Étienne-Louis Boullée: Projekt for the National Library in Paris, France. In the Shadow of the Library
I have been reading more of Alberto Manguel's The Library at Night. It makes me think of many different ideas that are interconnected with the idea of the library.
Alberto Manguel and many other people view the library as a place of memory. It seems that in todays world people aim to forget not remember what they are reading and viewing. Unlike in the old days, there is too much information, not too little. Because everything is written down, it is no longer viewed as necessary to remember everything.
This used to not be true. It used to be that part of rhetoric was memory training. The proper term is Ars Memoria in latin. The Art of Memory. During the middle ages the islamic scholars used to view books as something to be read aloud, then remembered. Libraries for the islamic scholar were places to memorize texts so they could be recited and understood.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_of_memory
The Art of Memory was further developed during the Renaissance into complex and intricate forms, eventually drawing from mysticism and hermeticism to form the "Palace of Memory." I think in some ways as a library as an edifice focused on preserving memory. The Method of Loci was the ultimate completion of Ars Memoria. Matteo Ricci, a Jesuit Priest who preached in China was supposed to have written about it. There is even a novel based on his account. The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci by Jonathan D. Spence. Oddly, it does not show how to build a memory palace.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_palace
When we think of the library as a place of memory we think of books, but to be more specific, most of the Art of Memory was focused on complex cultured books. There was very little reason to memorize fiction. The bible or the Koran, complex poetic works, science, music, and history were often memorized. In other words we think of the library as a concentration of memory for cultured books. Alberto Manguel points out that culture creates very focused attention.
The library exists as a place to develop memory and focus your attention on specific cultured topics. This is one definition of a library. It is a definition which preserves meaning and focuses on the concept of the classics, primary works, and valued culture. Alberto Manguel views the library as a place for the preservation of books. He does not want any paper works to be thrown out.
In his view, and partially my own view books are valued objects which should be preserved at all costs. He questions the veracity of storing everything in an electronic medium. The shelf life of a dvd, or cd-rom is five to seven years. In my library, this is quite short, we have many books that are over a hundred years. old. Some paper books can last hundreds up to thousands of years.
He decries the urge to throw away books solely because they are not being used. In his view, there is always someone who will eventually use a book. I don't agree with his statement to his extreme. There are many books which should be replaced regularly, science and medicine becomes dated and potentially dangerous to the reader when it becomes old. Plus there are plenty of books which are not meant to last, but be a flash in the pan, then disappear.
The essential problem of memory like the library is that memory always seeks to add more than it is capable of holding to the brain. Libraries are constantly expanding institutions. They are always adding new material and getting rid of old material. It is the issue of getting rid of old material that is a problem.
How do you define a classic or primary work. History, poetry, and fiction do not go out of date for the most part. The books may yellow and crumble, but the content remains viable. Computers make it possible to expand information storage almost indefinitely. However, if not watched closely, the information becomes ephemeral, ghostly and disappears as a computer crashes or a hard disk becomes obsolete. Good quality, acid free paper books are not so ghostly.
Thus a problem with balance occurs. What do you preserve in print, and what do you make ephemeral. How do you choose? Even more important, how do you insure the ephemeral electronic part is being properly monitored and preserved. I am not exactly trusting of some of the electronic database companies.
I have never been in a library which does not seek to continuously expand and add new things. Even the Westchester, New York Supreme Court Law Library does this. Years ago, they expanded beyond their capacity to hold law books. We have essentially done the same thing with our law collection.
There is also an essential problem of resolution. Paper is still a superior medium when it comes to resolution. Microfilm tends to be fuzzy just like computers. People read 25% slower on computers than they do in print. There are also issues with eye strain, and image resolution. This may change with electronic ink, but that is a ways down the pike. The urge to just throw away physical objects abound. There is a boundless enthusiasm for technology.
However, it is a very different experience using different mediums. Reading a physical newspaper is a very different experience than reading an online newspaper. A physical newspaper is a tactile object, a computer screen is not. Alberto Manguel cites Marshall McLuhan's book, The Medium Is the Message to explain this.
Also, the physical space of a library is designed to house books. The architecture of the building resounds with the history of the book. Where I work, we are a Carnegie building, over one hundred years old. Everything in the building says read books here. It is still a very old fashioned place, not very well designed for the physical medium of computers.
I can imagine that many of the European libraries are much older and more suffused with history. However, in our case, this history seems to be willfully forgotten. We have not had a local historian in our building for many years. In the book, The Library At Night, there are numerous illustrations of famous libraries. The pictures of France's national library are quite stunning.
You can see it in the shelving. We still use old solid wood shelving designed so the average man can reach up and take the book off the top shelf and then spread his arms to either side and reach a book from shelving stack on either side. It really does have the feeling of age. We even have the bookends with corkboard on the bottom so they won't slip.
