling or blending any contemporary art factor into it.
I read that as an authentic religious display room instead of an artwork. In this case, if we see The Shrine Room as a preservation project, then I tend to agree with what Cloonan mentioned in the W(h)ither Preservation article “Preservation must be approached not only as a set of technical solutions to technical problems, but also as a more complex concept that includes social dimensions (Cloonan, 2001).” Which The Shrine Room might fail from the social aspect- it doesn’t tell a comprehensive story about the cultural, but a showroom to showcase those different objects that been used as tools in a religious ritual. This might attract the audience who just like to explore “interesting things” and don’t care about the context (for example, the visitors just took selfies and shared it to social media without knowing the culture behind this installation).

Also, the way The Rubin Museum displays The Shrine Room as an installation without the ritual, might change how the audience interprets such display as a still sacred home-deco, not a place to execute the ritual, which misses the whole context of this room. It’s already easy to change how we interpret an object over time, it would be way easier to lose the whole meaning without a proper introduction of a preservation. If “the primary goal of preservation is to prolong the existence of cultural property (Cloonan, 2001),” in order to preserve the cultural aspect, we should include the ritual or the life with the room to showcase the “culture”, not just the objects.
The whole observation was really intense for me, I can somehow to relate why there were just a few Asian visitors during the observation. The whole museum doesn’t provide a comprehensive introduction for the collections as art collections, because the museum tries to portray all those objects collections from a pure art aspect, which is impossible, since the reason why all the creation are made is to serve as a religious tool (most of the time). The Shrine Room is just not a good example as either an art installation or preservation, I’d prefer to showcase the ritual or any activity that involves those objects digitally, in order to preserve the whole “culture”, so the meaning of the preservation would really “to prolong the existence of cultural property (Cloonan, 2001).” And that’s what I think the true value of displaying all these collections.

Related Resources

  1. “About the Museum” The Rubin Museum of Art, 30 Nov. 2018,  http://rubinmuseum.org/about
  2. “The Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room” The Rubin Museum of Art, 30 Nov. 2018,  http://rubinmuseum.org/events/exhibitions/the-tibetan-buddhist-shrine-room
  3. Michele Valerie Cloonan.“W(H)ITHER PRESERVATION?”  The Library Quarterly, Vol 71(2), 231-242, 2001
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Visiting a Closed Museum: The High Museum’s Reinstallation

2018 Reinstallation: Refreshed. Reimagined. Revealed. from High Museum of Art Atlanta on Vimeo.

Ongoing construction in the main building.

When I visited the High Museum in Atlanta in the beginning of October, I caught it during an awkward in-between time. The museum was in the final stage of mounting a total gallery reinstallation and almost the entire space was closed. There was a single exhibit on display in an outbuilding, With Drawn Arms: Glenn Kaino and Tommie Smith, but the museum was otherwise closed. This might seem like an odd choice for an observation site. I’d never been to the High before, and I wouldn’t be able to visit it again once the galleries had reopened to the public.

I wouldn’t be able to make a before and after comparison, but I wanted to visit the High because the reasons and circumstances surrounding a complete gallery reinstallation tap into questions surrounding collections and archives and how the maintenance of them and the spaces that house them all end users to interface with them. In the case of museums like the High, that means its visitors, both from around the world and from the local Atlanta community.

As part of an FAQ (which has been archived since the museum’s unveiling) on the High’s website, the museum stated:

“Reinstallation is a planned part of the Museum’s long-term strategy. It’s an opportunity for us to rethink the way we present the artwork in our collection. Since 2005, we’ve added nearly 7,000 new objects to the permanent collection. Now feels like the right time to showcase these works, address wayfinding, spruce up the galleries, and make the collection presentations more cohesive and engaging for visitors.”

These ideas called to mind the the themes Joan Schwartz and Terry Cook addressed in “Archive, Record, and Power: The Making of Modern Memory”. The archive, or collection, and its keepers must be responsive and adaptive to context and change. Keepers should also acknowledge their responsibility in creating an archive that is representative and the archive’s role in the “exercise of power—power over information and power of information institutions. Also interwoven throughout is the crisis of representation—the power of records and archives as representations and the representation of power in records and archives” (Schwartz and Cook 9).

