Political Interiors: The Case of Public Libraries

Abstract

Political and cultural agendas determine the programs of public libraries, implying complex and often conflicting requirements in terms of their functioning. On one hand, they intend to materialize a political discourse of open and equal access to knowledge. On the other, they have functional and epistemological needs that might restrict or condition the distribution and access of books, equipment, and people. This article looks at how space, program, and use interrelate in the emergence of public libraries as a building type, focusing on how they express an intended public message and fulfil specific social and cultural effects. It is argued that each of these three aspects underpins power relations in libraries. By embedding an epistemology of science, space also embeds social and cultural hierarchies. Through defining an educational agenda for public libraries, program endorses the idea that citizenship depends on instruction and literacy, implying technocracy. Finally, by becoming collective under the frames of space and program, use materializes the idea of a “self-regulated society,” which embeds a twofold process: to be regulated by all others and to engage in a process of participatory action and regulation. The article reviews the literature on the historical emergence of public libraries and recommends that studies of contemporary libraries should consider how this building type originally framed social relationships through its architecture, materializing specific ideologies of politics and culture.