Being a Carnegie building is being part of the history and memory of the great men philosophy. This has not ended. The Gates Foundation has donated many of our computers to use. They are doing this as part of the extension of cultural memory. They want to be known for creating opportunities for the common person to expand their horizons. Gates is essentially building on the memory of Carnegie. I wish this would extend beyond adding computers to our collection.
We house a local history collection in our library. We have not had a local historian for some time now. It was originally a position appointed by the city. This is not just a problem at our library. The countywide historical collection has been closed for renovation for a while as well. Sometimes, I feel that if I have patience things will improve.
We have made some improvements, but not enough to allow a greater mix between computers and books. Still, people come in mainly to use the computers, and occassionally, they use the wifi connections for wireless internet. More people come in to check out dvds than books.
There is a tremendous amount being said in this book which is quite interesting I am adding my own thoughts to this.
When I thought of shadow, I also thought of the loss of memory. It is so easy to lose material in a library setting. Partially because so much of our material is old. We are the last copy repository for the county. This means everyone sends us what they think is the most important last copy of any book which they have. Sometimes, it can be quite odd to see what people think is important. We have many, many older quality books.
Still because of space, we still have to discard some of these. Libraries don't have unlimited space. Even the Library of Congress in the United States discards things because of space issues. People believe they house everything, they don't. The Library of Congress archives all their newspapers on microfilm discarding the newspapers in print.
Lately, there has been an emphasis on the idea of increasing circulation. We would like to improve our circulation statistics. I can understand this. However, there has to be a balance between culture and popular material. Many of the best books are never printed as popular books. The library where I work rarely purchases things like Darley Archive Press books http://www.dalkeyarchive.com/, or Black Sparrow Books http://www.blacksparrowbooks.com/index.asp. It is very hard to find quality literature works in a bookstore or public library.
We here a lot about the paperless society. Somehow, technology is going to replace paper. People still want to read physical books. Ebooks have not become the rage. Physical books are still far more popular. What has happened is that the library has ceased to be a place for books. It has become something else. There is a divide between the palace of words or memory and the newer media center ideal. The sense of cultural identity in the library has fractured.
People have lost the sense of relevance of the library as a place of cultural memory. They come not for things which deepen the sense of a "Palace of Memory", but for immediate satisfaction. In a sense, it is becoming a media circus. Every format of media is getting equal space, dvds, cds, and computers are being added to the mix. Reading is not being viewed as essential. This is one of the reasons for the incredible drop in literacy in the United States.
http://www.nea.gov/news/news07/TRNR.html
Libraries were not created as places of entertainment, they were created for self-education. This is the essential element that is missing from many of the libraries which people are stepping into today. There is a loss of the idea that the library is important as an institution which preserves community. Culture improves attention and memory.
Because of the loss of focus, libraries are becoming a shadow of what they formerly were. The idea of self improvement for all classes is losing its hold in American culture. It does not sell a product or entertain people. We need a push for renewed interest in literacy.
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The Library At Night by Alberto Manguel is a quite interesting book. It is an eclectic history of libraries. There is a lot of unique content which I think you will not find anywhere else.
The book has a wonderful eccentricity to it that comes from the feeling that you get of the author being an erudite self taught scholar. There are sections on Chinese libraries, Arabic libraries, French libraries, Roman libraries, and other places. Quite a bit of the information is historical.
I touched on several points which he makes in the earlier section of this post. This book is broken into fifteen essays, so it is not completely chronological, it jumps back and forth through time and space.
The author describes the personal library which he had constructed for himself on his property. The way he describes his personal library is rather entertaining. He likes to sit and read in his library at night.
He also describes the history of bibliographic organization. It is rather interesting, people arranged books, alphabetically, by subject, by country by color, by size, by number, and other stranger arrangements. He correctly points out that every arranagement in some ways is arbitrary. Melville Dewey is covered as well.
There is a bit of history of nazi book burning, as well as a tiny bit on Adolf Hitler's library. It is quite intriguing in points.
I really liked when he described Jorge Louis Borges becoming the national librarian of Argentina even though he had gone blind. Borges ran the national library for 18 years. I really like Borges writing. The writing in The Library At Night, even though it is nonfiction, seems to draw a bit from the magical realist style.
The book has black and white photographs throughout. The photographs are mostly historical. Some are quite intriguing, The Mahogany Library Steps at Althorp, the Domesday Book In Sections, Warburg's Mnemosyne Panels, the Donkey Libraries of Columbia, and many other pictures.
There is an index, acknowledgement, notes, and image credits. I have one of the authors other works, The Dictionary of Imaginary Places which is quite fun to read. This book is c2008, Yale University Press. It is definitely scholarly in nature. However, the writing is not dry at all.
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