{"id":5299,"date":"2019-03-21T17:00:13","date_gmt":"2019-03-21T21:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/foundations\/?p=5299"},"modified":"2019-03-21T17:28:15","modified_gmt":"2019-03-21T21:28:15","slug":"arts-in-the-libraries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/foundations\/2019\/03\/21\/arts-in-the-libraries\/","title":{"rendered":"Arts in the Libraries"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On March 9th<\/sup>, METRO hosted an afternoon symposium\nentitled Code, Craft & Catalogues:\nArts in the Libraries<\/em>. The symposium featured three separate panel\ndiscussions addressing the relationship between libraries and the world of art\nand design. This post will discuss the first two of those panels \u2014 in part for\nreasons of space, so as not to short-change the discussion of those panels\u2019\nrelevance to information science, and in part because the third panel\u2019s tie\nbetween art and libraries\/information struck me as much more attenuated, with\nsignificantly heavier emphasis on one and the other on the periphery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Panel 1: Privacy in Public<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Greta Byrum of the Digital Equity Lab at the New School\nopened the first panel with a presentation about Privacy\nin Public<\/a><\/em>, a multisite exhibition which took place at nine\nlibraries across New York City this past winter. Each library hosted an artist\u2019s\nwork commenting on issues of data privacy. After she spoke, two of the\nparticipating artists, Toisha Tucker and Salome Asega, briefly presented on the\nworks which they contributed to the exhibition, followed by a Q&A.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Byrum noted, the issue of data privacy has become an\nimportant contemporary matter for public debate and discussion \u2014 from the\nvarious data breaches at organizations like Experian to questions of privacy on\nsocial media. As purveyors of information and as institutions which themselves\ncollect data on patrons, libraries would seem to make an excellent public venue\nfor exhibiting ideas and questions of data privacy. And by bringing in artists\nto create works, rather than publishing books or hosting lectures, it allowed both\nlibrary and artist to speak about data privacy in a way which was interactive,\nrather than didactic; fun, rather than frightening. And because the exhibit had\nno online component and no social media hashtag, the exhibit itself became\nrefuges of data privacy, in a way \u2014 one work using a Faraday cage to block all\nradio signals, literally so. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To provide an example of the type of art exhibited, Toisha Tucker created a scrolling marquee whose text is entirely composed of captions from Instagram posts geotagged or hashtagged in ways particular to the library where the work was sited, thus demonstrating the wealth of information, and breadth of seemingly private details which people freely hand over to Instagram and share with the public. In speaking about the genesis of her work, she shared a conversation she had with her brother in which he uttered the following: \u2018I didn\u2019t tell anyone. I posted it on Facebook.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a nutshell, that anecdote about how confused our\nassumptions can be about what is public and what is private, and the artwork it\nled to, is exactly the sort of message that an artwork might be able to convey\nthat a lecture or statement of fact might not. When one sees a scrolling\nmarquee of possibly personal Instagram posts scrolling by in your neighborhood\npublic library, that has the potential for greater visceral impact than might a\npublic lecture or presentation of numbers and statistics about data on social\nmedia. Other artworks in the show took similar but different approaches to\nprivacy, allowing the aesthetic element of art to communicate, though in the\nfamiliar venue of the library, in ways we might not expect from libraries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Panel 2: Helsinki and Library Design<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The second panel discussed how we think about the design of\nlibraries. Those who have spent time in university libraries have probably\nexperienced vast, dim halls of dense stacks. This design, though perhaps\noff-putting, does serve a certain purpose: storing as much information in the\nspace provided, while allowing students and scholars the ability to easily access\nresources. These stacks are not places where these researchers are drawn to out\nof aesthetics, but for task-oriented purposes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anni Vartola, a Finnish architecture critic, opened by presenting an exhibit<\/a> she curated studying the design of Finnish public libraries as public spaces, demonstrating the ways that Finland has taken an approach different from the task-oriented one above. Rather, inspired by the writings of Valfrid Palmgren, Finland sees libraries as \u2018a meeting place for all societal classes alike . . . which says \u201cwelcome\u201d . . . and makes them feel at home,\u2019 and as some of the last non-commercial interior spaces. 1<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Laura Norris, Service Manager at the new Oodi Helsinki Central Library<\/a>, then built on Vartola\u2019s theoretical foundation, presenting how this newest of Finland\u2019s library continues that approach, integrating information, architecture, and art into a singular user experience which makes the library a place that patrons want<\/em> to be. In addition, Ilari Laamanen presented how three works recently exhibited at Oodi themselves provoke the library\u2019s patrons to examine our institutions of knowledge, even while they themselves are present with one such institution, augmenting the library\u2019s role as an institution encouraging thoughtful engagement with knowledge and information: as Vartola’s exhibit called it, \u2018Mind-Building \u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"File:Central
Source: Wikimedia Commons<\/a> by Ninaras<\/a> is licensed under CC BY 4.0<\/a> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This approach squares with Pratt\u2019s \u2018iSchool\u2019 approach to the\ninformation sciences. How libraries provide information through an inviting experience\n\u2014 accessible not just intellectually but aesthetically, in order to \u2018support\nactive citizenship, democracy, and lifelong learning\u2019 \u2014 is a thoroughly user-centered\napproach to information design. Designing for users is not just about\norganizing information, or providing easy and ready access to information\nresources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conclusion<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The success of the Finnish library system, and Oodi in particular,\nand the use of libraries as an exhibit space for art about<\/em> information, demonstrates that designing for users also\nentails first making information and information spaces a place that users want\nto enter and want to engage with. If they never get in the door, if they never\nwant to stay once in the door, their access to information is effectively more\nlimited. And once they are in the door, the Privacy\nin Public <\/em>exhibit gives us a way of rethinking the way libraries invite\ntheir patrons to engage with, and think about, information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1<\/sup><\/a> Compare to May & Black’s description of libraries-as-social-space in Nova Scotia: May, F. and Black. (2010) The life of the space: evidence from Nova Scotia public libraries, Evidence Based Library and Information Practice<\/em>, 5(2), 5-34, available at https:\/\/journals.library.ualberta.ca\/eblip\/index.php\/EBLIP\/article\/view\/6497<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On March 9th, METRO hosted an afternoon symposium entitled Code, Craft & Catalogues: Arts in the Libraries. The symposium featured three separate panel discussions addressing the relationship between libraries and the world of art and design. This post will discuss the first two of those panels \u2014 in part for reasons of space, so as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":624,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/foundations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/foundations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/foundations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/foundations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/624"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/foundations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5299"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/foundations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5369,"href":"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/foundations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5299\/revisions\/5369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/foundations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/foundations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/foundations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}