“BLOEIENDE-BOEKEN”©

Dit is “de handleiding” om uw boeken tot bloei te krijgen.

Heeft u wel eens als u een boek gaat lezen en door de bladzijdes bladert dat uw reukvermogen de overhand neemt op de inhoud van het boek. Dan is het “bloeiende-boeken systeem”© iets voor u. Als u zich irriteert aan de geur van het boek en u zich niet kan concentreren of als u het boek lekker vindt ruiken en u door de geur een fantastisch gevoel krijgt dan is in beide gevallen “bloeiende-boeken”© iets voor u!

Deze handleiding geeft u inzicht hoe u uw boeken in huis kan sorteren op geur. Ook als u de geur moeilijk te beschrijven vindt zout, zoet, zuur, kruidig of gewoon lekker of vies dan is te zeggen dat de geur van persoon tot persoon kan verschillen. De geur beleving is bij elke persoon anders. Deze handleiding is voor elke geur-beleving te gebruiken en het geeft de garantie op een geurend en daarmee een “bloeiende- boeken”© systeem .

In ieder huis heb je andere geuren en deze kunnen met het “bloeiende- boeken”© systeem gesorteerd worden. Oude of nieuwe boeken het maakt niet uit. Het is de geur die de sortering bepaalt. “Bloeiende -boeken”© is ontwikkeld voor mensen die afhankelijk van hun stemming een boek kunnen pakken en dan uitsluitend op de geur willen letten. De man achter het idee is prof. dr. Koster, zoals hij vertelt op een boeken/rommelmarkt liep en geinspireerd raakte door de vele geuren die door de vele verschillende boeken op hem afkwamen. Hij besefte toen dat ieder boek een eigen geur had en vele boeken ook weer een gemeenschappelijke hadden. Prof. dr. Koster dacht hier over na en wist de boeken op hun geur te ordenen en hij ontwierp hierop het “ bloeiende-boeken” © systeem. Boeken komen tot bloei door de objecten om hen heen. Ook was hij van mening dat boeken de objecten kunnen beïnvloeden. Na het ordenen van boeken in uw huis op diverse locaties, welke locaties associatie hebben of kunnen krijgen van de geur van het gekozen boek. Met het “bloeiende-boeken”© systeem komen uw boeken beter tot hun recht. Het boeken systeem is snel en makkelijk thuis uit te voeren. U kunt dit natuurlijk zelf doen in een paar stappen en om u het gemakkelijker te maken bij het inrichten van het systeem hebben wij een handige gids te koop op bloeiende-boeken.nl

Vandaag besteld is morgen in huis.Om u te interesseren voor het “bloeiende-boeken”© systeem hoeft u slechts aan het boek wat u aan het lezen bent of het laatst gelezen hebt te ruiken op de volgende wijze. U bladert in het boek (dit moment is erg cruciaal, want dan wordt door uw reukvermogen de geur van het boek bepaald). Is het boek zoetig, zoutig, kruidig of gewoon lekker of vies. Alle geuren kunnen uw voorkeur hebben en u bent in staat uw boeken volgens het bloeiende-boekensysteem in te delen. Als u geen geur ruikt en het boek neutraal op u overkomt dan kiest u een geur die u het boek zou willen geven. Ook dan is het “bloeiende-boeken”© systeem echt iets voor u. Hierna kunt u uw boekenkast met nieuwe en 2e of 3e hands boeken volgens het bloeiende-boekensysteem blijven aanvullen. Zo zal na het plaatsen van de boeken bij de objecten en locaties een “bloeiende-boeken”© systeem bij u in huis ontstaan. Schaf vandaag de handleiding nog aan en beleef morgen het effect op uw zintuig en ordening van het “bloeiende-boeken”© systeem.

Or the unexpected discovery of sorting books

In an ideal world we would identify ourselves with knowledge or wisdom.

In an ideal world the most knowledgeable people would be the one with the highest social status.

In an ideal world knowledge would be accessible for everyone.

In an ideal world knowledge would be the strongest weapon to fight with.

In an ideal world we would put higher emphasize on knowledge than money.

How to promote knowledge and what are the negative sides of promoting it?

Since long time libraries are the key for wisdom or knowledge.

There you can find any book on any topic.

After monasteries have opened their libraries the access of this knowledge is easy.

I am very interested in the way libraries can influence their readers. As a cinema can with the choice of movies they are showing, a library can decide which books and in which order, structure they are presented.

Books written by authors whose name start with an A are more likely to be looked at than books written by authors whose name start with a Z. If a library chooses to organize their books according to the alphabet.

I would like to break any of these structures.

In an ideal world libraries would educate their customers by promoting more text books.

This is most important to me.

Even though it is fun to look at books with a lot of pictures inside, I want a library that patronizes its own power to stimulate the creativity and knowledge of the customers.

On the other side I would like to look at the book it self, its shape and its lay out.

When seeing a book, the title is written in a way that a book is not meant to stand in a book shell.

First the cover of a book is severely damaged when standing for a long time in the traditional way.

Second for the customer reading the title of a book will always be harder when seeing it on the side.

Personally my neck always hurts after visiting a book store or a library.

Books need to lay in piles!

Easier to read the title, healthier for the book and your neck.

Seemingly random I chose to organize the books by the length of their title. Shorter title at the bottom, longer title at the top.

When I started to organize the books in this way, I realized something that corresponded exactly with my initial idea that a library should be a place to stimulate knowledge on all levels.

Books with shorter title are more likely to be big books.

Books with longer title seem to be more likely to be small books.

