The Library of the Future
by Daniel R. Hirtler on 10/27/10
There was recently a call for submissions for an exhibition for artists to present an image depicting the library of the future. The deadline was too short for me to draw anything to submit, but I have been thinking about this idea since. I have been trying to reopen the library in the village in which I grew up since 1980. In 2010 I am close to succeeding.
I see a library as being the center of community activity, physically connected to a repository for all the community's cultural communication. The repository would contain all the writings, drawings, recordings, of material which were left behind by community members. The collection would grow, and be organized, but never culled, and all the original material would be accessible to all people in the community. This would be an ideal and timeless library.
The library of the future would have a catalogue component which does not only reference all the material in the library, but also accepts and records comments, cross references, and connections, which would be recorded in the use of the library by its citizens. This system of pathways to the material of the collection would tame the ever-growing size of the collection and the collection would be enriched by the registration of its citizens' use of it.
Such a library would develop into an intertwined system of original and derivative thoughts registered in a place; an inspired future for our archive of knowledge.
