ENCYCLOPEDIC STORAGE

LIBRARY AS INFRASTRUCTURE the design of their web interfaces to the archi-

Shannon Mattern tecture of their buildings to the networking of
2014 their technical infrastructures. This has been
true of knowledge institutions throughout his-
Melvil Dewey was a one-man Silicon Valley born tory, and it will be true of our future institu-
a century before Steve Jobs. He was the quintes- tions, too. I propose that thinking about the
sential Industrial Age entrepreneur, but unlike library as a network of integrated, mutually re-
the Carnegies and Rockefellers, with their indus- inforcing, evolving infrastructures — in particu-
tries of heavy materiality and heavy labor, Dewey lar, architectural, technological, social,
sold ideas. His ambition revealed itself early: in epistemological, and ethical infrastruc-
1876, shortly after graduating from Amherst tures — can help us better identify what roles we
College, he copyrighted his library classification want our libraries to serve, and what we can
scheme. That same year, he helped found the reasonably expect of them. What ideas, values
American Library Association, served as found- and social responsibilities can we scaffold with-
ing editor of Library Journal, and launched the in the library’s material systems — its walls and
American Metric Bureau, which campaigned for wires, shelves and servers?
adoption of the metric system. He was 24 years 188
old. He had already established the Library Library as platform
Bureau, a company that sold (and helped stand- For millennia libraries have acquired resources,
ardize) library supplies, furniture, media display organized them, preserved them, and made
and storage devices, and equipment for manag- them accessible (or not) to patrons. But the
ing the circulation of collection materials. Its forms of those resources have changed — from
catalog (which would later include another scrolls and codices; to LPs and Laser Discs; to
Dewey invention, the hanging vertical file) repre- e-books, electronic databases, and open data
sented the library as a “machine” of uplift and sets. Libraries have had at least to comprehend,
enlightenment that enabled proto-Taylorist ap- if not become a key node within, evolving sys-
proaches to public education and the provision tems of media production and distribution.
of social services. As chief librarian at Columbia Consider the medieval scriptoria where manu-
College, Dewey established the first library scripts were produced; the evolution of the
school — called, notably, the School of Library publishing industry and book trade after
Economy — whose first class was 85% female; Gutenberg; the rise of information technology
then he brought the school to Albany, where he and its webs of wires, protocols and regula-
directed the New York State Library. In his spare tions.1 At every stage, the contexts — spatial, po-
time, he founded the Lake Placid Club and litical, economic, cultural — in which libraries
helped win the bid for the 1932 Winter Olympics. function have shifted; so they are continuously
Dewey was thus simultaneously in the fur- reinventing themselves and the means by which
niture business, the office-supply business, the they provide those vital information services.
consulting business, the publishing business,
the education business, the human resources
business, and what we might today call the
“knowledge solutions” business. Not only did
he recognize the potential for monetizing and
cross-promoting his work across these fields; he
also saw that each field would be the better for
it. His career (which was not without its signifi-
cant controversies) embodied a belief that clas-
sification systems and labeling standards and
furniture designs and people work best when TAX, Vasconcelos Library, Mexico City, Mexico.

they work towards the same end — in other

words, that intellectual and material systems, Libraries have also assumed a host of ev-
and labor practices are mutually constructed er-changing social and symbolic functions. They
and mutually reinforcing. have been expected to symbolize the eminence
Today’s libraries, Apple-era versions of of a ruler or state, to integrally link “knowledge”
the Dewey/Carnegie institution, continue to and “power” — and, more recently, to serve as
materialize, at multiple scales, their underlying “community centers,” “public squares” or “think
bureaucratic and epistemic structures — from tanks.” Even those seemingly modern meta-
 ENCYCLOPEDIC STORAGE

phors have deep histories. The ancient Library Another problem with the platform model is the
of Alexandria was a prototypical think tank,2 image it evokes: a flat, two-dimensional stage on
and the early Carnegie buildings of the 1880s which resources are laid out for users to do stuff
were community centers with swimming pools with. The platform doesn’t have any implied
and public baths, bowling alleys, billiard rooms, depth, so we’re not inclined to look underneath
even rifle ranges, as well as book stacks.3 As the or behind it, or to question its structure.
Carnegie funding program expanded interna- Weinberger encourages us to “think of the li-
tionally — to more than 2,500 libraries world- brary not as a portal we go through on occasion
wide — secretary James Bertram standardized but as infrastructure that is as ubiquitous and
the design in his 1911 pamphlet Notes on the persistent as the streets and sidewalks of a
Erection of Library Buildings, which offered town.” It’s like a “canopy,” he says — or like a
grantees a choice of six models, believed to be “cloud.” But these metaphors are more poetic
the work of architect Edward Tilton. Notably, than critical; they obfuscate all the wires, pul-
they all included a lecture room. leys, lights and scaffolding that you inevitably
In short, the library has always been a find underneath and above that stage — and the
place where informational and social infra- casting, staging and direction that determine
structures intersect within a physical infrastruc- what happens on the stage, and that allow it to 189
ture that (ideally) supports that program. Now function as a stage. Libraries are infrastructures
we are seeing the rise of a new metaphor: the not only because they are ubiquitous and persis-
library as “platform” — a buzzy word that refers tent, but also, and primarily, because they are
to a base upon which developers create new ap- made of interconnected networks that under-
plications, technologies, and processes. In an gird all that foment, that create what Pierre
influential 2012 article in Library Journal, David Bourdieu would call “structuring structures”
Weinberger proposed that we think of libraries that support Weinberger’s “messy, rich net-
as “open platforms” — not only for the creation works of people and ideas.”
of software, but also for the development of
knowledge and community.4 Weinberger ar-
gued that libraries should open up their entire
collections, all their metadata, and any technol-
ogies they’ve created, and allow anyone to build
new products and services on top of that foun-
dation. The platform model, he wrote, “focuses
our attention away from the provisioning of
resources to the foment” — the “messy, rich net-
works of people and ideas” — that “those re-
sources engender.” Thus the ancient Library of MVRDV, Book Mountain, Spijkenisse, The Netherlands.

