Libraries As the Spaces Between Us Recognizing and Valuing the Third Space

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Libraries as the Spaces Between Us Recognizing and Valuing the Third Space

James K. Elmborg Much has been written recently about the services can no longer be conceived “library as place.” This essay approaches the in traditional twentieth-century terms. James K. Elmborg is Associate question of library space philosophically, ar- Libraries, with their historical ethos of Professor, School of Library and guing that developing commercial attitudes free access for all, struggle to justify Information Science, The University toward space leads us away from more pro- their existence in a world of 24/7 access of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa. Submitted ductive ways of conceiving libraries. A con- increasingly evaluated by profit-based, for review April 30, 2010; accepted cept called Third Space is introduced, and commercial metrics. As we think about for publication July 8, 2010. its relevance to libraries and librarianship what library space and librarians should is explored. Third Space is defined and ap- be and become, we need to think broad- plied to various library concepts, especially ly and creatively about our options. We information literacy. The article contends have barely begun to develop sophisti- that thinking about Third Space can help cated frameworks for thinking about the libraries and librarians develop ways of future of the library as physical space. working with increasingly diverse popula- Libraries are complex institutions, and tions in increasingly dynamic contexts. they need to respond to the demands of the present by adapting in a variety “Question: What is the first thing of ways. No doubt we need to justify that you think of when you think our existence to our various funding of a library? agencies, which will involve economic arguments, but we also need to develop Answer: a place of mild climate theories about library space that go be- where I can find adventures”1 yond marketing services and managing buildings. We need to think about s Charles Osburn notes, intentionally producing unique library “there has been a decided spaces. I believe we must be conscious surge of interest in our pro- and ambitious about developing guiding fessional literature about ‘the theories and that a critical concept called Alibrary as place.’”2 This interest reflects Third Space can help us to do so. various trends and emphases in librar- Reference & User Services Quarterly, ies, especially the transformative social The Conversation in vol. 50, no. 4, pp. 338–50 and technological changes that have de- © 2011 American Library Association. Practice All rights reserved. manded increasingly innovative think- Permission granted to reproduce for ing about what a library and a librarian When we talk about library space, we nonprofit, educational use. should be. Collections, technology, and are usually talking about buildings.

338 Reference & User Services Quarterly Libraries as the Spaces Between Us

Library buildings give form to the collections of Because of technology, the old measures of libraries by providing appropriate space specifi- service quality no longer apply. If libraries cally designed to house and provide access to the are to succeed, they must see themselves holdings. They also provide other more “mythic” in competition with other institutions and functions by intentionally symbolizing through sources of information—especially the architecture and design the values that libraries es- Web—and make customers feel welcome pouse. A number of converging forces have inten- and valued. [The authors] integrate the use sified recent questions of library space. Changing of technology into the customer experience. technologies have forced reconsideration of how They offer solid, practical ideas for develop- buildings accommodate the new machines that ing a customer service plan that meets the provide service to modern libraries. Along with library’s customer-focused mission, vision, technical imperatives have come a series of human and goals, challenging librarians to think questions about the impact of new technologies about customer service in new ways.6 on our ways of teaching, learning, and thinking. An entirely new vocabulary has emerged around Another author makes the point that “The In- learning spaces and how to conceptualize and ternet, coffee shops, restaurants and even homes create them. As Brown and Lippincott note, “New are all invading the territory once exclusive to conceptions of the classroom are being driven by libraries. Bookstores are consciously attempting the emergence of new methods of teaching and to recreate the library atmosphere, encouraging learning, made possible by the rapid evolution and customers to linger. . . . As a result, patrons are adoption of information technology.”3 We have abandoning libraries for more favorable environ- come to think of learning as a constructive pro- ments. Library users are choosing plush recliners cess, which has encouraged us to redesign schools and the aroma of coffee over the squeaking of and libraries to foster collaborative learning and wooden tables and buzzing of fluorescent lights.”7 active learning, and we are exploring digital en- We should note the level of threat implied in these vironments as spaces we structure and design for comments. Librarians are “challenged” to think learning, as well.4 about customer service. Other competitors are Much of the energy behind these new con- “invading” library territory. They are “consciously” ceptualizations has been fueled by fundamental imitating libraries. Patrons are “abandoning” us. questions of library legitimacy. The digital world Anyone following the library literature recognizes is replacing libraries, this narrative argues. If we such anxious claims, which have been with us for intend to remain relevant (or exist at all) we must at least the past decade. adapt quickly to the technological challenges to li- In responding to these threats, The Denver brary legitimacy. This adaptation demands that we Public Library decided to become a “destination compete with various entities that provide desired library.” To do so, they decided to implement goods and services in our market. These entities “best ideas and practices in consumer merchandis- include Google, which has claimed the informa- ing and marketing and apply these to the library tion market, and also the bookstores and coffee space.” Behaving more like a business meant that shops that have capitalized on the market for “new multiple copies of best sellers and media comfortable physical space to interact with books. would be available quickly, displayed more like Space is therefore conceived as both physical and the local bookstore. Comfortable seating would virtual, and libraries face competition in both be available, perhaps with a cafe nearby. The goal realms. Consequently, during the past decade, would be a popular customer-driven collection much has been written about how libraries can in an appealing space that would encourage vis- respond to questions of space. Woven throughout its.”8 Journals and conferences are infused with the discussion we find a common anxiety about this perspective as we focus on marketing services the changing nature of library space and what will with campaigns like @yourlibrary. Again, this idea happen as we continue to develop and deploy new of treating libraries like businesses is not new. The technologies that displace or transform traditional managerial segment of the profession has been libraries, demanding that we justify our steward- borrowing techniques from business manage- ship and management of it. ment for years. However, the idea that we need to In response to our challenges, we are regularly market library space as a product that will attract told that we need to run libraries more like busi- library users seems new. In pointing to this phe- nesses.5 ALA Editions’ advertisement for Hernon nomenon, my goal is not to raise the question of and Altman’s Assessing Service Quality reflects the whether libraries should behave like businesses. concerns outlined above: Rather, I want to suggest that when we do, we volume 50, issue 4 | Summer 2011 339 Feature create a specific kind of space. When we aim to an attractive destination for teens. She suggests