An opening evening at the SuperConference; thinking about public space
The highlight of the evening for me was the plenary talk given by Cynthia Nikitin. Niktin's talk was all about public libraries and space. I found this to be very illuminating. After a childhood in the highly auto-friendly Toronto suburbs, it was striking to see just how hostile many libraries (and public spaces generally) are for walkers. There were many examples of how libraries are disengaged from the public and how there is barely any coordination on seemingly basic questions such as putting transit stops nearby libraries. Finding ways to make libraries more community and a destination for a range of services is an interesting idea. In some ways, her talk was a library-specific version of a TED talk I watched a few weeks ago: James Howard Kunstler Dissects Suburbia. As Kunstler put it, "[suburbia] is a place not worth caring about... " . Interestingly, they both referenced Boston's failed public square as an example of a terrible public space where nobody wants to be.
I've never attended a library or information conference before, so I was quite excited to be attending OLA tonight. Alas, almost nobody from myprogram is attending so I felt awkwardly alone. Not much to report tonight. I browsed through the expensive offerings at the OLA Bookstore and
found some interesting items but didn't end up purchasing very much. Many though not all of the items were tilted toward children's librarianship
or the public library context, neither of which is where I come from.
On a totally unrelated note, I'm finding the LibraryNG blog tool to be frustrating to use after years of using Blogger, Wordpress and other platforms.
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