Alexandria, part of a larger museum with bo-

tanical gardens, laboratories, living quarters It can be instructive for our libraries’ pub-
and dining halls, was a platform not only for the lics — and critical for our libraries’ leaders — to
translation and copying of myriad texts and the assess those structuring structures. In this age
compilation of a magnificent collection, but of e-books, smartphones, firewalls, proprietary
also for the launch of works by Euclid, media platforms and digital rights manage-
Archimedes, Eratosthenes and their peers. ment; of atrophying mega-bookstores and re-
Yet the platform metaphor has limita- surgent independent bookshops and a
tions. For one thing, it smacks of Silicon Valley metastasizing Amazon; of Google Books and
entrepreneurial epistemology, which prioritizes Google Search and Google Glass; of economic
“monetizable” “knowledge solutions.” Further, disparity and the continuing privatization of
its association with new media tends to bracket public space and services — which is simultane-
out the similarly generative capacities of low- ously an age of democratized media production
tech, and even non-technical, library resources. and vibrant DIY and activist cultures — libraries
One key misperception of those who proclaim play a critical role as mediators, at the hub of all
the library’s obsolescence is that its function as the hubbub. Thus we need to understand how
a knowledge institution can be reduced to its our libraries function as, and as part of, infra-
technical services and information offerings. structural ecologies — as sites where spatial,
Knowledge is never solely a product of technol- technological, intellectual and social infrastruc-
ogy and the information it delivers. tures shape and inform one another. And we
 ENCYCLOPEDIC STORAGE

must consider how those infrastructures can minor damage, “because it functions as a kind
embody the epistemological, political, econom- of cultural refuge in the city.” He continued,
ic and cultural values that we want to define our “Most people who use the building are not go-
communities.5 ing there just to read a book or watch a film;
many of them probably do not have any definite
Library as social infrastructure purpose at all. They go just to be part of the
Public libraries are often seen as “opportunity community in the building.”10
institutions,” opening doors to, and for, the dis- We need to attend more closely to such
enfranchised.6 People turn to libraries to access “social infrastructures,” the “facilities and con-
the internet, take a GED class, get help with a ditions that allow connection between people,”
résumé or job search, and seek referrals to other says sociologist Eric Klinenberg. In a recent in-
community resources. A recent report by the terview, he argued that urban resilience can be
Center for an Urban Future highlighted the measured not only by the condition of transit
benefits to immigrants, seniors, individuals systems and basic utilities and communication
searching for work, public school students and networks, but also by the condition of parks,
aspiring entrepreneurs: libraries and community organizations: “open,
accessible, and welcoming public places where 190
No other institution, public or private, residents can congregate and provide social
does a better job of reaching people who support during times of need but also every
have been left behind in today’s economy, day.”11 In his book Heat Wave,12 Klinenberg not-
have failed to reach their potential in the ed that a vital public culture in Chicago neigh-
city’s public school system or who simply borhoods drew people out of sweltering
need help navigating an increasingly com- apartments during the 1995 heat wave, and into
plex world.7 cooler public spaces, thus saving lives.

The new Department of Outreach Services at

the Brooklyn Public Library, for instance,
partners with other organizations to bring li-
brary resources to seniors, schoolchildren and
prison populations. The Queens Public Library
employs case managers who help patrons
identify public benefits for which they’re eligi-
ble. “These are all things that someone could
dub as social services,” said Queens Library
Helmut Jahn, reading room, Mansueto Library, University
president Thomas Galante, “but they’re not. of Chicago, Chicago, USA.
[…] A public library today has information to
improve people’s lives. We are an enabler; we The need for physical spaces that promote a vi-
are a connector.”8 brant social infrastructure presents many design
Partly because of their skill in reaching opportunities, and some libraries are devising
populations that others miss, libraries have re- innovative solutions. Brooklyn and other cultur-
cently reported record circulation and visita- al institutions have partnered with the Uni, a
tion, despite severe budget cuts, decreased modular, portable library that I wrote about
hours and the threatened closure or sale of “un- earlier in this journal. And modular solu-
derperforming” branches.9 Meanwhile, the Pew tions — kits of parts — are under consideration in
Research Center has released a series of studies a design study sponsored by the Center for an
about the materials and services Americans Urban Future and the Architectural League of
want their libraries to provide. Among the find- New York, which aims to reimagine New York
ings: 90% of respondents say the closure of City’s library branches so that they can more
their local public library would have an impact efficiently and effectively serve their communi-
on their community, and 63% describe that im- ties. CUF also plans to publish, at the end of
pact as “major.” Libraries also bring communi- June, an audit of, and a proposal for, New York’s
ties together in times of calamity or disaster. three library systems.13 New York Times archi-
Toyo Ito, architect of the acclaimed Sendai tecture critic Michael Kimmelman, reflecting on
Mediatheque, recalled that after the 2011 earth- the roles played by New York libraries during
quake in Japan, local officials reopened the li- recent hurricanes, goes so far as to suggest that
brary quickly even though it had sustained the city’s branch libraries, which have “become
 ENCYCLOPEDIC STORAGE

