Boston Public Library board chairman Jeff Rudman
http://bpl.org/general/trustees/trustees.htm
should improve the navigability of the BPL buildings floors,
department, collections. Entering the buildings there need to be
building directories indicating a) floor by floor, b) room by room,
the locations of c) departments, the names of the people who are the
d) curatorial heads of the departments and e) the locations of
collections. The library graphics at
http://bpl.org/guides/plan.htm
need a redo by a graphics experts like
Edward Tufte
http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/books_ei
see also
http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/books_vi***
Locations inside the Boston Public Library buildings need to be
renamed and graphics around the floors of the BPL buildings need to be
designed so people can move about more easily. A lot of the battle at
BPL is how to figure out where are the parts of the collections that
interest you and where are the BPL people who are the curatorial heads
of departments and where are the experienced subject specialists of
the BPL who have their own expertise with their favorite parts of the
collections. Often BPL people are tem****arily reassigned to other
departments during staffing shortages or holidays.
Two listings are needed on the Boston Public Library
website... Listings of BPL's experienced subject specialists and their
expertise with their favorite parts of the collections.
Listings floor by floor, room by room where the departments, the
collections and the names curatorial heads of departments. Boston
Public Library curatorial department heads should be given more credit
for their good works and more recognition individually as
curators. For example at the Museum of Fine Arts the MFA curators get
recognition individually there and in the media.
What can be done about the Boston Public Library bureaucracy?...
For more details next time you contact the lib ask for The Real Sheet
newsletter of the BPLPSA Boston Public Library Staff Association
http://bplpsa.org/
see also
http://www.local1930.org
These organizations have interesting critical analyses of the kinds of
institutional bureaucratic practices. We have theater critics, we have
restaurant critics, we have motion picture critics, we have art
critics. We need more critical reviews of our libraries and more
critical reviews of the curatorial departments of our libraries.
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