compete with businesses, we infuse the building seeking input through a teen advisory board, not- with advertising and the upbeat signage that “cus- ing that “it’s crucial to make room for youngsters’ tomers” know and recognize. In effect, rather than ideas in everything from creating an advisory manage employees or collections or the physical board to planning a design team.”14 She suggests plant, we are managing ambience, trying to create “finding that ambiguous teen style.”15 Ultimately, a place that feels familiar and good to the consum- Bolan declares, “we’re in the midst of a teen revo- ers of library services. lution design-wise, that is.”16 Indeed, as libraries A large part of this effort goes into the aesthet- continue to market their services to young people, ics of library space. Demas and Sherer note that we see intense focus on the issues played out more “after a generation of intense focus on building the generally in the library literature competition with virtual library, librarians have reawakened to the bookstores and coffeehouses, design with the aes- place-making role of the library building.” These thetics of the customer in mind, and the general authors advocate what they call “esprit de space.” need to hold on to the library users of the future. They suggest that libraries should pursue “the The stakes are high. timeless design goal of creating transcendent and transportive spaces: transcendent, in the sense of Toward Critical Conceptions buildings that delimit physicality through imagina- of Space tive understanding and application of virtues; and transportive, in design that uplifts the patron and Two recent publications have approached space enhances the unique experience of sensing past, philosophically, and they have established a foun- present, and future simultaneously. It is this tran- dation for looking at libraries in the context of scendent/transportive co-existence, with particular critical theories of space. Both these works aim reference to its local, place-specific manifestations explicitly at providing an alternative to the “library that distinguish a library with . . . esprit de place, as business” way of looking at space. Interest- or spirit of place.”9 Again, it is worth noting that ingly, both these works depend on importing the libraries have long been concerned with the aes- interdisciplinary research on place studies into thetics of their buildings. Library Journal devotes librarianship. Place studies can be understood as one issue annually to photographs of the most in- an effort to bring multiple critical perspectives to novative and beautiful new library buildings. Vari- bear on the problem of how we use and define the ous consultants provide guidance in how to work spaces we share and manage. These studies are with architects to develop buildings that both animated by awareness that when we create and function well and also provide beauty and form occupy space, we define and develop that space that embody library values. Once again, though, (consciously or unconsciously) to embody cultural we see the emerging emphasis on the feeling of li- codes. Indeed, these studies share a fundamental brary space and the importance of managing that assumption that place must be understood as the space to attract and hold library users. interaction between humans and natural forms. Younger users cause special anxiety, appar- Culture creates space, and once we realize that ently, as a good deal of thinking goes into imagin- fact, we can become more conscious and more ing aesthetically pleasing spaces for them. Kuzyk intentional about what we create. suggests that libraries need to “put the WOW In “Regaining Place,” Charles B. Osburn argues back in children’s rooms.”10 Farrelly suggests that persuasively that “place is worthy of the most se- we need to compete with the bookstores for the rious consideration, especially at a time when so loyalty of teens, noting that “libraries need to be many fundamental options present themselves for more appealing to teens than Borders, Starbucks, the future of the library.”17 Osburn goes on to argue and Barnes and Noble to attract young adults. We that space is “endowed with powerful properties also need to do them one better.”11 Gallo suggests . . . only by the beholder whose awareness of the that her experience working in a bookstore has experience generates it.”18 Ultimately the images provided her with strategies for using displays people have in their minds about space “can have to attract teens. She suggests that we identify much or little to do with reality, for they are partial display areas creatively and use color to attract and may be either exaggerated or understated.”19 attention.12 Bolan has been a prolific adviser to Osburn provides a useful perspective in that he ac- libraries about designing teen space. She asks us knowledges the subjective nature of experiencing to consider what would happen “if teens suddenly space, which moves us past thinking that space is found the library warm and inviting?”13 She has a stable commodity and that we can control how abundant advice about how to make the library people experience it. Following Osburn’s logic,

340 Reference & User Services Quarterly Libraries as the Spaces Between Us whatever we do with library space, people who the authors note that “what we today understand enter libraries will experience that space in their of libraries as public space with democratic un- own ways, perhaps as we intend, and perhaps not. dertones is deeply embedded in the historical A more critical and more guided discussion processes Habermas identifies.”24 Our challenge of space occurs in the book Library as Place: His- today, it seems, lies in finding a new way to consti- tory, Community, and Culture, edited by Buschman tute a truly inclusive public sphere, one broadened and Leckie. In their introductory essay, the editors beyond the homogeneity of the property-owning summarize a range of theories that provide ways bourgeois class. of thinking about space. This survey provides a Habermas traces the decline of the public valuable, concise introduction to the current state sphere to increasingly sophisticated capitalist prac- of space theories and libraries. Ultimately after tices that transformed critical citizens into un- presenting a range of critical perspectives, the au- critical consumers. These new capitalist practices thors suggest that Jürgen Habermas’s idea of the emerged in the nineteenth century, and as a result, public sphere should form the central theoretical commercial space began to replace the intellectual perspective for how libraries can define themselves space of the public sphere. Capitalism has grown and the space they construct. “It is Habermas,” increasingly more effective at defining space dur- they argue, “who allows us to make normative and ing the twentieth century. David Harvey argues democratic claims about libraries as places.”20 This convincingly that a new, faster form of capitalism argument aligns with Osburn’s claim that places began to emerge in 1971. Since then, this new are social, cultural, and personal constructs that and increasingly sophisticated capitalism has more we hold in our minds. In brief, Habermas argues powerfully defined cultural space. The new capi- that the rise of the middle class from the eigh- talism (sometimes called hyper-capitalism, fast- teenth through the nineteenth centuries involved capitalism, or simply late capitalism) compresses the development of public spaces where citizens space and place by developing increasingly sophis- discussed and debated the issues of the day. These ticated ways to collapse time and space to increase debates followed rules of reason and persuasion the rate of profit. This observation accounts for the (in the best Enlightenment tradition), so the most fact that toward the end of the twentieth century, rational argument would prevail. This public we began to experience “an intense phase of time- sphere formed a critical function providing checks space compression.” Harvey asserts that “acceler- and balances on the powers of government, and it ating turnover time in production entails parallel constituted a crucial element of early democracy accelerations in exchange and consumption.”25 In and a way for the middle class to establish its in- other words, the faster we produce, the faster we fluence and to define and