Big Books with shorter titles have more pictures inside.

Small books with longer title have less pictures inside.

I built a pyramid of knowledge.

Data at the bottom,

Wisdom at the top.

The shape of a pyramid gained its efficiency a long time ago already.

Around the world people started simultaneously to built pyramids for their Gods or religion.

Independent pyramids all around the world.

Egypt, Peru, Germany, China, Bosnia, Japan.

How can we understand that people around the world built seemingly similar pyramids without knowing from each other?

Along with a lot of wild theories about aliens, etc. There is a theory that could explain the connection between the different pyramids. Humans have always been impressed by naturals changes and special environmental situations. They saw God’s sign in it. One of these natural changes where the sun rays

breaking through a layer of clouds which hurray had the shape of a pyramids.

In an ideal world people would start believe again in the enlightenment of knowledge.

Nowadays we do not identify ourselves with any religion but social status comes with wealth.

In my ideal library I want to create a modern stairway to enlightenment of knowledge.

I want to incorporate the system of portraying hierarchic structures in our daily life.

A stairway out of books. The reader is forced to first read the books that is at the top of the pile otherwise the pile of books will collapse. As I realized the top part of my books pyramids are books with only text. If the reader wants to read a book which is more at the bottom of the text, he has to ‘work’ his way down. Until he can read the desired book. After that happened, he can decide to continue dig to the bottom of the pile or move to the next pile of books.

It does not matter that it may be a book about love, biology or literature. What matters is that the creativity of the reader is stimulated by only reading text.

The more he reads the more picture come in. First his own creativity is encouraged, later he will be able to apply the knowledge he has gained throughout reading the upper part of the pile to the pictures in the lower books.

I see a forest of books piles, up to the ceiling, in which people are forced to start at the top, and read their way down, getting to the essence of the topic they are interested in.

Each pile is dealing with a different field of study. Biology, Politics etc. 

Nowadays our knowledge has changed a lot, we are used to get information quickly and are not used to really dive into the topic of our interest. Less people read and more people only look at pictures, gaining an shallow superficial knowledge about a topic.

In my ideal library this is not possible.

Here people are forced to dive in and are eventually rewarded with a book full of pictures in the end.

In an ideal world.

I started off this article by working in the library and re-sorting books with my fellow classmates and artists from the rietveld academie’s basisjaar.

The idea of #weightdistrubition all came about from an apartment that I had the pleasure to stay in for a while in Lisbon, Portugal. Inside this apartment, the floor was literally caving in due to too much weight and uneven distribution of it.
So, to resolve such a problem like this –if getting rid of things isn’t an option when it comes to a home, or to your wonderful library– correct distribution of that weight is key. Although it might not be handy to sort a library by any other way of categorization besides an alphabetical one, this is a solution that is more practical to your own home, a place where you know your own books by their covers.

To begin we need to have an idea of how much a book weighs. We can always visually scale a book by looking at its size and the material  its cover is made out of, but this can be deceiving as I learned when weighing all the surplus books from the library. There are always books that trick you into thinking they are actually heavy when they, in fact, are very light. amazon.com usually lists weight for each book so there is no need to make calculations if you don’t have a scale, and there is also an actual book weight calculator available at lugaru.com/bookweight.html

The most important thing to take into account when sorting things by weight is where a concentration of weight is and where we can break this down to a spread. So say, if someone has 10 books piled on top of each other the thing to do would be take all the books and lay them down separately next to each other. Sounds simple, right?

After considering weight of the actual objects we’re trying to store, in this case books, the next step is considering, if we actually have a way to store these objects or not, and what we can do to resolve this. Bookshelf sagging is an epidemic in many households, and it’s only a matter of time until a bookshelf will give in if it starts to sag.

Let’s start by examining the floor you’re stepping on – does it seem sturdy or does it seem weak? does it creek when you walk on it or can you jump on it and hear nothing? Odds are that your floor is totally fine and that this is the least of your worries when dealing with heavy books in your own home, this is more of a thing to take into account for an architect or designer when actually designing libraries and shelves. (The fact that basements > attics become often library storage, is not just for fun.)

Let’s move onto the actual bookshelf itself. Bookshelves are not created equal, and they aren’t created to cope with every set of books out there. There are different materials and structures used to make them stronger. Some involve thicker shelving and some involve different bracing, whatever it may be, you want to be able to feel like your books (and your floor) are safe when put away. Although weight distribution is very important when it comes to sorting books, taking the provisional step of actually making sure you have a frame that will absorb that much weight is a necessary precaution.

When it comes to materials, each set of material requires it’s own approach and precaution. Plywood for example, is not recommendable if it’s less than 2cm thick. Attaching bookshelves to walls is a solution that many people opt for at home, but when it comes to heavy books and their correct distribution, is not practical. But for all those that really want to go this route with their books, lumber panels with corbel braces should do the trick. Lumber panels are the strongest wooden shelf material, and they come with the advantage of a high-end wooden appearance. For sturdy free standing bookshelves made for the craziest amount of weight possible, the ideal solution would be heavy duty Dexion shelving, used mainly in palette racking in warehouses. These shelves are available in parts and affordable so a home setup is definitely do-able.

____

All-in-all correct distribution of weight when it comes to bookshelves is key, especially to big collectors and even art aficionado’s, as art history books tend to usually weigh over 2 kilos. For the library we managed to sort during our classes, everything that weighed over 2Kg, such as most of the Documenta catalogues, was destined for the bottom shelf. Then from 1.5Kg to 2Kg, books could be sorted up to the fourth shelf, and so on, until we got to the top shelf, where the lightest books, papers, sheets, photographs and in some cases empty cases with missing catalogues inside could be deposited.

