Kathleen Dean Moore and Erin E. Moore, “Six Kinds of Rain: Searching for a Place in the Academy,” in Placing the Academy: Essays on Landscape, Work and Identity, ed. By Jenifer Sinor and Rona Kaufamn, Utah State University Press, 2007, pp. 27-38.
“In this folded space, it’s hard to know where a university is. Maybe the university has become a paradox, a place with no particular place — in a familiar geography of classrooms, restrooms, computer networks, and labs where uncomfortable table-chairs and library shelves are an iconography recognizable around the world. This global University has a common language, shared ethical codes, standardized measures of status, and ingrained methodologies, economic systems and taboos. What the University doesn’t have is a meaningful relationship to a particular place— its absence the final achievement of the goal implicit in the word university. [pp.31-32]
COMMENT
Let's sing along with Malvina Reynolds’ classic song!
In Becoming Native to this Place (1993) Wes Jackson asks, what if
universities had a homecoming major? I would add, if they did have one, what would
need to change in Academic libraries?
In
the name of efficiency, academic collecting has been largely outsourced
to approval plans and digital aggregators. That means
libraries are spending a lot of money to buy very similar digital collections
no matter where the institution is located. This in turn has led to
proposals to replace academic libraries with huge regional book
warehouses in order to “share” shelf space. [1] The book-warehouse idea presupposes that all campuses are interchangeable. All of this only
makes sense if you don’t
truly think of your university campus as a “community”
Interestingly, even the people who most strongly advocate replacing libraries with book warehouses have realized that diversity (a.k.a. "unique print book manifestations") in academic library collections
derives from collecting that reflects geography. Place is still important, no mater how much universities have been trying to ignore it. If academic libraries start to pay attention to place it suggests a better way forward than replacing libraries with remote warehouses.
What
if academic libraries decided to adopt a core mission of fostering
resilient community? That would trigger a shift in library collection priorities away from globalized,
generic knowledge towards specific local and hyperlocal knowledge.It would make regional Special Collections more prominent. But more importantly, it could help with the sustainability agenda to make the world a better place.
[1] OCLC Shared Print Management https://www.oclc.org/en/services/shared-print-management.html
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