2017 Charleston Library Conference

The future of print is often spoken of as a thing of off-site depositories and onsite remnants, remnants consisting of the books proven to be most popular already. But there are many ways in which print has an important role in the future of our public-facing collections. They offer distinctive modes of knowing, they embody powerful cultural traditions, and they offer a unique means of introducing readers to materials that may be available in other media as well. A Mellon-funded planning study at Arizona State University, in collaboration with MIT, is exploring ways of making those public-facing collections new sources of inspiration and learning for students and other users. We seek to create intentional, built-from-scratch collections (made up, to be sure, of materials mainly already held), displayed and presented in innovative ways. Our goal is to create collections, smaller or larger, with high impact on users, distinguished by rich and challenging and provocative selection and arrangement. The goal of this Lively Lunch session is to carry forward discussion and recruit additional participants in the project.