our de facto community centers, […] could be hoops of modern online society, fighting
designed in the future with electrical systems for scraps from the plate, and then kick-
out of harm’s way and set up with backup gen- ing back afterwards by pretending to have
erators and solar panels, even kitchens and wire- a farm on Facebook.
less mesh networks.”14
Read the whole story. It’s quite a punch to the
stomach. Given the effort librarians expend in
promoting basic literacies, how much more can
this social infrastructure support? Should we
welcome the “design challenge” to engineer
technical and architectural infrastructures to
accommodate an ever-diversifying program — or
should we consider that we might have stretched
this program to its limit, and that no physical
infrastructure can effectively scaffold such a
Mansueto Library stacks, University of Chicago, Chicago,
USA.
motley collection of social services?
191
But is it too much to expect our libraries to
serve as soup kitchens and recovery centers
when they have so many other responsibilities?
The library’s broad mandate means that it often
picks up the slack when other institutions fall
short. “It never ceases to amaze me just what
libraries are looked upon to provide,” says Ruth
Faklis, director of the Prairie Trail Public Library
District in suburban Chicago:
Snøhetta, James B. Hunt, Jr. Library, North Carolina State
University, MakerBot in Apple Technology Showcase.
This includes, but is not limited to, [serv-
ing as] keepers of the homeless […] while Again, we need to look to the infrastructural
simultaneously offering latch-key children ecology — the larger network of public services
a safe and activity-filled haven. We have and knowledge institutions of which each li-
been asked to be voter-registration sites, brary is a part. How might towns, cities and re-
warming stations, notaries, technolo- gions assess what their various public (and
gy-terrorism watchdogs, senior so- private) institutions are uniquely qualified and
cial-gathering centers, election sites, sufficiently resourced to do, and then deploy
substitute sitters during teacher strikes, those resources most effectively? Should we re-
and the latest — postmasters. These re- gard the library as the territory of the civic mind
quests of society are ever evolving. and ask other social services to attend to the
Funding is not generally attached to these civic body? The assignment of social responsibil-
magnanimous suggestions, and when it is, ity isn’t so black and white — nor are the bound-
it does not cover actual costs of the addi- aries between mind and body, cognition and
tional burden, thus stretching the library’s affect — but libraries do need to collaborate with
budget even further. I know of no other other institutions to determine how they lever-
government entity that is asked to take on age the resources of the infrastructural ecology
additional responsibilities not necessarily to serve their publics, with each institution and
aligned with its mission.15 organization contributing what it’s best
equipped to contribute — and each operating
In a Metafilter discussion about funding cuts in with a clear sense of its mission and obligation.
California, one librarian offered this poignant Libraries have a natural affinity with cultural in-
lament: stitutions. Just this spring, New York Mayor Bill
de Blasio appointed Tom Finkelpearl as the
Every day at my job I helped people just city’s new Commissioner of Cultural Affairs. A
barely survive. […] Forget trying to be the former president of the Queens Museum,
“people’s university” and create a body of Finkelpearl oversaw the first phase of a renova-
well-informed citizens. Instead I helped tion by Grimshaw Architects, which, in its next
people navigate through the degrading phase, will incorporate a Queens Public Library
 ENCYCLOPEDIC STORAGE

