Seattle Public Library, designed by OMA | Photo by Ken Stein

Meeting contemporary demand must go beyond accommodating the full array of services libraries currently provide or proving the need for systematic approaches to investment, design, and maintenance. The challenge requires sophisticated understanding of the resources — human, physical, digital, spatial, and civic — that libraries offer to their users. In the conversation below, Shannon Mattern, a scholar who works on libraries, archives, and media infrastructures, and Nate Hill, Deputy Director of the Chattanooga Public Library, talk about what these resources are, how they are evolving, and what design can contribute to how they are deployed. Mattern’s research has ranged from the role of central libraries in downtown redevelopment plans to new directions in urban data science. Hill’s passion for libraries has taken him around the country, from working in 30 of Brooklyn’s 58 branches to designing digital services for the San Jose Public Library to his current role in a particularly innovative, risk-taking library system in Tennessee. Their conversation touches on precedents of experimentation from around the world as well as experiences from careers spent exploring, questioning, and expanding what libraries can be.

Nate Hill: How did libraries become part of your academic research?

Shannon Mattern: I’ve always been interested in the intersection of media and space, how different media formats occupy space in particular ways and how interfaces have a spatial configuration. I’m interested in the space of the page, the space of the screen, and the ways that architecture can function as media. The construction of space can operate as an integral part of cultivating and communicating the identity of an institution....Continue Reading

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