Libraries as Conversation and Story

I am a self-confessed architecture junkie. I find architecture to be innovative, inspiring, creative, and sometimes frustrating. I receive a daily email newsletter entitled ArchDaily from archdaily.com.  ArchDaily says its ”… job is to improve the quality of life of the billions of people who will arrive in cities during the next decades by providing inspiration, knowledge, and tools to the architects who will have the challenge to design for them”.  While the newsletter contains a daily dose of the most interesting architectural projects in the world, it also has a monthly theme that explores various topics. The theme for October was innovation.

As part of the “innovation” theme, they published an interview with Richard Saul Wurman, the noted American architect, graphic designer, and founder of the TED Conference. Wurman also coined the term “information architect” in 1975, a prescient move, long before the information revolution. Because of Wurman’s encyclopedic interest, the interview ranged from famous architects, to design, to music, and to knowing and unknowing. As part of the interview, he shared some thoughts from a letter he had written for a graduating class of architecture students where he talked about architecture as conversation. 

“Architecture is the thoughtful making of space and place. It shelters nearly everything that defines civilization: families, factories, football, and the sounds of a flute. Architecture holds formative conversations with everything. The near future is about conversations between those who are similar and those who are different, and about innovative ideas that come from such conversations. What will be your conversation?”

I was struck by the many ways that this idea might be applied to describing libraries. Libraries, like architecture, are about space (physical and digital) and place. Libraries are all-encompassing of civilization; they are global in scope. Libraries and their users converse with everything. Libraries are about intellectual engagement.

Conversation involves multiple ways of learning and knowing. Reading is a conversation that interrogates a disciplinary or interdisciplinary area. Reading opens imaginative space to create.  Likewise, writing is a conversation between ourselves and other scholars and writers. Conversation is both verbal and non-verbal; kinesthetic and gestural. Conversation allows us to see patterns and build connections. Conversation is performative; bringing music, art, and dance within its folds. 

Our libraries provide rich collections, spaces, technologies, and expertise that allow for conversation. Perhaps, looking at Libraries as “conversation” may help students to think differently about libraries and their student experience. Studying, reading, writing, using technology, accessing physical and digital collections are all part of their conversation between themselves, ideas, professors, and their fellow students. Like in life, some conversations are easy and friendly, some are difficult but worthwhile, some are abrupt and disturbing. Conversations both challenge and confirm. Conversation makes it okay to not know, to be tentative, to ask, to be silent, to ask again. The great cellist, Yo-yo Ma, talks about music being the space between the notes. Conversation is sometimes paused and silent. Conversation connotes multiple ways of knowing and doing; it allows students to grow, to change, to find their true selves.

The other idea that I have been exploring is the idea of library as story. For the past half dozen or more years I have been thinking about various metaphors that can be used to describe libraries. This particular metaphor comes from a job talk that I did at the University of Hawaiʽi in late September.  As part of my research into Hawaiian history and culture, I came across the Hawaiian word moʽolelo. While a simple English translation is “story” its essence is not so easily captured.  Moʽolelo can also mean history, legend, genealogy, tradition, and more.  Native Hawaiian culture was and still is, a rich culture of oral tradition. Storytelling was one way that this cultural knowledge was preserved and passed on.  Hula (dance) and mele (song) are closely related story forms that are used to tell, teach, and construct knowledge.

The thing that I like about the idea of library as story, especially thinking about Hawaiian moʽolelo, is that it looks at knowledge and knowing in a holistic and connected way.  Library as story is familial and not individualistic. It does not objectify knowledge in ways that are familiar to most Western ways of thinking. History and genealogy are connected to the environment, Music and dance are connected to governing and social relationships. The land, the ocean, and the culture are both physical and spiritual. In today’s quest for interdisciplinary research, the Hawaiian way of looking at the world provides a valuable lesson on the connectedness of all things.¹

Our libraries contain many stories, although we don’t often think about them this way, other than perhaps in our literature stacks.  Libraries actually tell stories about our cultures, what we value, the histories and ideas we think are important. While American libraries pride themselves on building collections that are broad, representative, and balanced, in many cases this is not so. We have tended to build collections that have privileged white, Christian, male culture. Some of this comes from being attuned to what is published in North America and Europe and not thinking more broadly about the stories that we have missed. Historically we have not done well with indigenous stories or stories from underrepresented minorities. Too often we have privileged stories about these groups written by members of the dominant society.

Many of us have been challenged recently to think about the diversity of our collections. We need to think about what stories our collections tell and what stories they enable.

Libraries are “conversations” and “stories”.  What conversations are we facilitating and what stories do our libraries tell.

1.       I am not at Native Hawaiian and I will not presume to say that my limited understanding of “aloha aina” qualifies me to make any judgments. In my reading, I have become impressed with the Hawaiian ways of knowing and suggest that moʽolelo or story is one way to think somewhat differently about libraries in a holistic and connected way. It forefronts indigenous knowledge as a legitimate and valued part of the cultural story. If these ideas resonate with any Native Hawaiian (Kanaka Maoli) librarians, I hope they will take up and develop this metaphor.

“The Hawaiian term, “Aloha Aina” literally means, love of the land. In its deeper sense, Aloha Aina means love of the people, family (past, presentʽ and future), the community, nature, the environment, and all that physically and spiritually comprise Hawaii. Hawaiian traditional values reflect Aloha Aina, incorporating the ancient Hawaiian practice of utilizing the talents and skills of everyone in the community, all working responsibly together in harmony, with a commitment for the present and a heart for future generations.” - https://bit.ly/2JWFtu5