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The Prelinger Library is a privately funded
Richard and Megan Prelinger
interview at KQED-FM (NPR) (1 hour) It holds over 50,000 books, periodicals and pieces of print ephemera. Prelinger Library considers itself a "hybrid library" that blurs the distinction between digital and non-digital; as of 2009 it had over 3,700 e-books online. The library is usually open one and one-half days a week, and hosts approximately 1,000 visitors per year.
The library is unusual in that it uses a custom system of organization designed by Megan that intends to facilitate and emphasize browsing. For example, the section on "Suburbia" is next to the section on "Domestic Environments", then "Architecture", which becomes "Graphic Design", which in turn leads to "Typography" and "Fine Arts", and then "Advertising" and "Sales". There is no Dewey Decimal Classification system or card catalog.
The library was inspired in part by the Warburg Institute Library in London, founded by German art historian Aby Warburg. His disciple Fritz Saxl wrote: "The overriding idea was that the books together—each containing its larger or smaller bit of information and being supplemented by its neighbors—should by their titles guide the student to perceive the essential forces of the human mind and its history." Warburg built his library to find connections and relationships between antiquity and the Renaissance. Likewise, the Prelingers' library in part addresses the relationships among intellectual property, the evolution of media and cultural production.
Prelinger is a "serendipity" library, a library that emphasizes the experience of browsing and discovering things that were formerly unknown. The library can also be seen as a counterbalance to modern public libraries, which, as part of digital-library initiatives, emphasize computers and databases and are no longer a "mere warehouse for books". Megan Prelinger said the library is "a local workshop, not an institution. We serve tea, and we encourage photography and scanning and any other form of non-destructive appropriation. That kind of environment is very natural to people in the millennial generation and people who have grown up during the resurgence of craft and DIY spaces."
"Classificationist as Author: The Case of the Prelinger Library"
by Melanie Feinberg (PDF). Paper to be presented at International Society for Knowledge Organization conference, Montreal, August 2008.
Megan Prelinger interview
at Radio Web MACBA (2015) (Podcast/audio: 40 min)
Digitized books from Prelinger Library
at Internet Archive {{Authority control Public libraries in California Private libraries in the United States Libraries in San Francisco 2004 establishments in California Libraries established in 2004
public library
A public library is a library that is accessible by the general public and is usually funded from public sources, such as taxes. It is operated by librarians and library paraprofessionals, who are also Civil service, civil servants.
There are ...
in San Francisco founded in 2004 and operated by Megan Prelinger
Megan Prelinger (née Shaw; born September 25, 1967) is a cultural historian and archivist. She is the co-founder of the Prelinger Library in San Francisco and author of two books: ''Another Science Fiction: Advertising the Space Race 1957–1962 ...
and Rick PrelingerAudioRichard and Megan Prelinger
interview at KQED-FM (NPR) (1 hour) It holds over 50,000 books, periodicals and pieces of print ephemera. Prelinger Library considers itself a "hybrid library" that blurs the distinction between digital and non-digital; as of 2009 it had over 3,700 e-books online. The library is usually open one and one-half days a week, and hosts approximately 1,000 visitors per year.
Collection
The library is unusual in that it uses a custom system of organization designed by Megan that intends to facilitate and emphasize browsing. For example, the section on "Suburbia" is next to the section on "Domestic Environments", then "Architecture", which becomes "Graphic Design", which in turn leads to "Typography" and "Fine Arts", and then "Advertising" and "Sales". There is no Dewey Decimal Classification system or card catalog.
The library was inspired in part by the Warburg Institute Library in London, founded by German art historian Aby Warburg. His disciple Fritz Saxl wrote: "The overriding idea was that the books together—each containing its larger or smaller bit of information and being supplemented by its neighbors—should by their titles guide the student to perceive the essential forces of the human mind and its history." Warburg built his library to find connections and relationships between antiquity and the Renaissance. Likewise, the Prelingers' library in part addresses the relationships among intellectual property, the evolution of media and cultural production.
Prelinger is a "serendipity" library, a library that emphasizes the experience of browsing and discovering things that were formerly unknown. The library can also be seen as a counterbalance to modern public libraries, which, as part of digital-library initiatives, emphasize computers and databases and are no longer a "mere warehouse for books". Megan Prelinger said the library is "a local workshop, not an institution. We serve tea, and we encourage photography and scanning and any other form of non-destructive appropriation. That kind of environment is very natural to people in the millennial generation and people who have grown up during the resurgence of craft and DIY spaces."
See also
* Prelinger ArchivesNotes
Further reading
"Classificationist as Author: The Case of the Prelinger Library"
by Melanie Feinberg (PDF). Paper to be presented at International Society for Knowledge Organization conference, Montreal, August 2008.
Megan Prelinger interview
at Radio Web MACBA (2015) (Podcast/audio: 40 min)
External links
*Digitized books from Prelinger Library
at Internet Archive {{Authority control Public libraries in California Private libraries in the United States Libraries in San Francisco 2004 establishments in California Libraries established in 2004