When it comes to a list of aesthetic solutions for sorting books, weight is definitely not included. Weight and its correct distribution is a tool for the practical collectors who have an immense surplus of books (and normally, quite heavy ones). Balancing weight can be key to not damage books, shelves, storage units or even floors in libraries or in your own home. Keeping weight in account is a necessary step for any type of organization when it comes to a space, not only for books, but for everything that needs to be placed somewhere, whether it’s a needle or a tv set. The reason I chose this solution, really came out of my necessity to keep weight in mind when I was staying at this very unstable house with a very unstable floor I referred to before. In my case, the books were other objects, sometimes even more fragile and this was always a lurking dark cloud of a problem that wouldn’t go away unless there was that correct distribution of weight, and actual order in the household’s organization itself (unfortunately not too many dinner parties were held here).

When I walk through bookshelves comparing labels and the code I found in computer system, I feel that it is too right to do so. It is like a treasure hunt with a map showing exactly where the treasure is. The code efficiently directs me to the book I need but in a completely closed way. There can not be everything in a book itself. The thing I really want to get from books is more often in somewhere                 between                 books than in a single page. So the whole point is matching a book with a good pair, or a good group, or a good pile of books. This is a collective activity, which is not necessarily precise but friendly.

_____

1) Every spine of books you can see in front of the shelf is under a certain theme. They are like a quick index you can highlight. They follow the an alphabetical order, so you should go to the first shelf if you are looking for ‘Abstractionism’.

 *The ‘theme books’ do not have to be really representative to be there, as long as they can stand autonomously with a clear keyword in their title and not duplicate the other theme.

2) If you feel like diving into the subject and seeing more things about it, you should go the other way around the shelf. Other books which are considered to be part of same category would be placed next to it in the opposite way. Just as you click the blue hyperlink in Wikipedia for extra information.

Photo references, books which are written by the same author or in the same series could be obviously related. But there also could be hidden connections which you would never understand the relevance of if you have not read them. Unexpected encounters from this        l      o          o     s        e              c     o     n     n      e     c    t    i   o  n       could offer a key to the totally different world, or an advanced step in a research, or maybe a clue in a maze that made you interested but confused. It opens up and widens the space between each little subjects and makes a playground to think and read.

3)Every reader can be a participant of the organization, so it is always welcome to replace or move books. There are no definite criteria to locate them-it is not random but super subjective. If you feel like that is not a right place for it or there is a better spouse for it, go for it. Maybe you could have a hard time to find the same book next time if someone disagreed with your choice and moved it, but that also enables you to track another adventure that the same book went through.

All the choices reflect personal moments and thoughts that people have really experienced and are willing to share them. The subjective reaction on books can find and activate the potential connection between them. With this, the identity of a book gets defined over and over again by its surrounding which continuously changes. Where is it? What is on the left side of it? What is on the right side of it? Where was it? Where is it going to be? This is a collective activity with unlimited possibilities, which is not necessarily precise but friendly.

Spaces in Between

Unsorted, disarranged, unorganised library, full of elements placed according to different components, which have an order or perhaps do not have it at all, just existing in an unrestricted randomness. Which ironically speaking could actually be seen as the same thing, since a lack of order is also an order in itself. Chaos with a clear beginning and ending kind of like a bad book. What exactly did I find there…? Big books, small books, orange, white, shiny, mat, hard, soft, precious, forgotten, books that are filled with content, wedding books. Books of a specific nature, books that are about nothing at all, ones that wait for attention and ones nobody cares about. Art books, design, educational, pointless, and sharp and blunt, basically all you can find in a library. I was asked to find a solution for the lack of structure in their position on the shelf. So the primary question that I am asking myself is; what is the point of doing it at all? Of course the obvious reason would be the easy access to the content, otherwise lost in the madness of disorganisation. However, I still struggle to understand why to bother ourselves with creating this specific order, if in the end it is still the same amount of books in the same space? Somehow I think this action is irrelevant, especially if we put so much effort into creating a puzzle that can be made in an infinite amount of ways… according to any system that a specific person would find attractive or interesting (depth weight, etc).

    In the name of captivation and curiously-provocative passage, I am trying to crack this system of easy predictable result, which in my opinion is rather obvious to foresee if you limit yourself by the boundary of an actual shelf. Instead of doing that I would rather step out of this radius. The concept that I tried to create is aiming to expand the perspective on how we view the book. What is a book actually? In short, it is a box of content pocket size captured by the single pages glued together, now isn’t that somehow equal to the very idea of a book shelf, in which many different books are aligned in the same way as the pages, however this time at a larger scale of information? Somehow I believe it is possible to see these systems as parallel ones. If a thousand books make a library; then, so to a thousand pages, and further, a book can also be seen as a pocket size bibliotheca.

The establishment of the fact that from now on, one copy can stand on its own, gives me the possibility of putting in on a pedestal and seeing it as something autonomous, in other words, let’s give the books the space that they deserve. There is no reason why they should be kept together in one place since in the end it’s just creating a bigger chaos. Let us treat books as unique objects instead of piling them on top of each other. As absurd as this sounds, to create an order you have to separate everything from each other and never put them back together again.

