October 2nd

An onslaught of ideas.  We spent the entire class working through 25 or so pitches.  Some really interesting directions were proposed, a lot of promising directions to be left on the cutting room floor.  Explore the blogs to find the outtakes.

Stack Man

Whether or not it becomes his final project, Nicolas has been circling around this notion of knowledge coming to you.  His first project, and now this which fleshes it out just a bit more, but in a fun direction.  Roomba + Knowledge + Sheet.  Library stacks Pac Man doesn’t follow far behind -

 

Mix Tape:

mixTape, Bri from Harvard Library Innovation Lab on Vimeo.

Bri’s proposal — Not sure if the title is Book Guild or Mix and Match — addresses the lowly course packet.  What if it could be nice?  Something you’d actually want to keep around?  Something the library were to collect?  I really like that this patchwork publishing & binding could happen in the library.  The binding station as a mirror to the scanning and photocopy station.  I also love that you’d be making something in the library.

 

Edible Books:

We finally earned the title library test k-i-t-c-h-e-n.  Rola and Pablo made this:

 

It just rocked.  All we need is the recipe. Afterward an interesting discussion emerged as to whether the edible should be the direction for their final project.  It was the far outlier amidst the proposals.  Their other two ideas were about Learning Labs.  But ultimately Ben asked the core question: Which one did you have the most fun doing?

 

Overheard:

Chris’ proposal to bring musicians into the library elicited some interesting comments…

Jeffrey: “Perform the building.”

Bri: “Library as instrument.”  Following that same thought, she introduced the idea of tuning the stacks themselves by selectively removing books.

To end a good day, Makey Makey’s were passed around.  Looking forward to see concotions.


Harvey and friends

Library Test Kitchen’s in full effect.  A great day Tuesday.

Students took one of two routes: Develop an Independent Idea or Reconsider Reference.

Independent Idea

Chris is exploring producing events.  He reached out to Professor Krzysztof Wodiczko to create a piece.  Based on Krzysztof’s vision, Chris created a very compelling mock-up video.

Reconsidering Reference

One approach that emerged in both Bri’s and Brendan’s project was technology to enable speaking to a reference librarian while you’re in the stacks.  Is one of the times you need a reference librarian most when when you’re deep in the stacks, furthest from the ref desk?   Bri explored this idea with an imagined piece of library-specific technology:

A particularly unique wrinkle was that she imagined how you could point the device’s camera at the stack range you’re looking to share what you see with your remotely assisting librarian.  From that extra bit of shared information perhaps you can naturally begin a conversation?

Brendan imagined reviving intercom technology — installing push-to-talk direct lines to the ref. desk — and scattering them throughout the stacks.

 
 

There were a bunch of great projects (great work guys), but two worth noting for different reasons:

The Importance of Fun 

Arielle had a solid idea (emphasizing chat as a means to engage reference librarians), but she had a super-fun pitch.  It brought the whole thing to life.  But how/why?  It probably had something to do with all the superfluous flourishes in her demo.  Let’s inventory them:

All of that stuff does nothing — except make her pitch rad.  To the audience, it looks like evidence of having a good time.  It’s a great reminder of three things:

  • details make a pitch
  • it’s not only what you say, but how you say it
  • if you can make people smile or give them an “a-ha” moment, that’s the best

 

Context & “life of its own”

Finally, Rola really dove into this assignment with Harvey, a research friend.

 

Harvey’s like a mini-reference librarian for the simpler questions. Harvey contains maps, note paper, and a call button when you need the firepower of a reference librarian. And as Rola said, researching in the library and in the stacks is most often a solitary activity. Perhaps we could use a companion…

 

Reflecting on her project’s strengths — Rola’s pitch met all the criteria about fun and attention to detail listed above (look no further than the choice of head-types, “smart chic” mustaches, etc.), but she also put Harvey in context.  She sited him.  She created a “Make n Meet” Harvey station at the entrance to a library.

Seeing a table with glue, scissors, cardboard — a place make something! — at the entrance to the library, how great would that feel?  It would temper the whole entry and exit experience.

 

Lastly, Rola gave us instructions to make our own (we should all think about open-sourcing our work.)  Here’s my Harvey.

It’s weird, spending the time to make him, really makes him your friend.


Research-based pitch

Last class we reviewed the Field Ethnography assignment.  Folks visited a lot of libraries, snapped a lot of photos — check out our timeslice – and reported some interesting conversations. Part II of the assignment was to pitch some sort of observation-driven intervention, selections below:

 

Arielle had this really nice idea for introducing a scanner into the tables of the Fine Arts Library (a lot of scanning happens there).  What was nice was how the project respected the workflow/pattern of reading at the table, but then added a new dimension.  Once a scan was made you could annotate/mark it up as you wish (this is forbidden).  And if the work has been scanned before, memories of the previous users annotations come forward.  Palimpsest.

 

Where his earlier exercise explored the creation of distinct acoustic divisions, this time Brendan explored visual partitions in the form of curtains (which do also provide acoustic dampening).  When I saw it, I immediately wanted to use it.  Nicholas observed that when closed, the whole thing looks strangely like a ghost from Pac-Man.  Perhaps not a bad thing.  Concerns were also raised about the behaviors such privacy affords, but moving on…

 

Rola developed a unique proposal to traverse the Loeb Music Library collection.  Based on the fact that the majority of users of the music library are musicians themselves, Rola proposed an app that allowed you to find your score by typing part of the melody.  After selecting which of the result set, it would indicate the location of the work on a floor plan.  Rola chose an interesting situation – musicians searching for music – and tailored unique solution.  Solving a specific problem expertly for a niche population is a great way to work…

 

Pablo’s pitch started with a story (always a great way to start). In researching Widener library, he got lost in the depths of the stacks.  It was closing time, but everywhere he turned a dead end, an alarmed door, a wrong stairwell —  a tale any fire marshall would love to hear.  So for his intervention Pablo took on way-finding. More than just a great project, Pablo makes a fantastic pitch.  All you need to see is the image and you get the arc of the project – the problem empathy, clarity of its resolution….  Can we prototype this?

 


An environment for 20 books, 20 years from now

We finally got to review the work from the first assignment. It was really strong across the board. We’re all excited for what’s to come. To give you a taste:

Hattie designed a space that captured, or supported, her state of mind while reading. It’s a getaway that you swim out to, climb up through the hatch, and then slip into the book.  The model, particularly how it captures the water reflection, really worked.

Where Hattie was by water, Nicholas was by sky.  His strategy was to deploy drones who drop the books — knowledge — right where you are.  There’s something catchy about the animated gif, it sits in my head like the hook of a pop song.

 

Bri took a distinctly darker — but awesome — turn.  Starting with the recent scientific discovery that we can now store vast libraries of information in viles of DNA, she imagined librarians as keepers of this information.  Vessels.  In some sort of post-apocalyptic world, the librarian injects this info-fluid into their body, ensuring that self-preservation = knowledge preservation.

 

Brendan took an admittedly practical tack, but the results we’re no less compelling.  He explored of the role of sound in the library.  As environments allergic to sound, it’s interesting to explore it’s thoughtful use in libraries.  He introduces scenarios for both sound transmission and cancellation.  Building on the directional cones of audio can be achieved with specialty speakers currently available, Brendan proposes using them to cancel ambient noise, create transporting audio environments — the ocean, the forest — or as a Universal Technology tactic to read books to the blind.

 

Brendan, could you build (a lo-fi) one?  I’d love to experience it.

 

Check out the blogs for more –