As of the 2010 census, Atlanta’s population was 54 percent black. The city is also the birthplace of Martin Luther King Jr. and the home of the Center for Civil and Human Rights. During my visit I was able to speak with Margaret Wilkerson, a Museum Educator and Docent Manager, who stated that part of the plan was to create more space for the High’s collection of civil rights era photography and to bring together the museum’s collections of African art, which had been previously scattered in different galleries. A review of the reinstallation in ArtsATL by Catherine Fox noted “[t]he High has made a concerted and noticeable effort to” include more art from women and people of color. A preview of the reinstallation in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution noticed that in the new layout “African art might share space with self-taught artists from the American South, and self-taught artists will be placed up against contemporary artists to show the energy exchanged between the two”–another aspect of the reinstallation that Wilkerson mentioned in our conversation.

This integration of different pieces from the collection works to create “stories linking works throughout the museum” (Fox). Wilkerson admitted that a weakness of the High in the past was it’s tendency to move from blockbuster exhibition to blockbuster exhibition, rather than focusing and drawing on the strength of its own collection. Creating narratives from work pulled from across time and location would hopefully draw in visitors who would be interested in returning to the High even when something major like it’s current Yayoi Kusama exhibition isn’t in town.

Ironically, the only work I was able to see was a temporary exhibit. But the themes of With Drawn Arms demonstrate the High’s desire to bring the past into the present and “[showcase] artworks relevant to communities from Atlanta and beyond.” A collaboration between Olympic gold medalist Tommie Smith and artist Glenn Kaino, With Drawn Arms brings together art and artifacts representing Smith’s act of protest during the the 1968 Olympic games. While the Star Spangled Banner played during his medal ceremony, Smith and teammate John Carlos bowed their heads and held up black gloved fists to represent Black Power and protest the mistreatment and denial of rights faced by black Americans. Colin Kaepernick’s Nike campaign had debuted just weeks before the exhibition opened and direct connections could be drawn between every element of Smith’s protest and Kaepernick’s.

The most striking work was a series of bronze casts Kaino created of Smith’s arm. The casts were hung from the ceiling and filled the room. Titled “Bridge,” Kaino describes the work on his website as “a golden path leading forward from the present but connected to the past, a spectacular reconciliation of a historic record, an individual memory, and a public symbol all renegotiated in an infrastructure of time to creates stories of the now.”

Glenn Kaino's "Bridge"
Glenn Kaino’s “Bridge”

In visiting the High, I wasn’t able to actually observe much, but a museum (or archive) is not only it’s collection. It’s also the context and conversation around the collection. The reinstallation itself is designed to allow the museum to make adjustments and respond to its users. Whether their efforts create a successful bridge remains to be seen. I personally won’t be able to go see it for awhile. But I think the very fact that the museum recognized its need to pause and re-examine its role and the significance of its works is a good sign.

Posted on by Clarissa Liu 1

Observation: Brooklyn Museum

For my observation, I spent time watching and exploring the Brooklyn Museum. I have had to do many museum observations this semester as part of the Museums and Digital Culture program. It made the most sense for me to observe a museum, and specifically this one for longer, for the purpose of this assignment, because I have seen the evolution of this institution over many years. I observed the exhibits on Sunday mid-morning October 7th, which was potentially not the best day to go, because the museum itself was relatively empty at that time.

Growing up, I frequently attended the Brooklyn Museum, and the permanent collections remained relatively stagnant throughout the early 2000s. For years, they seemingly did not evolve or make much attempt at relevancy, in my opinion, including topical themes and creating much personal interest. I do not remember seeing many of their temporary exhibits, but their permanent collection did not use the space to its fullest. Following the redesign of the front of the museum, much of the culture has changed, and there were several people near the front of the building, as a hangout location and not so much to view the cultural institution. Recently the interior content of the museum has become increasingly socially conscious and they are clearly working on finding their voice in the greater New York art scene, while changing their curation of their permanent collection so the context of the pieces has been evolving with the space. The museum itself is experimenting with what kind of audience is wants to attract and what kind art it wants to display to be relevant, different and attractive to the wider audience, and brining people in past the outdoor seats.