express its public will. need to consume to keep inventory from backing In summarizing Habermas, Buschman and up. Profits depend on increasing speed. Leckie acknowledge “crucial problems” with the Historically, space has presented a primary ob- bourgeois public sphere. They note that in Haber- stacle to this acceleration. Railroads, the telegraph, mas’s analysis, “the public sphere arose among a highways, steam shipping, the Suez Canal, the highly educated, cohesive class.”21 In his analy- telephone, and ultimately the Internet, all these sis of Habermas’s theories of the public sphere, technologies have been deployed and perfected Douglas Kellner succinctly summarizes the most to “shrink” space to more rapidly move goods problematic critique of Habermas. He contends to market to drive commerce.26 Ultimately, Har- that “while [Habermas’s] concept of the public vey argues, capitalists learned to think of space sphere and democracy assume a liberal and pop- as broken into distribution nodes connected by ulist celebration of diversity, tolerance, debate, communication systems. The resulting fragmenta- and consensus, in actuality, the bourgeois public tion achieved “the annihilation of space through sphere was dominated by white, property-owning time.”27 By finding ways to shrink space to speed males.”22 Any consensus achieved in such a forum up commerce, we have arrived at a point where only legitimately reflects the opinions and interests space and time are transformed. Modern commu- of this narrow class. Summarizing Habermas, Bus- nications technologies now allow us to do almost chman and Leckie suggest that the public sphere anything almost instantly from almost anywhere. began to lose its sway when “democracy became a This annihilation and fragmentation of space has mass affair during the nineteenth century.”23 With had profound consequences for culture. In capital- this change, politics became less reasoned, and ist culture, we now create disposable spaces and competing interests became more effective at un- places that can be rapidly “turned over” for profit. dermining the seriousness of conversation in the Property can be bought, sold, and converted to public sphere. Ultimately, despite its limitations, new uses once it has been fragmented. Place can volume 50, issue 4 | Summer 2011 341 Feature be played against place for profit. of all intrinsic absolute meaning, except, of course, Harvey argues that what we understand as economic meaning. This abstract space, which postmodernism—the fragmentation of place and according to Lefebvre has evolved from absolute acceleration of time—results from these advanced space, becomes “the space of the bourgeoisie capitalist practices. Harvey notes that one strat- and of capitalism, bound up as it is with the ex- egy for resisting postmodernism has been to “re- change (of goods and commodities, as of written launch the Enlightenment project of universal and spoken words, etc.).”30 As part of the rapid human emancipation in a global space bound turnover of spaces for capitalist purposes, space together through mechanisms of communica- has increasingly become generic and empty, hence tion and social intervention.”28 In this response, abstract. Especially in urban environments, we live the autonomous human exercises rationality and in abstract spaces that we constantly repurpose free will and can marshal these resources to resist based on what realtors call “highest and best use.” the effects of postmodernism. Habermas’s identi- With this long view of history in place, Lefe- fication and promotion of a reconstituted public bvre proposes a framework for understanding sphere in “global space” represents one such ef- contemporary space as experienced by humans. fort to “re-launch the Enlightenment project.” He describes a three-part framework for space, This solution, however, misses the source of the three ways of thinking about and experiencing problem of postmodernism. Postmodernism is space. Lefebvre’s three conceptual categories can not a theoretical invention of the academy to be be experienced at any one place at any given time. resisted intellectually. The condition of postmod- These ways of perceiving might best be understood ernism results from the very real transformations as “perceptual registers,” consciously or uncon- in culture wrought by increasingly sophisticated sciously activated by various stimuli. These three capitalism. The Enlightenment project of human ways of conceiving space include the following: emancipation has been increasingly ineffective Spatial Practices are the practices of the body. as a means to resist the capitalist restructuring of We experience space through senses (like smell, culture (hence the transformation of the public taste, and hearing). We feel space with our skin. sphere chronicled by Habermas). While we might Spaces in society are distributed, but we connect see ourselves as autonomous and rational, the them with our bodies as we move through them. culture we live in undermines our autonomy and Certain structures (roads, paths, fences, etc.) exist subverts our rationality. This new postmodern to facilitate the movement of our bodies through context must be understood as the defining reality space. At the level of spatial practice, a culture’s of our age, and within this reality, we must work environment accommodates its human inhabit- to define our spaces. ants. We have benches where people may want to Henri Lefebvre’s work, The Production of Space, sit. We have roads where people may want to go. recognizes the same historical processes outlined Representations of space are conceived spaces. in Harvey’s analysis. Lefebvre’s work sees the Those who manage public space develop concep- transformation of space described by Harvey as a tions of the uses space will have. They imagine transformation in how humans interact with pub- the rules that will govern the use of space, and lic space, a movement from what he calls absolute they create conceptual structures that will help space to abstract space. In early modern societ- make sense of that space. These planners—city ies (the time of the rise of city states in Europe), planners, technocrats, urban engineers, and librar- structures built by humans began to replace natu- ians—measure what is happening against what ral sites of cultural significance. The evolution of they think should be happening, and they manage symbolically important natural spaces (like groves, toward that vision. Conceived spaces are planned valleys, buttes, and mountaintops) to absolute rationally for certain kinds of desired effects. Lefe- sites of meaning (like cathedrals, courthouses, bvre refers to highly produced space (that is, high- and schools) involved replacing socially significant ly defined conceptual space) as dominated space. natural sites with material, constructed ones. To Rules in such spaces govern appropriate behavior. Lefebvre, “absolute space, religious and political In addition to rules, we also have social structures in character, was a product of the bonds of con- that facilitate desired activities. Unlike rules (“thou sanguinity, soil and language.”29 With increasingly shalt” and “thou shalt not”), these structures chan- efficient capitalism, these absolute spaces have nel human activity and give shape to the lives of gradually become generic abstract spaces (like people. They do not explicitly prohibit action, mini-marts, Wal-marts, McDonalds, and malls). though they do define normal activity. Thus absolute space—symbolic and cultural, re- Representational spaces involve complex sym- ligious and political becomes commercial, devoid bolism. These spaces link to underground or