For my next step, I have chosen ten books from the shelf that I eventually turned into their own autonomous libraries, spread all over the city; one book for one building. I did this by searching for the places that seemed to me as the right environments for the books.  The main question that I had to ask myself, is how do I decide what aspect of the book should be the main criteria for the location, the physicality or the content. Not to leave it too vague, by physicality I mean the literal materiality of the book and where it could fit in the space of a building, so in the end it seems as the space was designed for the book and not reversed. In this case of preciseness, the dilemma of leaving the content out of the picture was not so disturbing anymore. However, after I found the main foundation that would determine the way of approach, I decided to take it further and only use the fore edge  of the books (opposite side to the spine), which presents it as more of an anonymous object rather than a work.

The result of this practice was the creation on ten completely autonomous bibliothecas, in ten different buildings. This created a situation in which a book stopped being a book, but rather a body living in perfect symbiosis with the surrounding environment.

Organizing.

Some people hate it, some people love it, and some people just don’t care. Our assignment was to find a new way to organize a couple of hundred books. I myself see organizing as something relaxing, and as something that should clear your head. Like a game, organizing is a puzzle. Making everything right and finding the perfect place for every little lost piece.

But what about objects and books that are hard to place somewhere? Books that look insignificant. How can you make them fit in? When I was scanning through all the books in the library, a nude colored book caught my eye, the cover didn’t give me any clues what it was about. There were no letters on the cover and no pictures. The way it was standing there made it look very lost in this big pile of loud and screaming books. All the books looked like they wanted to catch your eye and get the most attention. But this book didn’t seem to care that no one would ever take it out. Like a shy girl that always sits in the back of the class. But being shy and not wanting to be seen doesn’t mean that you don’t deserve some attention from time to time.

Games are a good way to make an interactive system for books, books have so many aspects that you can play with. Titles; the name of the Author; the year and of course the publisher. And even a book with nothing on the cover can have so much aspects that you can play with. All these aspects reminded me of the dots on domino dices. But instead of connecting the dots on the dices, you can also connect the titles, authors or the aspects of the book that for you has the most value. Then I remembered this game that I used to play when I was little, me and my dad would sit in the sun and play this game endlessly to help me learn how to spell words. He would start with a word and then I would come up with a new word, the first letter of this new word had to be the last letter of his previous word.

MONKEYS – SAUNA – ARTWORK

It is not a new fact that we like these kind of games, the oldest confirmed written mention of dominoes in China comes from the Former Events in Wulin (i.e. the capital Hangzhou) written by the Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368) author Zhou Mi (1232–1298), who listed “pupai” (gambling plaques or dominoes) as well as dice as items sold by peddlers during the reign of Emperor Xiaozong of Song (r. 1162–1189). This shows that the human being has always enjoyed making connections between things and objects. These games survived and renewed itself for centuries. I don’t think we will ever get bored of them.

With the domino and word games in mind I started with just connecting the titles of all the book on one of the shelves, this shelve consisted out of 49 book. After trying to find the perfect way of connecting them I found out that when i would only just play with the titles I would only be able to give a spot to half of the books, the other 25 were waste and would never find a place. Where would these books go? Would no one ever read them again? Or was there a clear solution.

What if you would see the library as one big puzzle of domino dices. Those dices don’t just have one connection point but they have three. Of course this system could also be applied on the books.

Here you see what happens when you don’t just give them one connection point but as many connection points as they allow you to make, all the dices start to create a new pattern and once you take one dice out you can put it back after at a new spot where there is no dice yet. It is a constantly changing pattern of organization.

For example I would take a book out which is about Van Gogh and the person before me thought the date of publication was very important, I will find the book at the point where the date is coupled to a different date, after reading this book and getting to know it better I decide that I personally find the Author much more important than the date, so when I would put it back in the book matrix I would find the perfect point where I can couple the first letter of the Authors name to a previous book. But of course there are maybe different things on the cover which have the most value to you, maybe it is the color, or what is showing on the cover, or maybe its even a little sticker that no one noticed before.

This way of organizing creates an opening of looking at books in completely new way. It is no longer seen in this known way of ordering them on category, subject, artist or country. This gives you the opportunity to make new connections between books and their covers. By getting rid of books shelves and opening up a space for a more playful way of organizing.

Making new connections helps you realize that there are always new possibilities in things that we already know so well. We tend to get bored or tired of things that never change, and there is only one way to avoid that boredom, to have a system that will change forever and that tells a lot about what is important.

you enter

the room

the walls

are books

their backs

turned on you

the books

won’t share a word

unless you take one of them

one brick from the wall

but the wall they form

can’t be broken down

they turned their backs

on you

you have to turn your head

sideways

to read what their names are

even when it is your own room

your own wall

it can feel like the chinese wall

in fact

it’s all chinese to you

so you give up

a big bookcase

is not in favor

of the books

nor you

the renovation of an ancient building 

now

this is

what i’m going to do

i’ll break down the wall

brick by brick

book by book

what do i feel?

which book belongs

to that

what i feel

?

and

what do i want?

which book belongs

to that

what i want

?

where am i

with this feeling that i have

and the book that i want to read

?

