Tuesday, November 22, 2005

Libraries are for people too...
Rosemary Goring has just reviewed the Thames & Hudson book on Libraries by Candida Hofer. The book is full of exquisitely photographed libraries from across the world, and has a forward by Umberto Eco. In her review in the Scottish newspaper The Herald, Rosemary makes an important point that is often overlooked in discussions about libraries: "Like most readers, I love the look of books, but I can't help feeling that they are nothing without readers. In fact, the haunting loneliness and artificiality of Hofer's collection is part of its appeal. ...I'd like to see is a coffee-table book of common or garden libraries, the sort you can walk into off the street. I want these pictures to be filled with people. It might make for less exquisite images, but it would show, as Hofer deliberately fails to do, that libraries are as much about people as books."
Read the whole review here:
www.theherald.co.uk/features/51080.html