The Library as Place: History, Community, and Culture

Citation

Layzell Ward, P. (2007), "The Library as Place: History, Community, and Culture", Library Review, Vol. 56 No. 9, pp. 834-836. https://doi.org/10.1108/00242530710831329

The Library as Place has its origins in a call for papers for Library Quarterly that went out in 2003. The co‐editors, Wayne A. Wiegand and John Carlo Berto, had identified one topic for a special issue – library as place – to demonstrate that “libraries were more than just resources”. The call was expected to produce perhaps six good papers, but in the event over 30 were received and so it was decided to produce this volume. It was a wise decision for the outcome is a range of papers that are stimulating to read and which will be of wide interest to librarians, architects, and art historians.

The editors of the volume, John Buschman and Gloria Lecki, were interested in the range of people that visit libraries bringing their own “values, beliefs, expectations, assumptions, daily practices, and cultural awareness” to the view of “the library as a space and the library as a place”. This is an overview of the approach which yields a number of answers to these concepts. Their introduction presents a review of space and place in the scholarly discourse starting from the Greek philosophers and presenting changing views in the space‐place discussion. The discussion of the theoretical foundations is particularly lucid, and there is an account of how the debate moved from the ideas of place towards a place of ideas. The introduction alone would be a valuable starting point for a first semester seminar for LIS students in order for them to be able to start to appreciate the concept of a “library”.

The editors present the papers in four sections. Section I focuses on the library's place in the past, with contributions on the rise of military libraries in the British empire and their educational role, the precursors to public libraries in the form of the Athenaeum 1800‐1860, and Vancouver's Carnegie Library which highlights the influence of this benefactor. Section II considers libraries as places of community, describing the Greensboro Carnegie Negro Library 1904‐1964, the library as place among lesbian, gay, bisexual and queer patrons, the use of space by women participating in programmes in a Canadian public library in 2003‐2004, and the eye‐catchingly new Central Library in Seattle. From libraries for the public, Section III shifts to research libraries and the library as place in the life of the scholar, undergraduates’ information behaviours, and the essential importance of collections of books shelved in subject‐classified arrangements. Section IV considers place and culture – the myths of libraries, library architecture and “the erotics” of reading, and – coming right up to date – placing the library in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer series. It is a rich and varied collection of papers, and it has been provided with a good index.

The papers range over aspects of library architecture and history during a long period of time. Some are research‐based, others are descriptive. At the end the reader is left with challenging thoughts concerning the influences that potentially affect the location, layout, and design of libraries. The adage that form follows function does not always appear to emerge in the finished library in the same way that it does for many other types of buildings. One writer draws attention to the feeling that librarians know how to design libraries, and in the case of Carnegie buildings there was a formulaic approach to design. In more recent times those providing funding prefer a building that makes a strong statement, or in the case of a private donor, one of which they approve – who pays the piper… From listening to presentations at ALA conferences given by partners in architectural practices, it is clear to me that they welcome the challenge of creating library buildings, particularly for public libraries which offer a varied mix of users and house a range of formats.

Reading the volume also provoked thoughts about “user experience”. Much research has been carried out into “use” and “non‐use”, “user satisfaction”, “user expectations”, “service quality”, and “impact”. However, there appears to a lack of recent attention on the experience of the user tracing through episodes of use. The critical incident technique has been less fashionable in recent years, perhaps resulting from less attention being placed on qualitative sociological research methodologies and a concentration on methods that yield a score – a quicker outcome[1]. This is a valid approach for measuring outcomes but understanding might be enriched if we knew more about the feeling and responses of users to the changing physical and remote service. Highly recommended for North American readers but also presenting ideas that will have wide interest in other parts of the world.

Note

1. 1.

   Some interesting commentary on qualitative research, in and into library and information services as well as more generically into organizations, can be found in recent publications (also reviewed or to be reviewed in Library Review) like Alison Jane Pickard's Research Methods in Information (London, Facet Publishing, 2007); Mark Fox, Peter Martin and Gill Green's Doing Practitioner Research (London, Sage Publications, 2007); and Stewart Clegg and others editors The Sage Handbook of Organization Studies (2nd ed., London, Sage Publications, 2006).