for each feeling

and each desire

a book

and a place

so i took all the books

out of the room, now it’s empty

like the first page

i put the books on piles

piles of feelings and desires

piles of knowledge

books can give you everything

if you take care

now this is what i’m going to do

i’ll start to write

first pile

epilogue

learning

i want to learn things

i am curious

big books

history

the atlas

dictionaries

encyclopedia

next to notebooks

and dummies

and books for dummies

how to

cut

paste

sew

read

draw

think

find

go

the place is ready

for reading

as well as doing

the worktable

second pile

introduction

loving

i want to read

about the love in the world

and want it sometimes i feel without love

sometimes i feel in love

and want it

there is a note written inside

with love, for you

i’ll read to you and to myself

poems of love

bed side stories

books that keep a place warm in

the bed

third pile

first chapter

you can’t read

on an empty stomach

stained and smelling books about food

and cooking

world dishes

when we sit here we always talk about food and share ideas for dishes and tastes on our tongues

kitchen table

forth pile
dreaming

second chapter

fantasies

fiction

stories

to disappear in

when you think you want

to watch the television

or when you are bored

you sit in the chair

and lean sideways

then you grab a book

and start to read

and to disappear

a good chair

fifth pile

books with mud and sand

third chapter

flowers between the pages

encyclopedias of plants

latin names and hours

of drawing

books of gardening

the hammock or the garden chair

sixth pile

forth chapter

dreams of traveling

flora and fauna

nature and travel books

national geographic

capitol guides

next to the computer

to book a flight

computer table

seventh pile

fifth chapter

when you’re an art student

art is everywhere

also when you’re a normal person

there is an art way of looking at things around you

it is nice to have books to leaf through

or read carefully

monographies

biographies

auto

biographies

art

philosophy

theory

catalogues

magazines

fanzines

on the easel

on the bench

on the work table

in the bathroom

in plastic jackets, shower-and-bath-proof

in on behind the closet

everywhere

the rest of the books

many thanks to-

ideas

pleas

novels

books are a part of life

but a wall of books

is too far away

to bring the books close

to accompany to your tea

and your company

to show pictures and lines

for your eyes only

the books can travel with you on vacation

or on a rolling table

through every wall of the house

a book as a bookshelf

books forming a bookcase

holding other books

showing their faces,

finally

when you break down the book wall

you will

discover books

in places unexpected

finding them back

after long loss

a rose

and its smell

between pages

a postcard

a letter

a bookmark

notes, lines, circled words

a younger you

wrote a letter

surprise yourself and others

with books as gifts in corners

and between the pillows of the bench

books say something you can’t

put into words

books that you know

that will always be there

next to your bed

or under it

on the closet

standing on its small edge

facing you

with a different page each day

books that you carry

that carry your thoughts

a small book in

a small bag

book size, pocket size

with you

body books

big books

book hats

big bags

hat books

a book in a hat

a book in a sock

smelling a little of sweat

sock-pockets for books

follow your steps

some say the library is unnecessary

some say it has already gone

words are everywhere

the library

is the world

form your library

from the words in the world

I sat by the bookshelf for less than a few minutes when it caught my eye.

Touching the earth and the sky. A small, thin, white book, with only the title on the cover and spine, in simple black type. It was squeezed between two books, towering beside it like skyscrapers, like a small alleyway just off the main road.

Somehow this book was meant to be mine for a day. Its small size meant I could easily slip it in my bag, pocket, under my arm, on top of some other books. Its blankness meant it didn’t clash with any of the covers of my other books or objects. A book that could manage to slip in anywhere, unnoticed, and hide comfortably for a while. I placed it on a pile of books I had lying around at home, and it looked like it had been there for years. I put it on the table in the living room with my notebook, so as not to forget to bring it the next morning, and it seemed to curl up its spine and go to sleep. I placed it in my bag and it slipped right under the cover, as if it had done it a thousand times before.

What made this book so naturally acceptable to its environment? I thought it was probably that it looked a bit insignificant: the combination of its small, thin shape; the white cover; the simple type. But this insignificance intrigued me. It was almost as if the book worked as a counter-weight: a blank page in all this information that was already surrounding me. Where each book I looked at was pouring out its message to me, this book seemed to suck its message back into itself, hiding it even when opened, and remaining its aura of blissful ignorance. It didn’t matter if I understood the book, if I had read it or knew what it was about, because its attraction was this mystery where I could read all that I wanted into its story.

I took the book to a place, and was curious how it would fit into a place that neither I nor it had seen before. I left my bag in a locker so the book travelled with me in my hand, clasped behind my back or dangling from my fingers. It didn’t seem to mind. The cleanness of the space fitted it surprisingly well, and it wasn’t long before it had made it clear to me that it wanted to be put down, in one particular spot by the window. At first, it looked slightly lost and vulnerable on the floor, but the longer I looked away and looked again, the more it blended in and seemed to breathe into its place. It managed to hide from my eyes at times, its reflection suddenly disappearing as I took a step forward, backward, but would suddenly reassure me by popping back into focus. I was losing it to its environment, and at the same time I had never seen it so in its place.

The moment came to take it back. I was convinced it would resist my touch, being so perfectly in its place by the window, but no sooner had I picked it up or the book folded into its position in my hand. Just as it had curled up on the table in my living room, now it rested in my palm as we travelled back to the bookshelf where I had first spotted it.

The books that had towered by its side before I couldn’t find anymore, the shelves having been rearranged with all the people searching through the library. But I knew now that there was no trouble in finding a new spot for this little book. Placed beside a window, a tower, a roadside or hovering in the sky, it would always manage to reflect its environment and tell the reader exactly what you had always wanted to hear.

In my library, you move your way through the books one on one. Each book functions simultaneously as a lock and key. You don’t know the doors it might open when you pick it from its place on the shelf. Even when you’ve skimmed the spine, recognised the author, taken in the title and flicked through its pages, you’re still under a false impression of knowing where the book might lead you. It’s only once you’ve managed to extract it from its place in the library, folded your fingers around the covers, travelled with it for a couple of days, immersed yourself in the letters and forgotten it on the train, that you start to discover what this book holds in store for you. And once the rhythm of opening and closing the story has come to its natural end, the book will lead you back to the library to be found in its new place, closing its door as softly as it opened, and unlocking the way to a new book. Only a system which has no system can enable this experience of true discovery.

