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Library as Cultural Memory

by Jeremy

Library as Cultural Memory:
I realized that the thing I enjoy about the library is that it exists as a cultural memory.
—-

SUbject/object is one of the best library blogs out there. The library does not exist as a cultural memory though. One function of a library is to distribute cultural memories and their requisite ideological functions. The key here is to remember that all mental functions exist as processes, including memory. Just as a library does not transmit and accept knowledge, but knowledge flows through it embodied in people, memory does not exist in the books or the institution. The only things that exists in the institution are interpretations, frequently unfixed from the experiences that created them.

1 comment

1 Steven Chabot { 11.27.06 at 17:46 }

I think we are in agreement–I didn’t wish to imply that the Library was a perfect memory, or that things only moved one way. In fact, I wrote right after your citation:

If the library is a memory, it functions like memory in its faults and in its benefits. It distorts, chooses to forget, blocks out, makes biased decisions. Things are shelved and often used, things are shelved and not found. And all these forgetting and blockages are powered by the history of the culture itself, its wars and its ideas, which leave its mark on memory.

There are many problems with the library and I think that is what is so interesting about it.