The pieces I remember seeing growing up are mostly still on display, but they have become almost a scavenger hunt because their locations have moved around, and they are being curated differently with new works surrounding them to change the conversation. As Cloonan writes, “Artifacts may shed light on the past, yet when these cultural remnants are placed into contemporary context something new is created,” (Cloonan 231). They have given new context to their work surrounding new themes, in this current climate to bring out new meaning to the work. As a temporary exhibit, they have “Float” is an interesting molten glass works mixed amongst the permanent collection on the American Art floor, offers a level of intrigue and surround much older work sometimes with words that correlate with the older art.

In terms of difficult heritage, they have chosen to highlight a lot of political art topics to display, and more importantly create a conversation about. Two of their temporary collections that really stand out as making a statement on difficult heritage are the “Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power” and “Half of the Picture: A Feminist Look at the Collection.” They are using art to display difficult moments in American history, which are still relevant in today’s political climate, and spark conversation. It should be noted however that these exhibits were not incredibly loud in terms of discussion, possibly because while most people were there alone or in groups of two, there was not enough people in the space to facilitate conversation amongst friends. For the most part people seemed very reflective. One example of this is The Dinner Party by Judy Chicago, which over the past 10 years or so now has created a whole feminist wing surrounding this piece, and an increasing focus on feminist art across the museum, when it used to be just this piece was the focal point of feminism in the Brooklyn Museum. The room housing The Dinner Party, there was only a group of two in there at the same time as myself, and it was very quiet, no one seemed to want to make any noise when viewing the pieces, likely because the walls are dark, and there is so much to see, that the conversation seemed to mostly occur outside of the space. The two temporary exhibits, the feminist wing, the American art floor and the restaurant were the most crowded for the Sunday morning. Granted, no room I went into could be considered crowded (there was plenty of walking and viewing space surrounding the wall text and images), but the other floors had hardly any foot traffic. I also did not stumble upon any walking tour groups, and I did not see many docents and museum staff, especially once in the gallery space after the front lobby where you get tickets and such. However, compared to the other floors and rooms which have very few people, the temporary and more relevant artworks were the most visited.

It is of note as well that I was there the morning after their big first Saturday event (almost always a well-attended monthly event for the museum) and a week too early for their Syrian Refugee exhibit, which obviously is very topical, in comparing Syrian refugees from the past to the present through art, and is definitely a reason to go back to the museum when I have more time, but also possibly a reason there were not as many people on the day that I went because they were timing their visits for events and certain exhibits.

Their archiving system is very open, you can observe much of the process just by being in the exhibits. In the Egyptian Art section for example, while I did not see any archivists or curators actively working at least within the public exhibit (again likely due to the time and day I was observing and exploring) but in one room there was a  relatively large area sectioned off, which was not entirely hidden, where they were clearly redoing a portion of the exhibit, and presumably getting ready to add the pieces some of which were on the tables to the display in the coming days. Their actual archives are also currently mostly closed to the public, but they have visual storage behind glass doors you can see through. There weren’t as many docent staff at work when I went there, it seemed mostly security guard and people in charge of the front of house activity, yet with the very open collection side of the museum, it is apparent that a lot of work is being done, just not as much on the volunteer/educational side of the museum, especially during one of their presumably slower hours.

Bibliography

Cloonan, Michèle Valerie. “W(H)ITHER Preservation?” The Library Quarterly, vol. 71, no. 2, 2001, pp. 231-242.

Macdonald, Sharon. “Is ‘Difficult Heritage’ Still ‘Difficult’?: Why Public Acknowledgement of Past Perpetration May No Longer Be So Unsettling to Collective Identities.” Museum International, pp. 265-268.

https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/ 

Posted on by Paula Cafiero 0

After School At The Cortelyou Library

Cortelyou Library
Cortelyou Library (photo by Mary Bakija)

The first thing you see when you enter the Cortelyou Library is the information desk. A librarian sits there, and if you make eye contact, she’ll smile and say hello. Many of those who entered on the day I was there, both children and adults, knew her. “I passed!” reported one teen, and the librarian gave the thumbs-up sign, while telling another, “I haven’t seen you in a while!” Other patrons either passed the desk quietly, or stopped with specific questions. It was a cool fall day, around the time the elementary school next door and the middle school down the street had ended classes for the day, and the librarian was constantly fielding questions.

“How does she get a library card?” one guardian asked, nudging the girl at her side, before accepting a form to fill out.