And then you can touch the earth and the sky.

This is a audiopost by Lukihäiriöt Ry, hear it below

Here’s a complete transcript of the ‘Scanio’ scanner presentation that happened inside the ‘Library-Re-Edit’ project. 

 Good evening!

Thank you for coming.

We’re gonna make some history together today!

I’m happy to welcome you on the ‘Scanio’ book-scanner presentation!

It was..[cough] uh it was just a couple of months ago that I received thirty boxes filled with books from SKOR library and from the library of ‘de Pavilions’ Almere. Back to that moment, I announced that we were going to create a special way to order all the books we got. We spent some evenings on thinking what could be the best method to deal with these thirty boxes. What could we do to show the importance and diversity of the content inside these thirty boxes? We had works from Paul O’Neill and Claire Doherty and some design catalogues from 2013. We had books consisted only of plain text, books with photos,  books with only photos, books with one or two words inside, books with only one image and text for 1000 pages. There’s a really bright confrontation between text and image information books consist of. For better understanding we propose to represent it as a color gradient.

Let’s imagine ratio of 100% image content to 0% text content to be defined as a velvet color. And, on the other hand, let the ratio of 100% text to 0% image be defined as a cyan color.

So now I want to talk about the product we designed to solve the problem of thirty boxes. Our team created a book-scanner which lets you to scan the publication in order to see what is inside not even opening it. This machine is able to recognize the content considering ratio of text information to image information. As a result you receive an amount of pictures and text in the publication. The result is presented to you as a percentage and a color hue from the gradient line (this way the gradient line becomes a measuring method). I think that showing the information both in percents and colors is a crucial element for ‘Scanio’ project. The research we made showed us the importance of both categories for better understanding and memorizing the result machine gives to you. Numbers are the most precise way to represent information but having a color related to each number is also a great step in visualization of the same information. That’s why we find it so important to keep color gradient as a fundamental part of scanning books. 

So, as a final product we have a machine very simple to deal with, which can predict what kind of book is in your hands. As an example it can be easily used in libraries and book stores. The scanner creates a new possibility to make a special order for books. It gives a different meaning to the whole structure, since books are sorted from the perspective of visual content inside. Plus, it takes less time to create this kind of structure with ‘Scanio’.

Moreover, we are still developing the idea of making it possible to use the book-scanner as a personal device along with usual printers and scanners. And the ‘Scanio’ name is still a working one…[nervous laughter]

so thank you all very much for coming today

and uh, we’ll see you all soon
thanks

We asked several people to give us there feedback about the process of choosing a book, and how image/text content influences their choice.

— I would never buy a book without images. I swear. The more pictures inside, the best. If there’s no images at all then this book seems to me boring immediately. The perfect example is Robinson Crusoe with old engravings from 18th century. I can start rereading it again just because of the illustrations. Good illustrations are better then any movie based on a book. I would never buy a book without images, really. 

— 3% is my maximum. Pictures are distracting. Not sure that it’s needed for me at all.

— It depends a lot. If you are asking me about choosing between ‘War and Peace’ with illustrations and without any, i would say 100% text. If this is a book for biology class or a manual, then 70% image is the starting point. Even if that book will be more expensive i would take the one with pictures in it. 

— I’ve noticed a really funny fact about myself. In winter time I always want to read these books with plain text, no images. I don’t know why but I think this is the perfect time for those reading moments. So as a Christmas present i’d love to get a 0% one!  

— I have a childhood trauma because of illustrations in one of the books. Don’t want to talk about it. 0%.

— I’m pretty scared of books without any imagery content inside. I would start with 45%. 

— I can’t read.

