Common Libraries

= "prototyping the future of libraries"

URL = http://commonlibraries.cc/

Description

" however, libraries are fast evolving to become what some have termed ‘read/write’ platforms that provide access to broad-ranging media as well as multi-media manipulation tools. The information with which they’re concerned increasingly includes data that is stored electronically, and library services themselves straddle the offline/online world.

The emergence of ‘library-hack-makerspaces’ is, then, very welcome – not least, insofar as they harbour the potential for STEAM skills development at the very heart of our communities, in keeping with libraries’ educational remit. And, yet, we’ve still to witness a thoroughgoing disruption of libraries’ twentieth century institutional boundaries – ideally, to establish knowledge production on an equal footing with knowledge consumption, reflecting the democratisation of the means of reproduction in the Western world. That is, we’ve still to see twenty-first century libraries established as bona fide peer-to-peer platforms for the purposes of facilitating knowledge exchange founded upon Commons principles.

We believe that library services should provide access to and enable development of a multimedia commons." (http://commonlibraries.cc/about/)