“When is storytime?” another guardian asked, in a thick Russian accent. The bilingual storytime wasn’t for a little while, so the family of five headed out, saying they’d return.

“Where’s the bathroom?” asked another guardian, shepherding her child in the direction the librarian pointed.

Where To Checkout?

Directly to the left upon entering is another highly used area: the self-checkout machines. People who came in knowing which book they wanted walked right up to one to use it to search. Others checked out after browsing a bit, or after picking up their book from the holds shelf nearby. Some popped in, renewed, popped out. A class of about a dozen pre-K aged children stood in line to check out books with their teacher at one of the self-checkout kiosks. The teacher had a bag full of the kids’ library cards and helped each child check out one or two picture books, which went fairly smoothly. (Putting coats back on didn’t go quite as well. The “flipping method” requires some finesse and experience, it seems. And then Max forgot his hat.) The teacher reminded the kids: “Keep the paper slip with the book, because that tells you when you have to bring it back.”

It’s interesting to see the information desk and the self-checkout stations so close to each other. It’s common to every branch of the Brooklyn Public Library that I’ve visited, and I have seen how useful it can be. During this observation, the librarian at the info desk spent several minutes recommending a book comparable to Nathan Hale’s series to a mother and her son, at which point a few people wanted to check out books. Rather than wait, they saw the self-checkout kiosks were available, and they used those. However, people also used them when no patrons were at the info desk. It was a little sad to see people actively avoiding that human interaction; the alternative view, of course, is that they might find self checkout to be more efficient, faster, or even a more private way to access information.

Where To Sit?

A nice piece of design in this branch is that there are two separate areas with computers: one for adults, and one for children in the children’s area. Several kids coming in after school raced to the computers, working together on projects and playing games. Adults were also busy at their computers — the entire time I was at the library, every computer in the adult section was occupied, and patrons were often waiting their turn for a computer to become available. Because both computer sections are surrounded by bookshelves, as patrons young and old waited for a chance to use a computer, they also interacted with the physical collection, browsing titles and picking up books.

The most apparent constraint of this branch is its small size. Though this was a peak time for the branch, it’s representative of the weekday after-school crowd. According to the library system’s BrooklynStat service, in fiscal year 2018, the branch recorded 198,901 visits, making it the fifth most popular branch in the system. Taking into account Sundays and holidays, the library was open about 300 days during the year, so that’s an average of about 663 people that visited this branch each day. And, at least in its busy times, you can really feel that. It’s bustling and vibrant, warm and welcoming, convivial and social, and incredibly kid-friendly. By 3:30pm the day I visited, every chair was occupied, and additional children dashed around tables or sat on the floor. The noise had increased — in addition to the general chatter and energy of the crowd, three infants wailed unconsolably for 20 minutes straight — and the space was more comparable to a school cafeteria than to what most people imagine a library to be.

How To Improve

The wide, single-story building was built in 1983. The library doesn’t have stats available online that date back to that time, but we can see some change in the neighborhood by looking at census data. According to the Department of City Planning, the population of Community District 14, where the Cortleyou Library is located, was 143,859 in 1980. By 2010, the population had grown by nearly 17,000 people. The library may have filled the neighborhood needs effectively in the ’80s, but the neighborhood has grown, and perhaps it’s time for the library to grow, as well.

If I were to improve the library in just one way, to accommodate the demand and the various users, I think separate, walled sections would be helpful. During my observation, several adults entered the library, looked around for a seat, observed the hectic atmosphere, and then turned around and left, perhaps to sit in one of the several coffeeshops on Cortelyou Road instead. If the spaces for children and for adults were separated, it would impact the energy and sociability of the library — I for one wouldn’t have made a new kindergartener friend, who shared facts from the non-fiction book she’d just read about glass. But it would be nice to have a dedicated, quieter space, where adults (and children) could enjoy a bit of peace. I’d add a few comfortable chairs in there, too, as all those currently in the library are firm plastic seats at tables.