342 Reference & User Services Quarterly Libraries as the Spaces Between Us clandestine sides of social life and to art. This figured worlds as “narrativized,” in that an entire kind of space “overlays physical space, making as if story makes them natural.33 Indeed, our most symbolic use of its objects.” In moving from rep- important choices in life are structured by such as resentations of space to representational space, ifs, which most of us accept as key elements in a we move the site of interpretation from the “plan- natural life story. In Western cultures, a common ners” to the “livers.” Representational space is di- life narrative involves birth into a nuclear family, rectly lived space, created in the imaginations of a structured upbringing and education, the selec- people in their immediate contact with the world. tion of a mate and career, the accrual of economic Representational space arises when imagination goods, and the bearing of children to inherit those seeks to change and appropriate dominated space. goods, thereby perpetuating the family. Whether Individual citizens experience the spaces of the we are liberated through this narrative or enslaved culture, and they produce meaningful events for has little to do with its acceptance or normalcy. themselves claiming space as their own arena for Holland et al. argue that “humans’ capacity for self- enacting their values and their lives. Unlike the objectification—and through objectification, for second category of represented space, representa- self-direction—plays into both their domination tional space does not depend on an understanding by social relations of power and their possibilities of the codes and structures envisioned by space for (partial) liberation from these forces.”34 By this, planners. Representational space is individual, I take the authors to mean that understanding our perceptual, intuitive, and symbolic.31 selves through a received narrative might provide As his title suggests, Lefebvre contends that us with relative freedom or lead us into domina- cultures produce spaces and places, and a culture’s tion. To pursue liberation, we may need to devi- values and priorities direct how appropriate use of ate from the dominant narrative, which involves space is conceived and managed. The collective vi- significant risks. sion of planners gives rise to structures and rules intended to harmonize with and express the spirit Mobile Humans, Mobile of the people and to achieve the goals of society. That process is encapsulated in Lefebvre’s repre- Cultures, Unstable Space sented space. In Western societies increasingly We live in an age of human migration. In 2003, dominated by capitalist values, citizens are increas- the United Nations convened the Global Com- ingly defined as consumers, and the structures that mission on International Migration to study the matter tend to be commercial. We may wish to phenomenon of human movement, which it at- resist or ignore our designated roles as consumers, tributes primarily to the global economy and the but that choice means living in tension with the migration of workers to find employment and to explicit structures of represented space. Tensions the recruitment of skilled labor to the centers of like these are inherent in Lefebvre’s taxonomy of international commerce. This commission notes space. Given the power of represented space to that in 2005 (at the time of its final report) there establish norms to direct human activity, freedom were “200 million international migrants, a num- is not exactly available to citizens. Instead, we have ber equivalent to the fifth most populous country agency. If we have agency, we understand that our on earth, Brazil.”35 This study goes on to note that choices are limited by various structures, and we “some of the largest concentrations of migrants are acknowledge that we have choices only within to be found in ‘global cities’, dynamic, innovative limits. The ability to understand our choices and and highly cosmopolitan urban centres that are the structures that define us derives from our enabling people, places and cultures in different knowledge of our culture. To the extent that we parts of the world to become increasingly inter- understand structures, we can work within them connected.”36 Indeed, fueled primarily by a global to take meaningful action. economy, urban centers are increasingly diverse Holland et al. argue that humans exercise in all senses of that word. This diversity generates agency in figured worlds, a term very near in mean- an increasingly complicated relationship between ing to Lefebvre’s represented space. These figured migration and space. Each migrant carries from worlds are populated by social structures and by his or her past various assumptions about space, other people seeking agency, and they “rest on and especially about Lefebvre’s represented space. people’s abilities to form and be formed in collec- If agency is learned, driven by narrative, and de- tively realized ‘as if’ realms.”32 The authors argue veloped over time, how does a migrating human that in figured worlds, human activity is structured connect a narrativized past with a lived present? through institutions and practices that we follow How does a migrating human conceive a narra- “as if” they were real. Holland et al. refer to these tive future without understanding the conceptual volume 50, issue 4 | Summer 2011 343 Feature structures that form the scaffolding for getting permanent privileged center. Culture is not a stable there? What we might consider uncomplicated entity when each of us carries fragments of culture ways of thinking about space—the rules we think as we move through space and traverse borders. are obvious, or the structures we think make sense Homi Bhabha has written extensively about cul- of space—these categories of represented space are tural difference, migration, and space, building on not obvious to migrating humans who bring with Lefebvre’s theories of space to describe what he calls them different structures from their home cultures. Third Space. For Bhabha, the borderland between This phenomenon has given rise to theoretical representations of space (spaces dominated by questions about migration and border crossings structures and concepts) and representational space and how these historical developments are trans- (the symbolic and personal) gives rise to a dynamic forming our lived experiences with space. Gloria new kind of space called Third Space. Anzaldúa’s groundbreaking book, Borderlands/La Third Space, according to Bhabha, is a dis- Frontera: The New Mestiza, explores Anzaldúa’s life tinct kind of postcolonial phenomenon that oc- as a native of the borderland between Texas and curs when two distinctly different representa- Mexico. In the preface to this work, she declares, tional schemes or frameworks come into play in “I am a border woman. I grew up between two cul- the space occupied by people who hold those tures, the Mexican (with a heavy Indian influence) schemes.41 These schemes, in the flow of time, and the Anglo (as a member of a colonized people combine and separate in shared space, and they in our own territory). I have been straddling the create new kinds of spaces, Third Spaces. One tejas-Mexican border, and others, all my life. It’s common concern of Third Space as defined by not an easy place to live in, the place of contradic- Bhabha involves the power differentials that two tions.”37 She claims that “the borderlands are phys- cultures may occupy in one space. Bhabha’s work ically present wherever two or more cultures edge deals with the concept of “cultural difference,” each other, where people of different races occupy which “focuses on the problem of the ambivalence the same territory.”38 For Anzaldúa, the borderland of cultural authority: the attempt to dominate in is more than a geographical place. In addition to the name of a cultural supremacy which is itself the “actual physical borderland . . . the Texas-U.S. produced only in the moment of differentiation.”42 Southwest/Mexican border,” she also explores “the When one culture and its conceptual framework psychological borderlands, the sexual borderlands dominates a space inhabited by the holder of a and the spiritual borderlands.”39 Anzaldúa’s book less powerful framework, that person needs to goes on to build a new mythical and geographic negotiate his or her identity (through resistance, narrative (a representational space) for what she accommodation, appropriation, or other nego- calls the “new Mestiza.” Borderland study, deeply tiation strategies) within the context of that more indebted to Anzaldúa’s work, originated as a way powerful conceptual system. of understanding how hybrid identities develop For Bhabha, the “act of interpretation is never along the border between Mexico and Texas. Soon, simply an act of communication between the I and however, the “borderland” became a metaphor for the You designated in the statement. The produc- all kinds of boundary crossings, and studies of the tion of meaning requires that these two places be borderland began emerging in academic