Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Library of Walls: The Library of Congress and the Contradictions of Information Society

Library of Walls: The Library of Congress and the Contradictions of Information Society

Collins, Samuel Gerald

Paperback

General ReferenceAnthropologyGeneral Political Science

ISBN10: 0980200423
ISBN13: 9780980200423
Publisher: Lib Juice Pr
Published: Apr 15 2009
Pages: 216
Weight: 0.71
Height: 0.49 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
In Library of Walls, Samuel Collins engages the heterogeneities of information society at the Library of Congress through ethnographic fieldwork, suggesting that information society is best understood at the locus of conflicting modalities imbricating text, space, work and life. During the 1990's, the Library of Congress was beset with challenges to its traditional roles in cataloging and scholarship while at the same time re-inventing itself as a library without walls. The order of books was threatened on several fronts: in the explosive growth of accessions, in the challenges of online materials and different container types, and in fundamental disagreements about the role of the Library vis-à-vis the nation. But rather than analyze these as separate etiologies, Collins sees them as the expression of an inherently Janus-faced information society that limits information and forecloses debate even as it multiplies avenues of access. Collins considers multiple sites at the Library-its spaces, its artifacts and organization-as contested sites where varied actors negotiate information, knowledge and nation amidst an institution whose own shifting priorities synecdochally mirror the ambiguities and unease of contemporary society.

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