Public Service

Though not exactly the “street-level bureaucrats” described by Michael Lipsky in his paper Toward a Theory of Street-Level Bureaucracy (because the Brooklyn Public Library is not run by the government, but is a nonprofit organization that receives funds from a number of sources, which does include local, state, and federal governments), Lipsky’s descriptions felt like they’d come alive here in some ways. Librarians represent a larger organization, and certainly some people who don’t know exactly where the library’s funding comes from may not distinguish the library from a government agency. And as shown above, librarians interact with citizens extensively.

“The potential impact on citizens with whom [a street-level bureaucrat] deals is fairly extensive,” Lipsky wrote. At the library, that couldn’t be more true. I saw it in action, quite positively, throughout the afternoon, as librarians and support staff assisted patrons with all sorts of requests, tirelessly fielding repeated, similar questions without irritation.

The physical and psychological threats Lipsky outlines are also a possibility at the library. There is certainly a psychic toll on everyone working, from the librarian who was trying to settle down a man who was yelling, to the security guard who reminded a girl about some of the responsibilities she has for her younger brother, to the volunteer who shelved books near the hysterical infants. And every single one of them worked with patience. It’s exhausting to be “on” like that all the time. But for the right person, like the librarian I saw at work that day, and with the right training and support, it might be easier to see it not as exhausting, but rather as rewarding.

Posted on by Mary Bakija 0

Observing the Eastchester Public Library Children’s Room

When I walked into the Eastchester Library children’s room in November, I was immediately welcomed by none other than Olaf, the snowman from Frozen. On the day of my visit, he was dressed as a turkey as part of a gratitude-themed Thanksgiving display on the inside of the opened front door (if you’re wondering, Olaf is thankful for Anna, Elsa, and warm hugs). Curious George, Yoda, Raggedy Ann, and others joined him to dance on the walls and welcome children into a space where everything is joyful, warm, and familiar. Many of the characters have been drawn or painted by the librarians themselves, whose extraordinary talents bring the characters alive.

Room by Room

Decorations like these are what make a children’s room just that: a space for children to feel at home. In fact, the three connected rooms that make up the children’s library are more residential-looking than they are institutional. The front room, through which you enter, contained the books for all the youngest readers (up to third grade) and the reference desk, as well as a small seating area near the picture books. Unfortunately, though, directly in front of me was a fireplace that stood right in the middle of the room across from the reference desk. It blocked the librarians’ view of what was happening in the seating area, which at the time included two toddlers jumping up and down on the couch. The librarian reprimanded them, but only after she was asked to do so by a concerned parent.

Through two wide doorways lay the second room, which housed nonfiction and fiction (third through fifth grade). This room also had a computer station with three computers that were blocked from the librarians’ view by a wall. The computers were unobtrusive and had no extra games or programs for the kids other than what can be accessed through the internet and ABCMouse. A quick peek at the nonfiction books revealed less than fifteen titles on technology as well. Clearly, then, digital literacy and digital information skills weren’t part of the library’s main educational focus.

The last room was a playroom containing large wooden tables, a LEGO area, and stuffed animals galore. Restricting the toys to this one space made sense for keeping the louder playing children separate from the others who wanted to read or ask questions of the librarians in the other room. The day that I visited, a cereal box stick puppet craft was held in the playroom on the big tables. The room was overcrowded and many children had to wait for others to finish before they could start on the craft. This was frustrating for the smaller children with little patience. Perhaps moving furniture, adding tables, or capping attendance would solve this problem: it would of course be better to do the former two, so as to not let the space constrain the library’s abilities to serve the community, but this may not be possible.

Suggestions for Improvement

Overall, I felt that the library’s set-up was efficient though old-fashioned in its deprioritizing of its digital aspects. Considering the great number of toddlers and elementary schoolers who use technology today, it’s important to teach them safe habits. However, this set-up does encourage stepping away from the screen, which is beneficial for children so young. My main suggestions for improving the library’s design would then be physical first: removing the fireplace in the center of the room (the librarians told me this hasn’t been done because of budget issues) and the wall blocking the librarians’ view of the computers would make it easier for the librarians to supervise what’s going on in all the different parts of the room if they’re at the reference desk.

Speaking of the reference desk, I found myself considering the movement to abolish the reference desk entirely (Luo, 2017). The desk can be seen from the hallway outside the children’s room and therefore easy to find. In the three hours of my observation, which were mostly after-school hours on a Tuesday, fifteen people came to ask questions, including one older man who was lost and needed help finding the adult history section. While I have read about this mostly in the context of academic libraries, I noticed that some of the shyer children had trouble approaching the monolithic desk to ask for help. However, it’s possible that roving reference paired with a smaller desk (as this was the main workstation for the librarians, it would be hard to eliminate altogether) may be less intimidating.