studies of mobilized in the passage through a Third Space.”43 space. Borders, which once simply meant lines on While the Second Space of conceptual systems, maps that separated countries, are now recognized structures, and rules is highly articulated and of- to be cultural and interpersonal, and perhaps most ten policed with vigor, the Third Space of contact importantly, mobile. We all have borders that we between individual humans is never so controlled. carry with us and share with each other. It tends to give rise to what Bhabha calls hybrid- The situation of migration and the need for ity, as migrating humans introduce new symbolic adaptive and flexible identity to negotiate the com- systems and new ways of reading and experienc- plexity of modern spaces has thus given rise to ing space into these stable and articulated zones. many important themes in theories of space. Irving Bhabha admonishes us to “remember that it is the and Young suggest that “to negotiate diverse, often ‘inter’ the cutting edge of translation and negotia- conflicting sets of personal, political and profes- tion, the inbetween space that carries the burden sional worlds and to speak to issues of diversity, of the meaning of a culture. . . . And by explor- identity and subjectivity, the constructs of Third ing this Third Space, we may elude the politics of Spaces, perpetual liminality and Borderlands hold polarity and emerge as the others of our selves.”44 out considerable promise.”40 These concepts, limin- For Bhabha, Third Space is the space of potentially ality, borderlands, and Third Spaces, all depend on meaningful contact between cultures and people. recognizing that space in an age of migration has no It is also a place of transformation where we can

344 Reference & User Services Quarterly Libraries as the Spaces Between Us transcend polarity and give rise to new selves. If we bring the questions of Harvey, Lefebvre, Represented space is rigid, controlled, policed, and Bhabha, and Third Space to bear on the ways li- defined. Third Space is (at least potentially) open, braries manage space, we might start with the ob- symbolic, playful, and generative. It can also be servation that library space is historically absolute contested space if power differentials force con- space. Like cathedrals, temples, and other cultur- frontations between conceptual systems. ally symbolic spaces, libraries evolved to fill one Generally speaking, Third Space theory has sociocultural function, and they are so filled with developed to address the cultural and political the essence of their identities that they tend to resist situation of postmodernism, postcolonialism, and appropriation or reinvention. Through the rhetoric ongoing global inequality, all driven by the spread of those who resist library change, we hear the fear of increasing sophisticated global capitalism. Third that the library might become something other than Space provides a concept whereby people with the absolute institution it has always been. The evo- less obvious social, political, or military power can lution currently underway in libraries involves the still exert influence on space by resisting the rep- possible loss of the absolute identity embodied in resented structures of dominant cultures. They do libraries as conceptual constructions. According to so by simply occupying space and appropriating Lefebvre’s analysis, introducing capitalist practices it for their own purposes. They carry with them into absolute space naturally creates abstract space, social and cultural borderlands that create the need space emptied of all intrinsic meaning, fragmented for negotiation and the refashioning of meaning. and given over to commercial use and generic Their presence forms a critique of the structures identity. Indeed, the passion of those who resist the of intellectual domination that often mark our library-as-business model might be understood as institutional practices in Western societies. The a rational fear of this transition and the consequent existence of their situation creates Third Space. loss of the absolute library. As absolute space, the library presents itself Libraries and Third Space as a highly articulated, powerfully constructed Practice institution. Overlaid with both organizational schemes and behavioral rules, library space is what Theories of Third Space have been incorporated Lefebvre calls dominated space. Dominated space into various fields of practice. Ed Soja has been an is so defined by intellectual structures and behav- advocate for using Third Space in the planning of ioral rules, so dominated with its sense of its own urban environments. Soja discusses Los Angeles identity, that it effectively crowds out alternative as what he calls a “real and imagined place.”45 He uses. The Library of Congress Classification Sys- describes his method as “postmodern geographical tem (or whatever classification scheme the library praxis,” which he argues “offers greater possibili- uses) provides an intellectual structure played out ties for theoretical and practical understanding and in space. The floors and rooms in libraries are or- progressive political practice than does any of its ganized by call numbers, and the various ranges alternatives.”46 In leisure studies, Hollingshead has might be viewed as urban or rural neighborhoods, argued that Bhabha’s Third Space provides a “fine- where like-minded people can mingle with their point requestioning of the forms of human agency, own kind. As Hope Olson has persuasively argued, and also of the styles of habit that characterize the these classifications are not neutral. They evolved structures of domination and power that constitute from philosophical notions of sameness and differ- the public exhibition of people and the chauvin- ence; so are, in the most profound sense, Western istic portrayal of place.”47 In challenging the field constructions “reflective of both the epistemologi- of leisure studies, he suggests that “Bhabha’s work cal and ontological presumptions of Western phi- stands as a hugely important warning that, in losophy.”49 Rules also structure our use of space. tourism and travel, the field just does not think In the library I work in every day, signage informs deeply enough (individually or collectively) about students about who is allowed to use which space, the complexities of ethnic identity, of collective how much talking is allowed, and where food and social agency, and of national affiliation, and is drink are permitted. No matter where one stands impoverished in terms of the awareness of the un- in the building, clear markers indicate what is equal, asymmetrical worlds which are captured to there and what is allowed there. Both conceptual, become the stuff of tourism appeal.”48 The field of explanatory schemes and rules and regulations library and information science might be charged provide the means for library and librarian con- with a similar failure to think deeply about these cepts to dominate the space. At their best, these problems and about how our management of concepts make the library useful, and as we invest space reflects this failure. in more signage intended to advertise the library volume 50, issue 4 | Summer 2011 345 Feature (to be more like businesses), we tend to make to encourage and vicariously share its pleasures, guidelines and uses of space more explicit, which surprises, anxieties, and struggles. In the first sce- means we aim to dominate it more completely. nario, the librarian is part of the machine of the Yi-Fu Tuan observed that “place is security, library. In the second, the librarian is part of the space is freedom: we are attached to the one and game, the quest, and the adventure. long for the other.”50 This fundamental assumption Following Holland et al., the choice between helps explain a confusion in the way we discuss these two visions of the library might be framed space in libraries and culture. On one hand, librar- as the choice between two narratives. The first ies are places. They are “settled” in the sense that narrative might be called the bibliographic nar- all the space has been defined, and we can feel rative. In this story, the library is the collection of security and comfort from this sense of control. materials and the set of tools that provide access However, many users obviously feel drawn to the to it. Librarians exist to provide a human interface