branch — an effective pairing, given the commit- have.” For instance, “Libraries that focus on ear-
ment of both institutions to education and local ly-childhood education might employ educa-
culture. Similarly, Lincoln Center houses the tors, academicians, or teachers to help us with
New York Public Library for the Performing research into early-childhood learning and
Arts. As commissioner, Finkelpearl could broad- teaching.”18
en support for mixed-use development that The “design challenge” is to consider what
strengthens infrastructural ecologies. The CUF/ physical infrastructures would be needed to ac-
Architectural League project is also considering commodate such partnerships.19 Many libraries
how collaborative partnerships can inform li- have continued along a path laid by library in-
brary program and design. novators from Ptolemy to Carnegie, renovating
their buildings to incorporate public gathering,
multi-use, and even commercial spaces. In
Seattle’s Ballard branch, a large meeting room
hosts regular author readings and a vibrant writ-
ing group that typically attracts 30 or more par-
ticipants. In Salt Lake City, the library plaza
features an artists co-op, a radio station, a com- 192
munity writing center, the Library Store, and a
few cafes — all private businesses whose ethos is
consistent with the library’s. The New York
Chattanooga Public Library (Tennessee), USA.
Public Library has recently announced that
some of its branches will serve as “learning
I’ve recently returned from Seattle, where I re- hubs” for Coursera, the provider of “massive
visited OMA’s Central Library on its tenth anni- open online courses.” And many libraries have
versary and toured several new branch libraries.16 classrooms and labs where they offer regular
Under the 1998 bond measure “Libraries for technical training courses.
All,” citizens voted to tax themselves to support
construction of the Central Library and four
new branches, and to upgrade every branch in
the system. The vibrant, sweeping Ballard
branch (2005), by Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, in-
cludes a separate entrance for the Ballard
Neighborhood Service Center, a “little city hall”
where residents can find information about
public services, get pet licenses, pay utility bills,
and apply for passports and city jobs. While the
librarians undoubtedly field questions about George Peabody Library, The Johns Hopkins University,
Baltimore, USA.
such services, they’re also able to refer patrons
next door, where city employees are better These entrepreneurial models reflect what
equipped to meet their needs — thus affording seems to be an increasingly widespread senti-
the library staff more time to answer reference ment: that while libraries continue to serve a
questions and host writing groups and chil- vital role as “opportunity institutions” for the
dren’s story hours. Seattle’s City Librarian, disenfranchised, this cannot be their primary
Marcellus Turner, is big on partnerships — with self-justification. They cannot duplicate the re-
cultural institutions, like local theaters, as well sponsibilities of our community centers and
as commercial collaborators, like the Seahawks social service agencies. “Their narrative” — or
football team.17 After taking the helm in 2011, what I’d call an “epistemic framing,” by which I
he identified five service priorities — youth and mean the way the library packages its program
early learning, technology and access, commu- as a knowledge institution, and the infrastruc-
nity engagement, Seattle culture and history, tures that support it — “must include everyone,”
and re-imagined spaces — and tasked working says the University of Michigan’s Kristin
groups with developing proposals for how the Fontichiaro.20 What programs and services are
library can better address those needs. Each consistent with an institution dedicated to life-
group must consider marketing, funding, staff long learning? Should libraries be reconceived
deployment and partnership opportunities that as hubs for civic engagement, where communi-
“leverage what we have with what [the partners] ties can discuss local issues, create media, and
 ENCYCLOPEDIC STORAGE

archive community history?21 Should they incor- no matter how well-connected they are, they
porate media production studios, maker-spaces actually don’t have the world at their finger-
and hacker labs, repositioning themselves in an tips — that “material protected by stringent cop-
evolving ecology of information and education- yright and held in proprietary databases is often
al infrastructures? inaccessible outside libraries,” and that “as dig-
ital rights management becomes ever more
complicated, we […] rely even more on our li-
braries to help us navigate an increasingly frac-
tured and litigious digital terrain.”22 And they
recognize that they cannot depend on Google
to organize the world’s information. As the li-
brarian noted in that discussion on Metafilter:

The [American Library Association] has a

proven history of commitment to intel-
Left: Rijksmuseum Library, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. lectual freedom. The public service that
Right: Google data center, Council Bluffs (Iowa), USA.
we’ve been replaced with has a spotty his- 193
These new social functions — which may require tory of “not being evil.” When we’re gone,
new physical infrastructures to support you middle-class, you wealthy, you
them — broaden the library’s narrative to include tech-savvy, who will fight for that with no
everyone, not only the “have-nots.” This is not to profit motivation? Even if you never set
say that the library should abandon the needy foot in our doors, and all of your media
and focus on an elite patron group; rather, the comes to a brightly lit screen, we’re still
library should incorporate the “enfranchised” as working for you.
a key public, both so that the institution can re-
inforce its mission as a social infrastructure for The library’s social infrastructure thus benefits
an inclusive public, and so that privileged, edu- even those who don’t have an immediate need
cated users can bring their knowledge and tal- for its space or its services.
ents to the library and offer them up as social- Finally, we must acknowledge the library’s
infrastructural resources. role as a civic landmark — a symbol of what a
community values highly enough to place on a
prominent site, to materialize in dignified archi-
tecture that communicates its openness to
everyone, and to support with sufficient public
funding despite the fact that it’ll never make a
profit. A well-designed library — a contextually
designed library — can reflect a community’s
character back to itself, clarifying who it is, in all
its multiplicity, and what it stands for.23 David
Adjaye’s Bellevue and Francis Gregory branch
libraries, in historically underserved neighbor-
hoods of Washington D.C., have been lauded for
performing precisely this function. As Sarah
Williams Goldhagen writes:

A sectional view of the New York Public Adjaye is so attuned to the nuances of
Library, USA, 1911.
urban context that one might be hard
Many among this well-resourced popula- pressed to identify them as the work of
tion — those who have jobs and home internet one designer. Francis Gregory is steel and
access and can navigate the government bureau- glass, Bellevue is concrete and wood.
cracy with relative ease — already see themselves Francis Gregory presents a single mono-
as part of the library’s public. They regard the lithic volume, Bellevue an irregular ac-
library as a space of openness, egalitarianism cretion of concrete pavilions. Context
and freedom (in multiple senses of the term), drives the aesthetic. His designs “make of
within a proprietary, commercial, segregated this humble municipal building an arena
and surveilled landscape. They understand that for social interaction, […] a distinctive
 ENCYCLOPEDIC STORAGE

civic icon that helps build a sense of com- digitization department, and a subterranean
mon identity.” This kind of social infra- warehouse of books retrieved by robot. (It’s
structure serves a vital need for an entire worth noting that Boston and other libraries
community. contained book railways and conveyer belt re-
trieval systems — proto-robots — a century ago).
Library as technological-intellectual Snøhetta’s James B. Hunt Jr. Library (2013) at
infrastructure North Carolina State University also incorpo-
Of course, we must not forget the library collec- rates a robotic storage and retrieval system, so
tion itself. The old-fashioned bookstack was at that the library can store more books on site, as
the center of the recent debate over the pro- well as meet its goal of providing seating for
posed renovation of the New York Public 20% of the student population.24 Here the pa-
Library’s Schwartzman Building on 42nd Street, trons come before the collection.
which was cancelled last month after more than Back in the early aughts, when I spent a
a year of lawsuits and protests. This storage in- summer touring libraries, the institutions on
frastructure, and the delivery system it accom- the leading edge were integrating media pro-
modates, have tremendous significance even in duction facilities, recognizing that media “con-
a digital age. For scholars, the stacks represent sumption” and “creation” lie on a gradient of 194
near-instant access to any materials within the knowledge production. Today there’s a lot of
extensive collection. Architectural historians talk about — and action around — integrating
defended the historical significance of the hacker labs and maker-spaces.25 As Anne
stacks, and engineers argued that they are criti- Balsamo explains, these sites offer opportuni-
cal to the structural integrity of the building. ties — embodied, often inter-generational learn-
ing experiences that are integral to the
development of a “technological imagina-
tion” — that are rarely offered in formal learning
institutions.26
The Hunt Library has a maker-space, a
GameLab, various other production labs and
studios, an immersion theater, and, rather eye-
brow-raisingly, an Apple Technology Showcase
(named after library donors whose surname is
Apple, with an intentional pun on the electron-
Bobst Library, New York University, after hurricane Sandy.
ics company).27 One might think major funding
is needed for those kinds of programs, but the
The way a library’s collection is stored and trend actually began in 2011 in tiny Fayetteville,
made accessible shapes the intellectual infra- New York (pop. 4,373), thought to be the first
structure of the institution. The Seattle Public public library to have incorporated a mak-
Library uses translucent acrylic bookcases er-space. The following year, the Carnegie
made by Spacesaver — and even here this seem- Libraries of Pittsburgh — which for years has
ingly mundane, utilitarian consideration culti- hosted film competitions, gaming tournaments,
vates a character, an ambience, that reflects the and media-making projects for youth — launch-
library’s identity and its intellectual values. It ed, with Google and Heinz Foundation support,
might sound corny, but the luminescent glow The Labs: weekly workshops at three locations
permeating the stacks acts as a beacon, a wel- where teenagers can access equipment, software
coming gesture. There are still many contem- and mentors. Around the same time,
porary libraries that privilege — perhaps even Chattanooga — a city blessed with a super-high-
fetishize — the book and the bookstack: take speed municipal fiber network — opened its
MVRDV’s Book Mountain (2012), for a town in lauded 4th floor, a 12,000 square feet “public
the Netherlands; or TAX arquitectura’s Biblio- laboratory and educational facility” that “sup-
teca José Vasconcelos (Mexico City, 2006). ports the production, connection, and sharing
Stacks occupy a different, though also fet- of knowledge by offering access to tools and
ishized, space in Helmut Jahn’s Mansueto instruction.” Those tools include 3D printers,
Library (2011) at the University of Chicago, laser cutters and vinyl cutters, and the instruc-
which mixes diverse infrastructures to accom- tion includes everything from tech classes, to
modate media of varying materialities: a grand incubator projects for female tech entrepre-
reading room, a conservation department, a neurs, to business pitch competitions.
 ENCYCLOPEDIC STORAGE

