"Future Library" from Margaret Atwood's Burning Questions collection

I have read many of Margaret Atwood's works, but there are many others that are still on my "To Be Read" list. While I would like to be able to read them all before I die, I know this will not be possible. As the first author invited to be part of Katie Paterson's Future Library project, a 100-year endeavor, not even Atwood herself will live to see her contribution published. Neither for that matter will Paterson. Paterson's project is a leap of faith. Each year between 2014-2114 different authors will be invited to submit their works to be published, printed on paper made from a forest growing in Norway, when the project ends. 

Atwood's short essay about the Future Library explores questions of Time Travel, language, and climate change. "Will any human beings be waiting to receive it? Will there be a 'Norway'? Will there be a 'forest'? Will there be a 'library'?" she asks, and offers hope that they will.

Since she wrote this piece in 2015 she could not have known that libraries would be under such a threat as they are today, only eight years later. I can only hope that the censorship contagion in the United States does not make its way to Norway. 

Monumental Mobility: The Memory Work of Massasoit - by Lisa Blee & Jean M. O'Brien

I read this for a faculty book discussion at the university where I work. It has local interest as the original statue of Massasoit (8sâmeeqan) is located on Coles Hill in Plymouth, Massachusetts about 20 miles from the university. Created by artist Cyrus Dallin in 1921 to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims, replicas of the statue can now be be found in Dayton, Ohio; Kansas City, Missouri; Provo Utah; Springville, Utah and on the lawn of the Howard B. Lee Library at Brigham Young University (BYU), where students refer to the monument as "the naked Indian" and are scandalized over that fact that 8sâmeeqan doesn't adhere to BYU's dress code. One student with whom the authors spoke suggested that the statue be moved near the gym "to align with student-athletes in their sometimes-skimpy BYU-issued gym shorts". However, the student also pointed out that such a location "could be interpreted as the rival university's 'Ute' mascot and serve as target practice...".  

The original statue was commissioned by the Improved Order of Red Men, a fraternal organization still in existence and "limited to physically, mentally, and morally sound" white men. Its headquarters are located in Waco, Texas, and the authors made good use of its research library there. The Red Men Museum and Library also owns some 11-inch replicas of the statue commissioned as a fund-raising effort just before the statue's unveiling.

It was certainly an interesting time to read and discuss this book, not only because we are now recognizing the 400th anniversary of the Pilgrims' landing, an anniversary celebration that has been in the works for many years, and will now take place virtually, but also because we are witnessing the destruction of monuments to colonizers, and taking part in a larger discussion of the meaning of monuments to those who build them, those who visit them, and those who remove them.

The final chapter of the book "Marketing" explores how the statue has been exploited, along with other memorials, to make Plymouth a tourist destination - America's Hometown (and I know some Washingtonians who would dispute that moniker). The authors describe several tours available to tourists, some that provide a Pilgrim-centric view, and others that "challenge...expectations for a celebratory settler origin story." The traveling exhibit Captured! 1614 opened in 2014 in the Plymouth Public Library. 

Created under the guidance of Mashpee Wampanoag Paula Peters with a team of Wampanoag designers, researchers, and historical interpreters...the exhibit panels and series of short films...Captured! 1614 presents the Patuxet Wampanoag perspective on the slaving expedition of Thomas Hunt, who seized twenty men and boys from Patuxet, including Tisquantum...for sale in Spain...According to Peters, the reception of the exhibit has been overwhelmingly positive among Wampanoag communities and non-Indian viewers.

Excellent scholarship written for everyone.

The Artist's Library : A Field Guide - by Laura Damon-Moore and Erinn Batykefer

I found this book through a stroke of serendipity. I was talking to my husband's "Secret Life of Coffee" class (do you love that name? I thought of it!) about doing research on coffee-related themes (using the handy MaxGuide http://maxguides.bridgew.edu/coffee I created for just such work) and was explaining the difference between a subject search and a keyword search using the word "coffee". I demonstrated that the subject search would be more targeted, and that a keyword search would be broader, so that while one might find some useful books than just those a subject search would turn up, it will also necessarily produce some "false hits" including books by people with the name "Coffee", and others published by Coffee House Press. At which point the record for The Artist's Library which had only recently been added to our catalog appeared. I explained to the students that while it looked like a fabulous book (and that I was most certainly going to read it myself) it probably wouldn't have a lot of information for their research on coffee. After finishing my lesson, I returned straight to my library and checked out the book.

This work looks at the library as creative space - an "incubator" of ideas. Ideas that can be inspired by the architecture of the library, things and people we see in the library, as well as things we learn through reading. The authors provide suggestions for artists from the simple (using computers provided by the library to do creative work - a long standing tradition dating back to the time of typewriters used by writers including Ray Bradbury and Betty Friedan) to more unconventional strategies (browsing the stacks and selecting books based only the color of the cover, talking to strangers) as well as checking out the events calendar for new things to try, and collaborating with librarians to create programming, or art displays. Both the university library in which I work, and the public library for which I am a trustee provide spaces for artists to display work. The public library showcases local artists, as well as artwork created by art students (by which my own daughter has been provided a venue to showcase her work).

The authors define artist broadly as

a person who learns and uses creative tools and techniques to make new things...a professional musician, or a kid learning how to use sound-editing software in a library's digital lab...a world-renowned author, or a senior citizen taking part in a memoir-writing workshop...

With this definition I certainly find myself as part of a meta-project. This blog being my creative outlet which was inspired by the library.

I got a laugh when I read dancer/librarian ChristiWeindorf's self description of as a "bunhead". She was referring NOT to her librarian self, but rather her ballerina self.

Find out more at the Library as Incubator Project 

Lagniappe:
This video about creating art from old books has recently been making the rounds on the "library land" newsfeeds.