library for the spirit of freedom and adventure to the collection and, by proxy, to manipulate the embodied in space. The epigraph that begins tools to facilitate access. The bibliographic narra- this essay comes from a recent study of college tive reflects a modernist, mid-twentieth-century library use. When the researchers asked students mentality. It accepts the structures of the library what they liked about the library, one student re- (its classifications and conceptual structures) as sponded that it was “a place of mild climate where real, natural, and useful. In that narrative, the li- I can find adventures.”51 Indeed, for many users brarian functions as one bibliographic tool among the extreme orderliness of the library provides a many. The librarian expects to be used knowledge- thin veneer over an otherwise seemingly endless ably, and the point of bibliographic instruction is and sometimes chaotic context for discovery of to educate people to use the tools of the library, the unknown. Using Lefebvre’s categories and the including the librarian, effectively. We might call implications of Third Space, we might argue that the second narrative the literacy narrative. It in- while the library is dominated by classification volves understanding the socially coded nature of systems and rules for behavior and use, it also, at the library and its tools. In the literacy narrative, least potentially, can function as the ultimate Third the librarian is positioned between the highly con- Space. Every user of the library can be understood structed world of the library and the borderland as a borderland person, intellectually crossing searcher. The library is understood as a collection boundaries and moving between what she or he is of cultural codes that must be translated across and what she or he hopes to become. The library borders. Information literacy, as distinct from is therefore either a highly articulated and settled bibliographic instruction, involves learning to see place, with librarians as enforcers of the codes information within the library in the context of the and orders of behavior, or an indeterminate and real life needs of the searcher. In the literacy narra- open space with the potential for adventures and tive, the tools and structures of the library recede surprises. The distinction exists in the mind of the in importance. The librarian becomes a cultural user and the librarians. worker, aware of cultural and personal borders, As librarians think about this dichotomy, we aware of the nature of people as constantly be- might recognize a choice between two visions of tween stages of development and struggling to- the practice of librarianship. In the first scenario, ward fulfillment. The library provides context for the librarian represents the order and codes of the this struggle. Echoing Lefebvre’s notion of abstract place by embodying the categories and structures space, Templeton suggests that unless libraries of Lefebvre’s represented space. Depersonalized evolve collaboratively with the people who use and decontextualized, such a librarian subsumes them, they must either be “the site of domination her or his human identity in the institutional role, or a hopeless utopian dream, literally ‘no place.’”52 becoming not truly there in a human sense. To This statement frames the choice as a stark binary: some extent, the “policing” and “shushing” that libraries can choose between domination and have come to define librarians derives directly abstraction. The bibliographic narrative involves from this understanding of the librarian’s role. domination of space and people. Abstraction re- Alternatively, if we conceive the library as a space sults from instituting generic commercial practices for adventures and surprises, the librarian might like customer services and advertising. Between function as a companion or guide for the adven- these two binary choices, Templeton holds out col- turer or the displaced. Librarians who practice in laboration as a third way. I understand the literacy this way might strive to see the library from the narrative to provide that third way by creating the view of the cultural other, which means librarians potential for a Third Space. must seek out the encounters of the Third Space, Milgrom, using Lefebvre’s theories to speculate

346 Reference & User Services Quarterly Libraries as the Spaces Between Us on the implications of dominating space in the subjects in the ways that library classification sys- ways that libraries do, quotes the architect Lucien tems articulate subjects. Students move through Kroll, who says, classes governed by subjects under study, and the curriculum defines the spaces of the classroom. There are two ways of organizing social In addition, schools impose rules of conduct. No space. The first aims at a single, predeter- running in the halls. Use your inside voice. Stay mined objective. It is authoritarian, rational, in your seat unless you have permission to get up. and reductive. It corresponds to the desire Raise your hand before speaking. These kinds of to control events and people on the part of rules discipline students to behave in space ac- those whose task it is to conceive, organize cording to teacher and school expectations. Like and produce. . . . Some people like this. . . . libraries, concepts designed to be intellectually The other way of making social space . . . is useful exist alongside rules that discipline bodies. a living process which imparts only key cen- Together, the useful and the disciplinary combine ters of activity in a clear spatial configuration to create dominated space, which intentionally and with an intensity of form and meaning produces school culture. that favors (and expresses) what we believe Many educators have begun to ask what effect essential; living relationships and activi- this disciplining has on borderland students whose ties that spring from diversity, unexpected cultural pasts are shaped by social structures that initiatives, and above all, that something differ from the school norm. Bhabha’s notion of hy- in social man that leads to the creation of bridity has been invoked to explore how classroom community.53 language use might draw on student culture: “Hy- bridity theory . . . examines how being ‘in between’ As Kroll suggest, the more we dominate space several different funds of knowledge and Discourse with explanations about the library and how to use can be both productive and constraining in terms it, the more we enact an authoritarian worldview of one’s literate, social, and cultural practices and about space and its acceptable uses. Despite the ultimately one’s identity development. . . . The no- best intentions of librarians following the rational tion of hybridity can thus apply to the integration path of the bibliographic narrative to make the of competing knowledges and Discourses; to the library clear and transparent (that is, to teach it), texts one reads and writes; to the spaces, contexts, we encounter several potential problems if we ag- and relationships one encounters; and even to a gressively pursue this agenda. If we think of the person’s identity enactments and sense of self.”55 library as a Third Space where real human interac- The authors of this statement suggest that “third tions create new positive and generative realities, space can be viewed as a space of cultural, social, then we work against that agenda by dominating and epistemological change in which the compet- space with monocultural rules and systems. Lefe- ing knowledges and Discourse of different spaces bvre contrasts the domination of space with its are brought into ‘conversation’ to challenge and alternative, appropriation, arguing that people are reshape both academic content literacy practices morally obligated to appropriate dominated space. and the knowledges and Discourses of youth’s One might reasonably conclude that the differ- everyday lives.”56 Irving and Young describe the ence between highly conceived space and Third challenges of teaching with an awareness of Third Space is the difference between a monologic and Space. In suggesting new pedagogies for teachers imposed space and an indeterminate and flexible in schools of social work, they suggest that “Third space that invites appropriation.54 This perspective Space can encourage reciprocity, break-up the os- would suggest that fewer explicit