Designing Collection Experiences: 1. The Experience Library

Roy Kenagy rjkenagy@netins.net

www.whatwouldranganathando.org September 10, 2013

Waterloo Public Library

Design

Experience

Collection

Ludwig Wittgenstein

“The problems are solved, not by giving new information, but by arranging what we have always known. Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.” Philosophical Investigations, § 109

Exercise

Inventory tasks in collections work

Professional frames

Donald Schön and Martin Rein. Frame Reflection: Toward the Resolution of Intractable Policy Controversies. New York: BasicBooks, 1994.

The Progression of Economic Value

B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore. The Experience Economy: Work Is Theatre and Every Business a Stage. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1999.

Commodity

Product

Service

Experience

Transformation

Cathy De Rosa and Jenny Johnson. From Awareness to Funding: A Study of Library Support in America: A Report to the OCLC Membership. Dublin, Ohio: OCLC, 2008; available at http://www.oclc.org/reports/funding/default.htm.

One of three findings called out in the introductory web page of OCLC’s From Awareness to Funding:

“Voters who see the library as a 'transformational' force as opposed to an 'informational' source are more likely to increase taxes in its support”

The Collection as a Designed Artifact

Affordances in Design

Donald A. Norman. The Design of Everyday Things. New York: Doubleday, 1990.

Exercise

What are some affordances of

board books? Then, what are some affordances of collections as artifacts?

Discovery

Brian C. O'Connor, Jud H. Copeland, and Jodi L. Kearns. Hunting and Gathering on the Information Savanna: Conversations on Modeling Human Search Abilities. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow, 2003.

But all the VSPs (Very Serious People) say libraries aren’t about

artifacts anymore!

Libraries are about information/ knowledge/ makerspaces/ anything

but artifacts

Exercise

Anything But Artifacts: Read and discuss “Meet Your Makers,” then

inventory all the phenomena that will replace artifacts in libraries.

And for my next trick, I will make All the Information in the Universe disappear.

The Conduit Metaphor

Michael Reddy. "The Conduit Metaphor." In Metaphor and Thought, edited by Andrew Ortony, 164-201. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Available online at http//www.reddyworks.com/reddy-writes/the-conduit-metaphor.

Antoine Lavoisier, who made All the Phlogiston in the Universe disappear.

Nominalization

Helen Sword. "Zombie Nouns," The New York Times (July 23, 2012): http//opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012-07/23/zombie-nouns/.

Technology Changes Everything™

Unlock Your Potential

Change the Way the World Looks at You

Toolmaking

Alexandra

Doni

Edie

The Mission of Librarians is to Improve Society through Facilitating Knowledge Creation in their Communities.

R. David Lankes

“I hate the READ posters. There, I’ve said it.”

R. David Lankes. The Atlas of New Librarianship. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2011. p. 73.

The Curse of Knowledge

Chip and Dan Heath. Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die. New York: Random, 2007.

Two Frames for Reading

Reading as consumption

vs.

Reading as making

Exercise

Is reading consumption, making, or a little of both? Hint: I think there is a

wrong answer.

If reading is making, what do we make when we read?

Meaning

Almost always, narrative meaning

People transform themselves when they make meaning.

Especially narrative meaning

Waterloo Public Library August 2013 Checkouts - All collections

Rhizome Sum of Checkout % of Checkout

Exposition 5,011 16.26%

Narrative 25,798 83.73%

Total 30,812 100.00%

Does not include renewals

The mission of librarians is to help create transformative meaning in the lives of readers and the conversations of communities.

C. Roy Kenagy

Now for some bullet points

• Public library collections work is about designing transformative experiences

• Readers experience collections as unitary artifacts that afford practice, play, and praxis

• Public library collections are overwhelmingly about narrative, not information

• Creating meaning is hard work, and our readers deserve our respect

Ludwig Wittgenstein

“don’t think, just look!”

Philosophical Investigations, § 66