0
|
|
|
|-Observing a timeline, we can see it is partitioned into
|three parts: past, present and future. We have knowledge
|of the events that took place in the past and we
|experience those of the present and we cannot know what
|future holds for us. The same basis can be applied as far
|as books are concerned. The idea proposed, is based on
|the linearity of a timeline (it’s core structure).
|A library whose key principles are continuity and
|chronological order. A library filled with books from the
|beginning until now, and the rest empty, only to be filled
|with books in the future.
|
|–The clarification systems are reviewed periodically, so
|that they can adapt to the constantly changing environment,
|in which moves humanity, and be consistent with the
|developments taking place in the world. Both in terms of
|new phenomena (e.g. new fields of knowledge, new
|technologies and new political conditions) and for
|reviewing the old phenomena (e.g. elimination of prejudices).
|
|
|—Past belongs to the past. “Quod periit, periit”, What
|has happened has happened and it cannot be changed.
|Nobody can write a book at the past. People, most of the
|times, want to relate, to identify themselves via dates
|and chronological order. One, remembers who he is and
|where he came from, his roots, his beginning and his
|present, through particular events that happened on
|specific dates. As far as art is concerned, a field
|where chronological cohesiveness plays a big role by
|itself, everything has to do with time. For example,
|regarding the authenticity or non-authenticity of an
|artwork; the sources which an art historian resorts to,
|show that a work belongs to a particular artist, or to
|identify the origin of the project, or the date of its
|creation, or in order to document whether an
|interpretation of other historians is or is not accurate.
|This linear chronological function shows us the process of
|knowledge methods of expertise, of knowledge regarding the
|use of materials, of production, of technical achievements,
|all conquered by man over time.
|
|
|
|—-Helen Bakalo wrote in her book “Rhythms
|and Definitions of European Art, 1980″:
|“…The time in which events take place, seems
|immobilized; it has no fluidity at all. The clues
|that would reveal to us the continuously changing
|present do not exist. It is as if we recreate the
|past mentally, only after its registration in our
|consciousness, not like living it with our senses
|and partaking dramatically…”.
|
|
|
|
|—–The systematic study of the past, based on
|chronological order, focuses primarily on human
|activity up to the present time. This study of
|events includes not only historical records, but
|also the causes that led to them. In addition to
|this, we appreciate more, objects that are old
|and damaged, as it is somehow believed that they
|are able to hide wisdom from another era. Using
|this kind of classification, we can derive
|information and details and not only a simple
|historical order. We can observe social issues,
|topics, problems, ideas which kept people busy at
|that specific period. Book binding, preference to
|covers, colors, font, topic, quality of paper,
|which decision took the graphic designer, even the
|number of published books, can give us a lot of
|information for the time period in examination.
|For example: During the 90’s, many libraries decided
|to withdraw many of their books because of an
|innovation, the internet. Later they regretted this
|decision but it was too late (another historical
|event of our timeline).
|
|
|
|
|
|——It is not about an impersonal way of research.
|It is more of a personal matter. If, for instance,
|someone is interested in me, in finding information
|about me at a particular time period, that someone can
|just think about my date of birth
|(incidentally 19/05/1995) and discover many things about
|my childhood, the way that I grew up or even some of my
|habits and interests, drawing information from the input
|data of such a classification and getting to know what it
|was like growing up in those times. It is not only
|necessary to find and read ones biography, but also to
|understand the events that affected and developed that
|particular one.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|——-All in all, the compatible “search” can be
|changed. We will not be lured just from a fancy title
|or a nice colorful book cover, in order to decide for
|a book. We will “search” based on how far we would like
|to dive into the past, the present, or to the presume
|of the future; based on our needs.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|——–Note no1: This plan is working much better in a
|bigger scale. A small collection of books, for example a
|personal one, can depict obviously the taste and the
|development of a person, as a kind of a diary with thoughts.
|But in a bigger scale, this can be seen from an
|anthropological point of view and by many more aspects,
|as mentioned above.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|———Note no2: A possible ergonomic solution could be
|the addition of the date of publication, on the spine of the book
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
\/

Library is an international transit point of knowledge where people arrive and depart by spending some hours with the books or any form of educational materials.

Whatever method you choose to store your books it is important to organize your books so that the students, teachers or an individual reader can find the things they look for easily. To classify books, comprehensive cataloging systems, like Dewey Decimal system, or the Library of Congress Classification system are in common use but I believe, for every collection we don’t need to follow (necessarily) these systems.

The best way to start organizing your collection is to split the books into fiction and non-fiction, or storybooks, schoolbooks etc.

After that the complexity of your organizing depends on the size or the thickness of the book collection, or let’s say according to the Volume. In general it is better to group books by subject than by author.

After that classification (fiction/non-fiction), the complexity of your organizing depends on the subject of the content of the books. Most of the library collection starts with a tag line “ SUBJECT ” and or sometimes in an alphabetical order or by volume (which is rare). In general it is always better to organize a collection in an easy way to access method because often it is tiring to search or get a “particular book” in a library.

As libraries are public space, all the time different people, from a philosopher to a beggar, children to amateurs, visit it. All the time in advance it is not sure which book from particular authors or subjects someone who visits the library will choose. Sometimes they just want to go random through the books. These people are more interested in the title of a book and its volume rather than whom it’s written by or what the content exactly is. After going randomly, they try to figure out their own taste of reading. Technically, cover, color and images of the book attract these kinds of readers.

Being so curious about the size and the color of a book, it comes first in our sight neglecting its neighboring small and thinner books. And those thinner books look just like a single drop of water in a giant ocean.

Readers, who are amateur and confused, hardly figure out thinner books (although they are without distinction) through the bookshelves.

I always think that the identity of thinner books disappear being a sandwich between two giants. As the book is out of sight and hard to find. And most of the times, all the attention are attracted to thick and bulky ones.

When books are separated according to the subject or title, the biggest fear is still to loose the value (visibility in the crowd of thicker books) of thinner books.

After visiting many libraries, I started thinking, what might be the best idea to bring these thinner books into highlight? What could be added to the traditional book management systems of libraries so that one doesn’t need to be specific while selecting books and still make contact with all kinds (thicker to thinner)?

How to organize the books in any library, so that they don’t get obscured by the world of thicker books and make them visible and valuable?

 One and only solution to bring all thinner books into highlight is “separate all thinner books from thicker ones”.  Instead of classifying books according to the size, height, color, subject, it could be more profitable to organize them according to their thickness. This is how all the thinner books (which are lost in the bookshelf), comes into highlight and their values are saved. And the readers pick up those books automatically.

• How to start?
• Organize/ display books according to their thickness.

History ->Thickest-Thicker-Thick-Thin-Thinner-Thinnest

                                                      OR

Fiction -> Thinnest-Thinner-Thin-Thick-Thicker-Thickest

It may also be worth organizing book collection according to the grade or level, where books for younger readers or children can be stored in a lower shelf, and philosophical or difficult books for older readers in a higher shelf. Book published nationally and internationally can also be categorized in the same way I mentioned above.

After categorizing all the books according to their subjects and contents, it will be very easy to place them according to their thickness. By using this method, all the books get their identity, space, importance and appreciation. And there will be less confusion and tiring in searching the respective book of one’s choice. The thinner books are highlighted too in compare to thicker. They can be in reader’s sight very easily and reader doesn’t need to spend too much time in search of the thinner sized book which normally hide in between the thickest books.