Last year, the Brooklyn Public Library, just a technologies? Not many libraries have the time
couple blocks from where I live, opened its and resources to undertake such endeavors, but
Levy Info Commons, which includes space for NYPL Labs and Harvard’s Library Test Kitchen,
laptop users and lots of desktop machines fea- have demonstrated what’s possible when even
turing creative software suites; seven reservable back-of-house library spaces become sites of
teleconference-ready meeting rooms, including technological praxis. Unfortunately, those inno-
one that doubles as a recording studio; and a vative projects are typically hidden behind the
training lab, which offers an array of digital me- interface (as with so much library labor). Why
dia workshops led by a local arts and design not bring those operations to the front of the
organization and also invites patrons to lead building, as part of the public program?
their own courses. A typical month on their ro- Of course, with all these new activities
bust event calendar includes resume editing come new spatial requirements. Library build-
workshops, a Creative Business Tech prototyp- ings must incorporate a wide variety of furni-
ing workshop, individual meetings with busi- ture arrangements, lighting designs, acoustical
ness counselors, Teen Tech tutorials, computer conditions, etc., to accommodate multiple sen-
classes for seniors, workshops on podcasting sory registers, modes of working, postures and
and oral history and “adaptive gaming” for more. Librarians and designers are now ac- 195
people with disabilities, and even an audio-re- knowledging — and designing for, rather than
cording and editing workshop targeted to po- designing out — activities that make noise and
ets, to help them disseminate their work in new can occasionally be a bit messy. I did a study
formats. Also last year, the Martin Luther King, several years ago on the evolution of library
Jr., Memorial Library in Washington, D.C., sounds and found widespread recognition that
opened its Digital Commons, where patrons knowledge-making doesn’t readily happen
can use a print-on-demand bookmaking ma- when “shhh!” is the prevailing rule.30
chine, a 3D printer, and a co-working space
known as the “Dream Lab,” or try out a variety
of e-book readers. The Chicago Public Library
partnered with the Museum of Science and
Industry to open a pop-up maker lab featuring
open-source design software, laser cutters, a
milling machine, and (of course) 3D print-
ers — not one, but three.
Some have proposed that libraries — fol-
lowing in the tradition of Alexandria’s “think
tank,” and compelled by a desire to “democra- Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, Ballard Library and Neighbor-
hood Service Center, Seattle, USA.
tize entrepreneurship” — make for ideal
co-working or incubator spaces, where patrons These new physical infrastructures create space
with diverse skill sets can organize themselves for an epistemology embracing the integration
into start-ups-for-the-people.28 Others recom- of knowledge consumption and production, of
mend that librarians entrepreneurialize them- thinking and making. Yet sometimes I have to
selves, rebranding themselves as professional wonder, given all the hoopla over “making”: are
consultants in a complex information economy. tools of computational fabrication really the
Librarians, in this view, are uniquely qualified holy grail of the knowledge economy? What
digital literacy tutors; experts in “copyright knowledge is produced when I churn out, say, a
compliance, licensing, privacy, information use, keychain on a MakerBot? I worry that the boost-
and ethics”; gurus of “aligning […] programs erism surrounding such projects — and the
with collections, space, and resources”; skilled much-deserved acclaim they’ve received for “re-
creators of “custom ontologies, vocabularies, branding” the library — glosses over the neolib-
taxonomies” and structured data; adept practi- eral values that these technologies sometimes
tioners of data mining.29 Others recommend embody. Neoliberalism channels the pursuit of
that libraries get into the content production individual freedom through property rights and
business. In the face of increasing pressure to free markets31 —  and what better way to express
rent and license proprietary digital content with yourself than by 3D-printing a bust of your own
stringent use policies, why don’t libraries do head at the library, or using the library’s CNC
more to promote the creation of independent router to launch your customizable cutting
media or develop their own free, open-source board business on Etsy? While librarians have
 ENCYCLOPEDIC STORAGE

long been advocates of free and democratic ac- a destructive way to justify the individual’s
cess to information, I trust — I hope — that value in a system that is naturally commu-
they’re helping their patrons to cultivate a crit- nal, not an individualistic or entrepreneur-
ical perspective regarding the politics of “tech- ial zero-sum game to be won by the most
nological innovation” — and the potential industrious.33
instrumentalism of makerhood. Sure, Dewey
was part of this instrumentalist tradition, too. Libraries, she argued, “will always be at a disad-
But our contemporary pursuit of “innovation” vantage” to Google and Amazon because they
promotes the idea that “making new stuff” = value privacy; they refuse to exploit users’ pri-
“producing knowledge,” which can be a danger- vate data to improve the search experience. Yet
ous falsehood. Library staff might want to take libraries’ failure to compete in efficiency is what
up the critique of “innovation,” too. Each new affords them the opportunity to offer a “differ-
Google product release, new mobile technology ent kind of social reality.” I’d venture that there
development, new e-reader launch brings new is room for entrepreneurial learning in the li-
opportunities for the library to innovate in re- brary, but there also has to be room for that al-
sponse. And while “keeping current” is a crucial ternate reality where knowledge needn’t have
goal, it’s important to place that pursuit in a monetary value, where learning isn’t driven by a 196
larger cultural, political-economic and institu- profit motive. We can accommodate both spac-
tional context. Striving to stay technologically es for entrepreneurship and spaces of exception,
relevant can backfire when it means merely re- provided the institution has a strong epistemic
sponding to the profit-driven innovations of framing that encompasses both. This means that
commercial media; we see these mistakes — in- the library needs to know how to read itself as a
novation for innovation’s sake — in the ed-tech social-technical-intellectual infrastructure.
arena quite often.

