Becoming Digital. Towards an Integrated Model of Information Supply in the Context of Art and Design

Abstract

“By transforming a largely oral scholarly culture into a largely written one”, as Ian F. McNeely and Lisa Wolverton state in Reinventing Knowledge (2008, 3), “the library made the Greek intellectual tradition both portable and heritable”. Both aspects, availability of information (ubiquity) and memorability of knowledge (Überlieferung / tradition), are still key requirements for libraries , even if the (physical) space, as a third factor, has increasingly gained of importance during the last two decades. Remarkable renovation, renewing or new constructions within the library sector emphasize this trend and urge, at the same time, to the continuously growing demand for a flexible, "third place" (Oldenburg 1999). Architectural tenders, competitions and concepts show the entanglement of specific information needs, a dedicated culture of media usage and variable spatial ideas that are correlated in the field of academic learning concepts. At the media library of the Academy of Art and Design (FHNW) Basel the melting requirements become even more virulent and thus explicit, since the place is designed to encourage artistic creativity. The specific place (8th/top floor of the Academy), its equipment (shelfs as in situ sculpture) and the environment (carved mountains/ city panorama) provide an organic structure which is meant to enable flexible (literature) research, cross thinking and the generation of new ideas. As elsewhere, functionality and aesthetics merge to a tectonically folded incunabula of a culture of knowledge that is deeply linked to historic, current and possibly future ideas of information, combining historic stocks of six different art and design departments, with different ways of thinking, structuring are mixed in a postmodern way. At the same time the open structure, which invites users and guests to browse through the boxes (shelves), touch media, use, relax…, causes logistic problems. Alternative thinking is required from an organizational point of view…. And as media library (Mediathek) there is also the obligation to become digital, support open access, and represent an integrated view of information competence, which handles digital and analogue resources equally, with respect, user friendly and enjoyable. In this very specific situation we have launched a comprehensive inventory project, which offers special browsing as alternative approach to the catalogue. The presentation will explain the different steps and their interrelation. Starting with a 3D Model of the media library, in which media are located, the presentation goes further until it ends with a semantic browser which indicated certain aspects of future directions.

References Debray, Régis (2003): Einführung in die Mediologie. Bern: Haupt Verlag. McNeely, I. F.; Wolverton, L. (2008): Reinventing Knowledge: From Alexandria to the Internet: W. W. Norton. Oldenburg, Ray (1999): The great good place. Cafés, coffee shops, bookstores, bars, hair salons, and other hangouts at the heart of a community. Berkeley: Marlowe Distributed Publishers Group West.