2019-10-25 by librarian
by Aideen Doran, March 2014 (first published at thebear-review.com) ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ “In the catalog of History the Public Library is listed in the category of phenomena that we humans are most proud of. Along with the free public education, public health care, scientific method, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Wikipedia, Free Software…”1 Long before the slogan... »read_more»
2014-12-08 by librarian
In November of 2014 the Public Library saw another iteration in the form of a conference and an exhibition organized by the Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart and the Akademie Schloss Solitude. Public Library is the synergy of two efforts. First, it makes the case for the institution of public library and its principle of universal access to knowledge. Second, it is an exploration and development of... »read_more»
2014-10-27 by librarian
In What Was Revolutionary about the French Revolution?1 Robert Darnton considers how a complete collapse of the social order (when absolutely everything – all social values – is turned upside down) would look. Such trauma happens often in the life of individuals but only rarely on the level of an entire society. In 1789 the French had to confront the collapse of a whole social order—the world that they defined retrospectively as the Ancien Régime—and to find some new order in the chaos... »read_more»
2012-11-21 by librarian
In the catalog of History the Public Library is listed in the category of phenomena that we humans are most proud of. Along with the free public education, public health care, scientific method, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Wikipedia, Free Software... It's one of those almost invisible infrastructures that we start to notice only once they go extinct. A place where all people can get access to all knowledge that can be collected seemed for a long time a dream beyond reach - dependent on the limited resources of rich patrons or unstable budgets of... »read_more»