Though not perfect, I enjoyed my trip to the Eastchester Library Children’s Room in Westchester, NY. It may not have been the most modern of places, but it was clearly well loved by its patrons and I hope to return someday.

References:

Luo, Lili (2017). Models of Reference Services. In Linda C. Smith and Melinda Wong (Eds.), Reference and Information Services: An Introduction (155-178). Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited.

Posted on by Gina Elbert 0

Lorena Gauthereau Digital Dialogue: “Elaborating a (Digital) Methodology of the Oppressed in US Latina/o Digital Humanities”

In September, CUNY Graduate College hosted a livestream event featuring a lecture from Lorena Gauthereau, CLIR-Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at Recovering the US Hispanic Literary Heritage (Recovery) at the University of Houston, that focused on colonialism’s influence on digital humanities and archives – particularly when analyzing Latinx digital humanities in the US – and ways that this influence can be deconstructed through the use of digital tools and methods. The event was held at the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH) as part of their Digital Dialogues series.

Throughout her lecture, Gauthereau observed that “archives have historically functioned as a tool of colonialism” and outlined the ubiquity of colonialist practices in archival institutions. In her work at Recovery, she finds that digital technology can be a way to restructure the framework in which archives have traditionally operated to give archival and custodial control back to the people whose lived experiences are supposed to be represented in an archive. While she says the definition of “digital humanities” varies (she suggests checking out What is Digital Humanities?, a humorous site that yields a different definition every time the page is refreshed), “the use of digital tools to analyze or visualize humanities projects” or “the intersection of the humanities with computers” could both be sufficient.

Gauthereau presenting at Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH).

Through the use of decolonial and postcolonial theories, Gauthereau says that we must always approach “the digital with a critical eye” in order to restructure the frameworks of digital humanities to center the lived experiences of people who are not being represented or are being misrepresented. While decolonial methods are “approaches to coloniality (the underlying colonial structures that continue to exist even today) that try to de-link from colonial epistemologies and ontologies,” postcolonial methods “look at the big picture” of colonialism and the impact it still has today. Put another way, she says, decolonial theory stems from postcolonial theory, where postcolonial theory operates on a macro-level approach to the structures of colonialism, and decolonial theory operates on a micro level.

For any information professional, constantly considering the cultural legacy of colonialism is extremely important in our work. In order to avoid appropriation, erasure, or misrepresentation, we must be sensitive to the cultural differences and lived experiences of people whose communities have been exploited by colonialism.

As Amanda Stevens writes in A Different Way of Knowing: Tools and Strategies for Managing Indigenous Knowledge, information professionals can and should make sure that managing indigenous knowledge is useful for the community itself by serving as a resource and involving people from that community in the managing process:

Although projects to preserve indigenous knowledge must be driven by indigenous communities and serve an immediate benefit to the communities, libraries and information professionals can play an important role in assisting with the management of indigenous knowledge. In partnership with these communities, institutions such as libraries, museums and universities, can provide valuable resources and expertise for collection, organization, storage and retrieval of information. In fact, some institutions are already in possession of indigenous materials that they are repatriating or trying to make accessible to indigenous communities and others are working in cooperation with indigenous communities to establish collections (Stevens, 2008, p. 27-28).

Stevens also notes that there is no one way to help manage indigenous knowledge, as specific needs and acceptable methods vary across communities (Stevens, 2008, p. 28).

This can be applied to digital archival projects as well. Gauthereau gave examples of a few projects that show how digital platforms can be used to give power back to people and serve as places of reclamation.

“Decolonial digital projects do tell stories of pain,” she says, “but above all, they can tell stories of community, celebration, and survival.” 

When discussing Latinx digital humanities online, Gauthereau encourages people to use the hashtag #USLDH.

Works cited:

  1. Stevens, A. (2008). A Different Way of Knowing: Tools and Strategies for Managing Indigenous Knowledge. Halifax, Canada: School of Information Management, Dalhousie University.
Posted on by Drew Stanley 0