Reading across the infrastructural

ecology
Libraries need to stay focused on their long-
term cultural goals — which should hold true
regardless of what Google decides to do tomor-
row — and on their place within the larger infra-
structural ecology. They also need to consider
how their various infrastructural identities map
onto each other, or don’t. Can an institution Moshe Safdie, Salt Lake City Public Library, USA.

whose technical and physical infrastructure is

governed by the pursuit of innovation also fulfill It’s particularly important to cultivate these
its obligations as a social infrastructure serving critical capacities — the ability to “read” our li-
the disenfranchised? What ethics are embodied braries’ multiple infrastructures and the politics
in the single-minded pursuit of “the latest” and ethics they embody — when the concrete
technologies, or the equation of learning with infrastructures look like San Antonio’s
entrepreneurialism? BiblioTech, a “bookless” library featuring 10,000
As Zadie Smith argued beautifully in the e-books, downloadable via the 3M Cloud App;
New York Review of Books, we risk losing the 600 circulating “stripped down” 3M e-readers;
library’s role as a “different kind of social reali- 200 “enhanced” tablets for kids; and, for use
ty (of the three-dimensional kind), which by its on-site, 48 computers, plus laptops and iPads.
very existence teaches a system of values be- The library, which opened last fall, also offers
yond the fiscal.”32 Barbara Fister, a librarian at computer classes and meeting space, but it’s all
Gustavus Adolphus College, offered an equally locked within a proprietary platformed world.
eloquent plea for the library as a space of In libraries like BiblioTech — and the
exception: Digital Public Library of America — the collec-
tion itself is off-site. Do patrons wonder where,
Libraries are not, or at least should not be, exactly, all those books and periodicals and
engines of productivity. If anything, they cloud-based materials live? What’s under, or
should slow people down and seduce them floating above, the “platform”? Do they think
with the unexpected, the irrelevant, the about the algorithms that lead them to particu-
odd and the unexplainable. Productivity is lar library materials, and the conduits and pro-
 ENCYCLOPEDIC STORAGE

tocols through which they access them? Do they

consider what it means to supplant bookstacks
with server stacks — whose metal racks we can’t
kick, lights we can’t adjust, knobs we can’t fiddle
with? Do they think about the librarians nego-
tiating access licenses and adding metadata to
“digital assets,” or the engineers maintaining the
servers? With the increasing recession of these
technical infrastructures — and the human labor
that supports them — further off-site, behind
the interface, deeper inside the black box, how
can we understand the ways in which those
structures structure our intellect and sociality?

197

David Adjaye, Francis Gregory Neighborhood Library,

Washington, D.C., USA.

We need to develop — both among library pa-

trons and librarians themselves — new critical
capacities to understand the distributed physi-
cal, technical and social architectures that scaf-
fold our institutions of knowledge and program
our values. And we must consider where those
infrastructures intersect — where they should
be, and perhaps aren’t, mutually reinforcing one
another. When do our social obligations com-
promise our intellectual aspirations, or vice ver-
sa? And when do those social or intellectual
aspirations for the library exceed — or fail to ful-
ly exploit — the capacities of our architectural
and technological infrastructures? Ultimately,
we need to ensure that we have a strong episte-
mological framework — a narrative that explains
how the library promotes learning and stewards
knowledge — so that everything hangs together,
so there’s some institutional coherence. We
need to sync the library’s intersecting infra-
structures so that they work together to support
our shared intellectual and ethical goals.

Mattern, Shannon, “Library as

Infrastructure. Reading Room, Social
Service Center, Innovation Lab. How Far
Can We Stretch the Public Library?”,
Places Journal, June 2014.
 ENCYCLOPEDIC STORAGE

