The Library Ceremony: Oracles, Accidents, and Information Discovery

摘要

What is the place of non-linear discovery and synchronicity in physical libraries? Accidents, missed appointments, and misshelved books crack open time and transform users' experiences of usually linear and efficient tools into opportunities for oblique and oracular play. Discovery has never been an a priori or linear process. Good arrangements of things cannot do the work of informational apophenia. Yet librarians are all about order, and it would be irresponsible to let mere miscellany serve as a rule for our holdings. Ranganathan (1931) enjoined us to save the time of the reader, and to do so the reader must find the thing to be read with minimal calamity or accident. Our business is to arrange information so it is accessible, findable, and useful. It is within this general rule that small instances of disorder can become constructive.