structures imply sification of culture, and encourage exchange and openness to improvisation and invite community, creative instability. What so often perplexes us in a willingness to be appropriated by library users social work is how to destabilize the boundaries for their own ends. between and among various groups of people and their cultural identities and further, how to disrupt Libraries as Learning Spaces the rigid, inflexible and restrictive theoretical perspectives we use to represent them.”57 Throughout Like libraries, schools have traditionally been the educational landscape, fields are struggling dominated spaces with educators’ conceptual with the same questions of space, rigidity, and structures and rules defining acceptable and right cultural difference. activities. Many of the concepts central to the What would librarians gain by thinking about organization of schools exist in ways designed to librarianship as a Third Space practice? We now provide pedagogical structure. Classes relate to openly accept that theories of pedagogy can be volume 50, issue 4 | Summer 2011 347 Feature seen as infused across the professional roles that facilitate problem posing for our students librarians play, especially in educational settings. and encourage them to find problems re- Jacobs has suggested that lated to themselves in the world and with the world so that they will feel increasingly thinking about pedagogy in this broadly challenged and obliged to respond to those conceived way is of particular importance very real challenges?59 for librarians since a significant amount of the pedagogical work we do happens out- Indeed, in defining library practice as Third side of the traditional classroom setting. Space praxis, we diminish the distance between When we think about our pedagogical work, “them” and “us,” and we make their concerns and we need to include not only the work we do desires, rather than library concepts, the defining in classrooms but also our work in reference goals for the pedagogical work we do. situations, collection development, library To return to Habermas, we can perhaps see and campus committees, professional orga- Third Space as a new way to constitute the public nizations, campus and community groups sphere for the twenty-first century. Rather than as well as formal and informal conversations attempt to recapture a past ideal of highly ratio- with students, colleagues, peers, administra- nal debate by a cohesive class of property owning tors, and community members.58 white males, we can aim for a kind of new democratic space where librarians and library users With this broadening of pedagogical roles, work together to create real and meaningful con- the possibilities of Third Space challenge us to re- versation about information and how we use it to consider our professional priorities and concepts. make our points and live our lives. In seeking the When we teach information literacy, whether in real shared spaces between us and de-emphasizing classrooms, reference work, collection develop- the structures and rules of the library, librarians ment, or elsewhere, what do we think we are can be attuned to the imaginative and transforma- teaching? Following the bibliographic narrative, tive potential of the library for those who come we might answer that we teach the control- seeking adventure in its mild climates. However, ling concepts librarians understand as structuring this vision brings us to the problem of how theory the library (Lefebvre’s representations of space). enters into practice. While the library literature is Viewed this way, the content of information lit- almost entirely silent on the possibilities of Third eracy includes controlled language searching, Space work, there is abundant attention paid to the construction of Boolean search statements, a the library as Third Place. knowledge of classification systems and call num- Popularized by Ray Oldenberg, Third Place bers, how to read MARC records and indexes, is often invoked to help us see libraries as alter- and all the other intricacies of library tools and natives to home and work (the first two places). concepts. Another way of answering the question Oldenberg argues that we need these Third Places based on the literacy narrative involves unscripted to gather to enact democratic rituals. These Third Third Space. From this perspective, teaching in- Places (taverns, coffee shops, local cafes, etc.) fea- formation literacy involves understanding who ture prominently in Habermas’s idea of the public people are, what they care about, and how to en- sphere. They encourage conversational give-and- gage them with adventure, play, and the struggle take. They are populated by regulars who keep to find personal meaning in information. This shift up a high level of conversation. They function as in perspective also means that librarians need to community centers where all are welcome.60 Cer- see themselves as personally engaged with the tainly, libraries would do well to see themselves personal lives of library users. Jacobs suggests we in such company. As librarians think about taking consider Freire’s “problem posing” pedagogy as a up this vision of Third Place as the library of the starting point: future, it might be easy to avoid or miss some of the critical questions that arise. First and foremost, Perhaps the first set of questions we need how do we convey to library users that this is our to consider is what we—both as individu- mission and identity? The current answer returns als and as a profession—can do to foster us to the way space has been handled in the li- the kinds of dialogues that can chip away brary literature. The solution is that we market the at the teacher-student dichotomy. . . . How library as a direct competitor to the coffee shops, might we facilitate or nurture problem- bars, and cafes more typically identified with the posing education on our campuses in re- Third Place. We must produce this library space gard to information literacy? How might we as commodity and market it in competition with

348 Reference & User Services Quarterly Libraries as the Spaces Between Us retail outlets that form the basis for Oldenberg’s tools turn space into an object, rather than a hu- The Great Good Place. Interestingly (and tellingly) man arena for movement, action, and experience. the index to The Great Good Place lists fifteen en- We have challenges. The technologies of our tries for tavern, nineteen entries for coffee houses, times are truly revolutionizing the ways we use but no entries for libraries. According to Lefeb- and access information. Those of us who care vre, adopting commercial practices in space will about libraries should be concerned about how transform the library from an absolute space to an having all library services out in the “cloud” will abstract space, one devoid of any real meaning or affect our ability to continue to justify libraries as purpose. Following the Third Place model seems physical space. It is also reasonable to see retail destined to take us in that direction. establishments that facilitate sociability and read- Perhaps even most importantly, focusing on ing in comfortable spaces as potential competitors the library as Third Place distracts us from a cen- for “market share.” And most of all, it is crucial tral critical question: in its effort to define itself for libraries and librarians to continue to “mar- as a Third Place of leisure and conversation, is it ket” the library, in the sense that we need to make possible for a library to stop being a library? As sure libraries are seen as an important presence we examine the difference between a Third Place in our communities, especially to those who fund and a Third Space, we have a clear choice. We can us. However, it is crucial that in our competition choose to become more like commercial entities with commercial entities we keep our focus on with products and customer bases, or we can aim being libraries and librarians, and it is especially to be socially meaningful institutions with a higher crucial that we not give up on the search for un- role and calling. We can become bookstores in an derstanding what those concepts mean. A library effort to beat bookstores, or we can work to build is a fundamentally different place than a bookstore libraries and librarianship around the concept of or the cloud, and one profound difference