Institute for Culture and Society

Next seminar

Date: Tuesday 3 July
Time: 1–2pm
Venue: Linkage Room, Building EM, Institute for Culture and Society, Parramatta campus
RSVP: Michelle Kelly

• Download the seminar flyer (opens in a new window)(PDF, 151KB)

Jen Li

A Kind of Paradise: The changing spaces of public libraries

Abstract

“I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.” – Jorge Luis Borges

Libraries, since their first days in Ancient Babylon and Assyria, have been spaces of knowledge. They evolved from monastery libraries, to cathedral libraries, to university libraries, and finally to libraries where all were welcome. With each form, the library changed in terms of its mission and space. Libraries have always adapted to the new media forms in which information was held, and in the current environment where digitisation is the shiny new thing and e-books are becoming more common, libraries are changing once again.

Now libraries seem to be just as much about entertainment as education, and there is a focus on presenting them as communal and public spaces; libraries are more than just places for physical books.

This presentation provides an overview of where libraries have come from, and ponders what the future holds for them – indeed, do libraries have a future at all?

Biography

Jen Li is a doctoral candidate at the Institute for Culture and Society. She completed her undergraduate degree and Honours year at the University of Sydney, and has worked at the Urban Research Centre (UWS) and the University of Southampton.

She has researched in the areas of economic geography, cultural geography, urban geography, and retail geography. Jen is at the beginning of her doctoral research and as such is a little bit vague as to what her thesis will be about. All that is certain for now is that it will look at public libraries: most likely it will be about how new technologies are shaping library spaces and the uses of the library, but who knows?

Contacts

For further information please contact the convenor Michelle Kelly.