Category Archives: design

Library of Dust

An art project from David Maisel:

Library of Dust depicts individual copper canisters, each containing the cremated remains of patient from a state-run psychiatric hospital. The patients died at the hospital between 1883 (the year the facility opened, when it was called the Oregon State Insane Asylum) and the 1970’s; their bodies have remained unclaimed by their families.

canister

The prisoner’s use of the term “library” is apt. The room housing these canisters is an attempt for order, categorization, and rationality to be imposed upon randomness, chaos, and the irrational.

Okay, yes, a slightly morbid way to start the week. I’ll try to make it up to you.

Caleb Tucker-Raymond’s curiosity was piqued by books covered in Buckram cloth at Multnomah County Library:

From some point after its incoporation to the early 80s, the Library Association of Portland, which later became Multnomah County Library, operated its own bindery. Besides visually and texturally uniting runs of periodicals and sets of reference books on the shelves, the bindery, together with the mending department, breathed new life into well-read books.

3715_004_Page_4

by year of binding | stealthislibrary bound-1

He’s started a collection of these striking covers which is fun to browse. Thanks, Caleb!

jacksonbooks1

jacksonbooks2

jacksonbooks3

A nice book themed cafe at McNally Jackson Books in NYC.

via super relax

Rick Roche writes:

We are breaking with our past at Thomas Ford. One thing that you could always count on was that the reference books were here on the shelves. As good as that was in the past, the problem now is that the reference books are here on the shelves, but no one is here using them. They are just sitting. So we are liberating them. We’re going to let them out to anyone with a card, just like other books, magazines, CDs, and DVDs.

The primary objection I have heard is “What if a book from a set doesn’t return, isn’t the set ruined?” This is a possibility, maybe even a probability in time. Still having books sit idle seems a greater sorrow in a public library focused on current utility and not archival conservation. I think the greater good will be served by this service. I look froward to seeing some smiles when I let someone take a volume of Contemporary Literary Criticism or The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.

I’m continually impressed by this library’s focus on making its services and resources as convenient and useful as possible.

This library awareness campaign from Sweden uses attractive graphic design. The design allows more people to connect with the clearly noble but probably not catchy to most “Sweden needs a national library policy” movement.

Knapp kasse

Bibliotek_behover_karlek.pdf (page 1 of 12)

Read more about the campaign at Library Lovers.