Library and Information Science Commons^™

The Public Library As Past Become Space, Greg Nightingale

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

I use Walter Benjamin’s historical materialism in The Arcades Project to critique contemporary notions related to the understanding of the public library as a place. My critical theoretical approach, grounded in historical research and Benjamin’s theories of modernity, highlights contemporary aspects of the public library and broadens and deepens our understanding of the library’s physical role, both within and outside its walls. My research is based on the concurrent yet divergent social and cultural development of modern public libraries and Benjamin’s symbolic shopping arcades. Like Benjamin with the arcade, I believe that the public library contains innovative potentiality, in its …

Space, Power And The Public Library: A Multicase Examination Of The Public Library As Organization Space, Matthew R. Griffis

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This study investigates the materially-embedded relations of power between library users and staff within public library buildings and how building design regulates spatial behavior according to library organizational objectives. Most specifically it considers three public library buildings as organization spaces and determines the extent to which their respective spatial organizations reproduce the relations of power between the library and its public that originated with the modern public library building “type” ca. 1900.

I adopted a multiple case study design, employing several qualitative data collection methods and analysis. I conducted site visits to three, purposefully-selected public library buildings (i.e., “cases”) of …