1 See Battles, Matthew, Library: An Unquiet History, New York: 24 This sentence was amended after publication to note the mul-
W. W. Norton, 2003; Casson, Lionel, Libraries in the Ancient World, tiple motives of implementing the bookBot storage and retrieval
New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001; and Lerner, Fred, The system; its compact storage allowed the library to reintegrate
Story of Libraries, New York: Continuum, 1999 some collections that were formerly stored off-site. The library
2 Casson explains that when Alexandria was a brand new city has also developed a Virtual Browse catalog system, which aims to
in the third century B.C., its founders enticed intellectuals to the promote virtual discovery that isn’t possible in the physical stacks
city — in an attempt to establish it as a cultural center — with the 25 According to a late 2013 web-based survey of libraries, 41%
famous Museum, “a figurative temple for the muses, a place for of respondents provide maker-spaces or maker activities in their
cultivating the arts they symbolized. It was an ancient version of a libraries, and 36% plan to create such spaces in the near future.
think-tank: the members, consisting of noted writers, poets, sci- Most maker-spaces, 51%, are in public libraries; 36% are in
entists, and scholars, were appointed by the Ptolemies for life and academic libraries; and 9% are in school libraries. And among the
enjoyed a handsome salary, tax exemption […] free lodging, and most popular technologies or technological processes supported
food. […] It was for them that the Ptolemies founded the library of in those spaces are computer workstations (67%), 3D printers
Alexandria.” Casson, Lionel, op. cit., pp. 33-34 (46%), photo editing (45%), video editing (43%), computer
3 Oehlerts, Donald, Books and Blueprints: Building America’s programming/software (39%). 33% accommodated digital music
Public Libraries, New York: Greenwood Press, 1991, p. 62 recording; 31% accommodated 3D modeling, and 30% featured
4 Weinberger, David, “Library as Platform,” Library Journal, 4 work with Arduino and Raspberry Pi circuit boards. Price, Gary,
September 2012 “Results From ‘Makerspaces in Libraries’ Study Released,” Library
5 For more on “infrastructural ecologies,” see Banham, Reyner, Journal, 16 December 2013. See also Mitchell, James, “Beyond the
Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies [1971], Berkeley: Maker Space,” Library Journal, 27 May 2014
University of California Press, 2009; Latham, Alan; McCormack, 26 Balsamo, Anne, “Videos and Frameworks for ‘Tinkering’ in a
Derek; McNamara, Kim and McNeil, Donald, Key Concepts in Digital Age,” Spotlight on Digital Media and Learning, 30 January
Urban Geography, Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2009, p. 32; Xu, Ming 2009
and Newell, Josh P., “Infrastructure Ecology: A Conceptual Mode 27 This sentence was amended after publication to note that
for Understanding Urban Sustainability,” Sixth International Con- the Apple Technology Showcase was named after former NCSU 198
ference of the International Society for Industrial Ecology (ISIE) faculty member Dr. J. Lawrence Apple and his wife, Ella Apple; in
Proceedings, Berkeley, 7-10 June 2011; Ramaswami, Anu, et al., “A an email to the author, library director Carolyn Argentati wrote
Social-Ecological-Infrastructural Systems Framework for Interdis- that the corporate pun was intentional
ciplinary Study of Sustainable City Systems,” Journal of Industrial 28 Badger, Emily, “Why Libraries Should Be the Next Great
Ecology, 16:6, December 2012, pp. 801-813. Most references to Start-Up Incubators,” Atlantic Cities, 19 February 2003
infrastructural ecologies — and there are few — pertain to systems 29 Abram, Stephen, in Library 2020, op. cit., p. 46; and Green,
at the urban scale, but I believe a library is a sufficiently compli- Courtney, in Library 2020, op. cit., p. 51
cated institution, residing at a nexus of myriad networks, that it 30 See Mattern, Shannon, “Resonant Texts: Sounds of the Con-
constitutes an infrastructural ecology in its own right temporary American Public Library,” The Senses & Society, 2:3, Fall
6 Center for an Urban Future, “Opportunity Institutions” Con- 2007, pp. 277-302
ference, 11 March 2013. See also Jesse Hicks and Julie Dressner’s 31 See Harvey, David, A Brief History of Neoliberalism, New York:
video “Libraries Now: A Day in the Life of NYC’s Branches,” 16 Oxford University Press, 2005
May 2014 32 Smith, Zadie, “The North West London Blues,” New York
7 Center for an Urban Future, Branches of Opportunity, January Review of Books Blog, 2 June 2012
2013, p. 3 33 Fister, Barbara, “Some Assumptions About Libraries,” Inside
8 Quoted in Gilbert, Katie, “What Is a Library?,” Narratively, 2 Higher Ed, 2 January 2014
January 2014
9 Real estate sales are among the most controversial elements
in the New York Public Library’s much-disputed Central Library
Plan, which is premised on the sale of the library’s Mid-Manhat-
tan branch and its Science, Industry and Business Library. See
Sherman, Scott, “The Hidden History of New York City’s Central
Library Plan,” The Nation, 28 August 2013
10 Ito, Toyo, “The Building After,” Artforum, September 2013
11 Klinenberg, Eric, “Toward a Stronger Social Infrastructure: A
Conversation with Eric Klinenberg,” Urban Omnibus, 16 October
2013
12 Klinenberg, Eric, Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in
Chicago, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002
13 I’m a member of the organizing team for this project, and I
hope to write more about its outcomes in a future article for this
journal
14 Kimmelman, Michael, “Next Time, Libraries Could Be Our
Shelters From the Storm,” New York Times, 2 October 2013
15 Ruth Faklis, in Janes, Joseph (ed.),
Library 2020: Today’s Leading Visionaries Describe Tomorrow’s
Library, Lanham: Scarecrow Press, 2013, pp. 96-97
16 The Seattle Central Library was a focus of my first book, on
public library design. See Mattern, Shannon, The New Downtown
Library: Designing With Communities, Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 2007
17 Personal communication with Marcellus Turner, 21 March 2014
18 Turner, Marcellus, in Library 2020, p.92
19 Ken Worpole addresses library partnerships, and their im-
plications for design in his Contemporary Library Architecture: A
Planning and Design Guide (Routledge, New York, 2013). The book
offers a comprehensive look at the public roles that libraries serve,
and how they inform library planning and design
20 Fontichiaro, Kristin, in Library 2020, op. cit., p. 8
21 See Ptacek, Bill, in Library 2020, op. cit., p. 119
22 The quotations are from my earlier article for Places, “Mar-
ginalia: Little Libraries in the Urban Margins.” Within mass-dig-
itization projects like Google Books, as Elisabeth Jones explains,
“works that are still in copyright but out of print and works of in-
determinate copyright status and/or ownership” will fall between
the cracks (in Library 2020, op. cit., p. 17)
23 I dedicate a chapter in The New Downtown Library to what
makes a library “contextual” — and I address just how slippery that
term can be