Temporary Services added 100 new books and artists' projects into the Harold Washington Library Center in Chicago (the largest municipal, public, circulating library in the country). The library has not been told about the gifts they are going to receive. Every title has been checked against Harold Washington's catalog to verify that each book is not already owned by the library. Several books that are already in the collection, are being added in creatively altered new versions. We are giving the Library books that it has not acquired on its own. We believe these are books that it will probably want to keep. Nearly all of the books are brand new and most of them were published or created within the last few years.
Though composed almost entirely of books by artists, this gift will infiltrate all of Harold Washington Library and not merely the floor devoted to Visual and Performing Arts. Creating new juxtapositions of materials not normally possible in common library practice is one component of this project. Another major goal is to bring obscure, subversive, self-published, hand-made, or limited edition works by underexposed artists to a wider audience.
Every reasonable effort has been made to make the donated books look like they already belong to Harold Washington Library. They have call numbers on their spines, manila cardholders that are ready for the due date cards provided at the circulation desk, Reference stickers, and facsimiles of other Chicago Public Library stamps and markings. Supplies have been purchased from the same mail order outlets that most libraries use. In some cases, books that were originally discarded by HWL were purchased from the library's store for their bindings or stamped forms and cardholders. These tactics have been used to properly integrate the artists' works using the library's preferred methods. It is our hope that this effort will encourage the library to retain these books so that they can actually circulate or remain in the building as reference material. Ironically, due to the Library's security measures, which include book and bag inspections upon exiting the building, we anticipate that it will be easier to add a book to the collection without permission, than it would be for someone to steal a book that we have surreptitiously donated.
Putting these books in Harold Washington is not meant as an act of aggression toward the library. None of the library's current holdings have been damaged or altered in any way. We are only adding books and objects, not taking away or changing anything that was already there. The project and some of the books it includes may cause a little confusion on the part of patrons. The clerks that reshelve books or work the circulation desks may discover a few genuine oddities and surprises.
full text at http://www.temporaryservices.org/library_project_essay.html
Posted by delpesco at October 8, 2004 10:08 AM