University Libraries & Learning Sciences Faculty and Staff Publications
Document Type
Book Chapter
Publication Date
8-29-2023
Abstract
Creative practitioners spend much of their time outside of libraries, working in studios, labs, galleries, and other spaces. For this chapter, we declare that anyone can be a creative practitioner and that inspiration can come from new ways of experiencing the world. However, developing spaces to nurture creativity can be challenging within traditional academic library spaces. For example, if creativity is nurtured through experiential and embodied learning, how do we craft spaces within our libraries to inspire new modes of seeing, being, and knowing in the world? While librarians have long studied the information needs of artists, designers, and architects, less has been written about the role that library installations play in facilitating these mindsets among patrons, and even less has been written about the use of the camera obscura, an optical device made via a darkened room and aperture. This chapter addresses the camera obscura’s use in academic libraries, its pedagogical implications, and its phenomenological potential. Through an innovative partnership between the University of New Mexico’s Fine Arts & Design Library and the Photography program within the College of Fine Art, a camera obscura installation has extended creative learning for all who frequent the library. As a component of this partnership, the camera obscura installation originated with a dialogue between us in 2017, which launched an ongoing collaborative endeavor. Since then, the camera obscura has been installed annually for up to a month at a time. This pop-up installation has become an anticipated event, with students and community members enthusiastically inquiring after its next installation date. Since its inaugural installation, photography instructors have incorporated the camera obscura into their classes, and community members with no photography background are invited to experience a moment of mindfulness in our otherwise fast-paced, screen-mediated world.
Publisher
Association of College and Research Libraries Press
Publication Title
Creators in the Academic Library
ISSN
978-0-8389-3970-3
Volume
1: Collections and Spaces
First Page
159
Last Page
178
Language (ISO)
English
Keywords
camera obscura, library programming, fine arts, photography, academic librarianship
Recommended Citation
Beene, S. & Gould, M. (2023). "Reading Images on the Wall: The Camera Obscura in the Academic Library." In Creators in the Academic Library, vol.1: Collections and Spaces, eds. Alexander C. Watkins and Rebecca Zuege Kuglitsch (pp. 158-179). Association of College and Research Libraries Press.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