is the shared social space where real people engage in presence of librarians. If we allow our space to real struggle for meaning and purpose in a land- become abstract, then we will lose that difference. scape of increasingly rapid human movement and Third Space is not a panacea for all that is wrong social change. with the world or libraries. However, it does form a realistic way of understanding what is going on Conclusion in the world right now, and it leads the way to an intellectually rigorous way of thinking about li- Even with the advent of place studies, we still pri- brarianship in a world of borderlands, migration, marily think of space as empty until we fill it with hybridity, and the ongoing effort to create a more things, and we continue to think about space as a fair and just world. problem of mapping and describing surfaces. We have new, sophisticated tools that describe space References and Notes empirically. Google Earth’s ability to zoom in and out from the planet, and its ability to overlay 1. Lynn Sutton, Rosann Bazirjian, and Stephen Zer- topography with boundaries and categories and was, “Library Service Perceptions: A Study of Two Universities,” College & Research Libraries 70, no. 5 classifications stands out as dramatic evidence of (2009): 478. technology’s power to provide insights into space 2. Charles B. Osburn, “Regaining Place,” Advances in and to dominate it by imposing our structuring Library Administration and Organization 24 (2006): concepts upon it. Alongside Google Earth, we see 53. the rise of other geographical information systems 3. Malcolm B. Brown and Joan K. Lippincott, “Learning Spaces: More than Meets the Eye,” Educause Quarterly with the ability to generate new understandings of 26, no. 1 (Nov. 2003): 14. space by linking maps with databases with seem- 4. See as one example, Jeffrey Pomerantz and Gary ingly endless amounts of information. These tools Marchionini, “The Digital Library as Place,” Journal of give us new ways of representing demographics, Documentation 63, no. 4 (2007): 505–33. historical mappings, human movement, flood 5. The “library as business” theme is far too complex to explore here. I aim instead to look at representative plains, etc. As these tools give us increased power statements that concisely summarize the nature of for objectifying and analyzing with empirical the argument. For an extended, critique of the busi- methods, they perpetuate the sense that space is ness model in libraries, I refer the reader to John E. something we can describe and control with so- Buschman, Dismantling the Public Sphere: Situating and phisticated technical tools. They also give us the Sustaining Librarianship in the Age of the New Public Philosophy (Westport, Conn.: Libraries Unlimited, sense that we can manage what happens in and to 2003), 115–23. space if only we can harness the immense amount 6. ALA Store, Books / Professional Development, Assess- of data we have toward our goals. Most of all, these ing Service Quality: Satisfying the Expectations of Library volume 50, issue 4 | Summer 2011 349 Feature Customers, Second Edition, Peter Hernon and Ellen Migration in an Interconnected World: New Directions Altman, www.alastore.ala.org/detail.aspx?ID=2872 for Action (2005): 1, www.gcim.org/attachements/ (accessed Mar. 22, 2010). gcim-complete-report-2005.pdf (accessed Mar. 23, 7. Louise Lowe and Roylee Cummings, “Small Spaces, 2010). Small Budget, Big Results: Creating a User-Centered 36. Ibid., 5. Learning Space on a Budget,” Georgia Library Quar- 37. Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands = La Frontera: The New terly 46, no. 1 (2009): 18. Mestiza, 2nd ed. (San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books, 8. Jo Sarling, “Denver Reengineers: By Relying More on 1999), i. Vendors and Technology, Jo Sarling Explains How 38. Ibid. the Denver Public Library Shifted Resources to the 39. Ibid. Public,” Library Journal 130, no. 12 (2005): 12. 40. Allan Irving and Tomas Young, “‘Perpetual Liminal- 9. Sam Demas and Jeffrey A. Scherer, “Esprit de Place: ity’: Re-Readings of Subjectivity and Diversity in Maintaining and Designing Library Buildings To Clinical Social Work Classrooms,” Smith College Provide Transcendent Spaces,” American Libraries 33, Studies in Social Work 74, no. 2 (Mar. 2004): 213–14. no. 4 (2002): 65. 41. Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture (London: 10. Raya R. Kuzyk, “Nyack Library, NY: Putting ‘Wow’ in Routledge, 1994), 50. Children’s Room,” Library Journal 132, no. 9 (Spring 42. Ibid. 2007): 8. 43. Ibid., 53. 11. Michael G. Farrelly, “Does Your Space Appeal to 44. Ibid., 56 Teens?,” Public Libraries 45, no. 3 (May/June 2006): 45. Edward Soja, Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and 40. Other Real and Imagined Places, (Cambridge, Mass.: 12. Erminia E. Gallo, “Attractive Displays for Teen Blackwell, 1996). Spaces,” Young Adult Library Services 6, no. 4 (Sum- 46. Edward Soja, “Exploring the Postmetropolis,” in mer 2008): 33. Postmodern Geography: Theory and Praxis, ed. Claudio 13. Kimberly Bolan, “Looks Like Teen Spirit: Libraries for Minca (Oxford: Blackwell, 2001), 38. Youth Are Changing—Thanks to Teen Input,” School 47. Keith Hollinshead, “Tourism, Hybridity, and Ambi- Library Journal 52, no. 11 (Nov. 2006): 44. guity: The Relevance of Bhabha’s ‘Third Space’ Cul- 14. Ibid., 46. tures,” Journal of Leisure Research 30, no. 1 (1998): 15. Ibid., 47. 124. 16. Ibid., 44. 48. Ibid. 17. Osburn, “Regaining Place,” 55. 49. Hope Olson, “Sameness and Difference: A Cultural 18. Ibid., 63. Foundation of Classification,” Library Resources & 19. Ibid., 64. Technical Services 45, no. 3 (July 2001): 117. 20. John Buschman and Gloria Leckie, The Library as 50. Yi-Fu Tuan, Space and Place: The Perspective of Experi- Place: History, Community, and Culture (Westport, ence (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, Conn: Libraries Unlimited, 2007), 15. 1977), 3. 21. Ibid. 51. Sutton, Bazirjian, and Zerwas, “Library Service Per- 22. Douglas Kellner, “Habermas, the Public Sphere, and ceptions,” 478. Democracy: A Critical Intervention,” www.gseis.ucla. 52. Thomas Clay Templeton, “Placing the Library: An edu/faculty/kellner/papers/habermas.htm (accessed Argument for the Phenomenological and Construc- Mar. 22, 2010). tivist Approach to the Human Geography of the 23. Buschman and Leckie, The Library as Place, 15. Library,” Library Quarterly 78, no. 2 (Apr. 2008): 24. Ibid. 197. 25. David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An 53. Lucien Kroll, “Anarchitecture,” in The Scope of Social Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change (Oxford: Architecture, ed. Richard Hatch (New York: Van Nos- Blackwell, 1989), 284–85. trand Reinhold, 1984), 167–69 as quoted in Rich- 26. Ibid., 264. ard Milgrom, “Realizing Differential Space: Design 27. Ibid., 270. Processes and Everyday Life in the Architecture of 28. Ibid. Lucien Kroll,” Capitalism Nature Socialism 13, No. 2 29. Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space (Oxford: (June 2002): 87. Blackwell, 1991), 48. 54. Lefebvre, The Production of Space, 166–67. 30. Ibid., 57. 55. Elizabeth Moje et al., “Working Toward Third Space 31. Lefebvre’s development of these three categories is in Content Area Literacy: An Examination of Every- not presented in a concise and orderly way. This day Funds of Knowledge and Discourse,” Reading summary is provided as a synthesis of ideas that are Research Quarterly 39, no. 1 (Mar. 2004): 42. developed over multiple chapters of The Production of 56. Ibid., 44. Space. Inevitably, some interpretation is involved in 57. Irving and Young, “‘Perpetual Liminality,’” 221. such a summary. The reader is encouraged to consult 58. Heidi L.M. Jacobs, “Information Literacy and Reflec- Lefebvre’s work for clarification. tive Pedagogical Praxis,” Journal of Academic Librari- 32. Dorothy Holland et al., Identity and Agency in Cultural anship 34, no. 3 (May 2008): 257 Worlds (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 59. Ibid., 261. 1998), 5. 60. R. Oldenburg, The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee 33. Ibid., 53. Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons and other Hangouts 34. Ibid., 5. at the Heart of a Community (Cambridge, Mass.: Da 35. Global Commission on International Migration, Capo Press, 1999): 22–42.

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