To secure ECA library I set out clear precedents to Andrew Baxter, library manager, of what I wanted to do in the space and how I would go about ways of communicating this clearly. I also ensured, in a string of email communication, that the relevant people and departments were aware of this exhibition as it happened in a public and university building with many classrooms and facilities. I had an initial meeting Andrew Baxter regarding what areas of the library would ‘suit’ artwork and which areas would cause too much disruption in the space (workstations and quite study areas etc). He will also create a document that highlights the specific areas of the library I showed artwork in to make this process shorter and more efficient for any other students who wish to have exhibitions here. It was great to have his support, and that of assistant librarians Karen and Elise, in realising the show. I also summarised these discussions, along with any questions I had into emails to ensure we both had the same information and to avoid confusion but as finding artists progressed, I created detailed visuals of what would be in each space.

I was introduced to David Farrier’s work in the anthropology course where his article Our Greatest Libraries are Melting Away, for The Washington Post which directs the term ‘library’ away from its physical form into something that provisions nature, thought and time. The world’s frozen places are an immense library of our planet’s history, library becoming various entities that enter research as a measurer of time and resources.

Scottish Poetry Library:

 

The Scottish Poetry Library holds more than 30,000 items, mostly giving a platform to Scottish poetry and largely unknown items that would not have been stored in other libraries. Funding for this largely comes from Creative Scotland and Edinburgh Council with other investors that provide funding for temporary exhibitions and events. This centre for poetry began as a response to other libraries not being able to house a great volume of poetry outside well known names: A poet herself, Tessa was aware that few public libraries could afford to cover more than the obvious giants of 20th century poetry, and that publishers had little financial incentive to publish or promote it (1).

 

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/about/our-story/

National Library of Scotland:

Part of Treasures exhibition.

The above images highlight the importance of the digital in the running of libraries. The digital format of books allow a much wider readership of materials but also enables these to be stored efficiently in an online database. I want this to be apparent in my exhibition, mostly through the website and pamphlet, to convey the deeper connectivity libraries have.

 

Wall detail of Ian Rankin exhibition.

Currently at the National Library of Scotland is an exhibition of writer Ian Rankin’s archive The Ian Rankin Files. This takes the forms of books, covers, scripts and notes that make up Rankin’s archive, displaying backstage moments of his career. Most items here are displayed in glass cabinets, creating a kind of timeline of works and inspirations that have informed his novels. I like the way the above copies have been framed in clips to allow us to get closer to the material and its more personal content.

library/reading:

1 Books are for use.

2 Every reader his (or her) book.

3 Every book its reader.

4 Save the time of the reader.

5 The library is a growing organism.

– Library Science coined by S.R. Ranganathan in 1931 (1)

Dexter Sinister, compound name for David Reinfurt and Stuart Bailey, established a workshop space in New York City (see fig 1 below), intended to model a ‘Just-In-Time’ economy of print production, running counter to the contemporary assembly-line realities of large-scale publishing. This involved avoiding waste by working on-demand, utilizing local cheap machinery, considering alternate distribution strategies, and collapsing distinctions of editing, design, production and distribution into one efficient activity. (2) This largely consisted of The Serving Library, an online library where anyone can download items to view online. This is a great idea as audiences who cannot get to the physical library can locate these online and spend time with the vast array of books and objects stored on this website (see figs 2 and 3). This highlights the importance of digital systems within libraries that I investigated when visiting the National Library of Scotland (above).

I recently bought Gutter magazine from Fruitmarket Gallery, a publication dedicated to contemporary Scottish and international writing. I have been exploring art publishing in relation to the artist book and the creation of anthologies to give a platform to new and established writers. In the Editorial, the nature of the publication is explored as well as intentions for this issue and the future of it, recently we’ve been thinking a lot about this idea of the gutter, the negative space, and more generally how we understand  content within the pages of this literary journal and what makes up the space around it (3). I have been thinking about my exhibition as being a kind of ‘anthology’; how a series of linguistic artworks can take up space but come together to form a whole entity. Also within this text, of utmost importance too, is working with our contributors to ensure that the work they’ve submitted ends up looking as intended on the page. A collaboration which celebrates the work and the printed page, introducing levels of care between the publication and its contributing writers, laying bare an open and accessible stage for writers.

I have also been exploring independent publishing, houses such as Good Press in Glasgow, and its relation to visual art (see fig 4).  Good Press offers low-cost printing to space, studio facilities and workshops, all aimed at people who wish to realise a project or get to know printing techniques such as risograph. In Put About: A Critical Anthology on Independent Publishing, Maria Fusco determines by measuring and responding to these convergences and divergences between ‘alternative’ print production and literary and visual art practices, PUT ABOUT’s diverse contributors nominate a further set of questions, suggestions and testimonies to this quodlibet (4). This is where I wish to situate Utterances, amongst these questions and suggestions put forth in this text, with enough wriggle room to create new ones.

fig 1

fig 2. https://www.servinglibrary.org/

 

fig 3: https://www.servinglibrary.org/

 

fig 4: https://goodpress.co.uk/

1 Portable Document Format (pg. 110). Dexter Sinister. Lukas & Sternberg. (2009).​

http://www.dextersinister.org/index.html?id=35

3 Gutter: the magazine of new Scottish and international writing. no. 27, Spring 2023.

4 Put About (pg. 17)