Looking Through the Labrary Lens

摘要

In fall 2012, the Harvard Labrary-a temporary "pop-up" space in an empty storefront in Harvard Square, Cambridge, MA-was opened as a public gallery for design student projects from the semester-long Library Test Kitchen (LTK) seminar at Harvard's Graduate School of Design. Describing the Labrary, LTK instructor Jeff Goldenson said that it's "a place where libraries can outsource risk and innovation," a "pop-up R&D department" that explores ideas too disruptive for a traditional library location (for more, see the companion feature by Goldenson and Chattanooga PL's Nate Hill,"Making Room for Innovation," in this issue of LJ, p. 26). By bringing student projects to the public and inviting interaction and response, the Labrary became an exploration of what it means to be a library space. Though it was only open briefly, the Labrary suggested new ways of looking at nontraditional library space design.