The Lehigh Libraries’ current exhibit, Informationland: The Past and Future of Libraries, inspired by a collaborative event entitled Alice in Informationland planned with Touchstone Theatre this fall, explores the place of libraries in culture and history and as users and producers of technology. Beginning with the earliest known libraries, it seeks to illustrate the value of libraries around the globe and across millenia. While the earliest item on display is a clay tablet, the exhibit takes visitors on a journey that leads to AI applications and the promise of networked sharing of digital resources.
This exhibit looks at the library as an evolving place - a repository for the collection and preservation of knowledge from the earliest times to its more recent function as an intellectual and cultural gathering place. Community engagement and advocacy loom large in both today’s public and academic libraries, with the presentation of initiatives ranging from book clubs to poetry readings to cross-national efforts to salvage items under environmental or other immediate threats (“Rescue Collecting”). It also shines a light on the responsibility that libraries have had through the ages for the preservation of information and the data about that information (“metadata”). The combination of these elements allows researchers to accurately reproduce and invent new pathways to knowledge. Integral to the library’s culture is the librarian, whose role has evolved over time. Featured are selected reference titles and catalogs, a survey of diverse formats used to preserve data for over 100 years, and a history of the Lehigh Libraries and its professionals. Exhibit visitors will also have the opportunity to explore historical government information and texts on computers, logic, and AI.
University Librarian Boaz Nadav-Manes says, “As our information landscape changes rapidly and in unexpected manners, we have one constant, the caring and attentive librarian to keep pace with these changes and make sure all library users make the most out of the best resources available to them. Please join us in celebrating the spaces, the tools, the people and their ingenuity, who make reliable information accessible to all.”
Highlights of the exhibit include a broad array of media on which information is preserved, beginning with clay tablets and papyrus and concluding with an e-reader and hard drive. Visitors are challenged to see how many formats they recognize when viewing print, visual, audio, and other types of information. Also on display are government records, including an original 1820 census of the United States and examples of congressional hearings related to the Lehigh Libraries archival collections. Lois Black, Director of Library Special Collections, observed that these archives, the Nancy Shukaitis Papers and the Speeches of Lee Iacocca, both document the circumstances surrounding testimony before Congress.
Informationland is on display during regular building hours in Linderman Library through December. Please also visit the online exhibit, storymaps, and timelines to continue your journey to Informationland.