As this method is very useful, there is high probability that readers will give equal importance to the all books.

• Where?

This system of managing books can be handy and useful for almost all types of libraries. As public libraries are open for all kind of people and crowd, this system can be easier for people to figure out particular books whether it is thick or thin. This method of handling books in a library will be (I believe) very inviting for new amateurs readers especially who enter the library with an intention to read something but don’t know what to read.

In school and home, the same system or method can be followed. As we know in a classroom and in a house, there are no big collection of books. Every one knows where and how she/he has placed the book. But still it will be very functional to organize the small collection according to their thickness as it will help to create a fun environment for the readers (from small kids to bookworms). This system must be kept very simple to encourage pupils to browse through the collections.

Universities libraries can implement this system too, so that during their small break time they can quickly go through all kinds of books with out loosing their time. Thinner books are better for short breaks.

Conclusion

By using this method of distribution or classifying books in a library, helps books, an easy approach. Technically too, it will be very handy for an individual collector or librarian to take care all the books, from thinnest to thickest easily and can keep good records.

Op het moment dat ik mijn boek uit had gezocht in het paviljoen, ben ik afgegaan op de associatie die ik had met het boek. Het voelde als een van de eerste boeken waar ik vroeger zelf in ging kijken. Het eerste wat ik deed was snel bladeren, de layout en de plaatjes bekijken. Daarna bekeek ik de voorkant en de achterkant. Het enige waar ik naar keek, waren de visuele aspecten en niet de inhoud.

De stofomslag is een tijd beschouwd als niet belangrijk, het werd alleen gezien als bescherming van het boek en werd vaak weg gegooid. In deze tijd is de omslag wel een duidelijk onderdeel van het boek maar vaak is de visuele content totaal anders dan die van de cover van het boek. De omslag moet het boek aanprijzen en meteen duidelijk maken welk gevoel je kan krijgen van de inhoud. De meeste covers van de boeken met een stofomslag zijn heel minimaal, bijna altijd hebben ze alleen maar een kleur met de tittel van het boek op cover of op de kaft.

In de bibliotheek die ik bedacht heb kom je binnen in grote ruimte waar alle boeken op kleine stapeltjes liggen. Het enige wat je ziet is een kleur en een titel. De stapels zijn combinaties van boeken die aan elkaar refereren. Als ik boeken bekijk of lees zie ik altijd wel een bepaalde link met een ander boek. De stapels worden gemaakt door de mensen in de bibliotheek en de werknemers. Zo ontstaat er een wisselwerking aan informatie en associaties puur op informatie. Bijvoorbeeld als je een een onderwerp hebt over verschillende hiërarchieën in de middeleeuwen dan kan je een boek hebben over de werking. Of je hebt een boek van een filosoof die zijn visie er op loslaat. Een boek dat geschreven is in het heden en terug kijkt op de situatie of het is juist een boek dat in die tijd is geschreven. Op die manier krijg je heel veel interessante links van informatie door verschillende mensen. En de link die een persoon legt tussen de boeken kan weer heel erg verschillen tussen de link die jij er mee legt.

Met die gedachte van gebundelde informatie ga je naar de volgende ruimte met je stapeltje boeken. Die ruimte staat vol met boek omslagen. De bezoeker van de bieb gaat met het stapeltje in zijn hand lopen door de ruimte en is op zoek naar omslag met het juiste gevoel voor zijn combinatie aan informatie, de keuze van de omslag is dan ook volledig subjectief. De omslagen hangen tegen de muren aan. Maar ze hangen allemaal op een verschillende hoogte dus op dat moment komt het boeken stapeltje ook weer goed van pas, door op de boeken te staan kan je bij een bepaalde omslag komen. De bedoeling is om je volledig uit te strekken, de omslag waar je dan bij uit komt moet je pakken. De omslagen waar de bibliotheek het meest blij mee is hangen dan ook het hoogst zodat die zo min mogelijk worden gepakt. Er zijn vijfhonderd dertig verschillende smalle gangen met muren van drie meter hoog. In die gangen hangen alle stof omslagen. Die zijn ook weer onder verdeeld op bijvoorbeeld omslagen met huilende kinderen op de voorkant, covers met blauwe letters of Indiaansen rituelen. Al die dingen zijn dus weer gebaseerd op het visuele aspect. De zijwanden van de gangen zijn helemaal leeg. De stofomslagen hangen alleen aan het eind van de gang zodat het even tijd kost voor dat je de omslagen helemaal goed kan bekijken. Dus het eerste wat je ziet als je naar binnen kijkt in de gang is een soort van sfeer aan kleuren van foto’s, tekeningen en letters.

Waneer de bezoeker zijn omslag en boeken heeft gevonden neemt hij ze mee naar de de laatste ruimte. Daar gaat de omslag in een grote machine waar de omslag om de boeken heen word gewikkeld. Als de bezoeker het stapeltje dan volgende keer meeneemt legt hij de stapel op de eerste rij met alle stapels die weer terug moesten naar de bibliotheek. Als er dan nu weer iemand anders komt kan hij/zij de combinatie bekijken en bepaalde boeken er weer tussen uit halen die hij/zij nodig heeft voor de combinatie. Maar doordat hij  eerst nog moet zoeken door de combinatie door die van iemand anders kan hij/zij nog weer op andere combinaties komen.

Since books can’t fly, lets angle them instead

I’m usually a patient and thorough person. My apartment is always in an acceptable order, I iron my clothes, I bike at an average pace, I don’t lose my patience when I stand in the slowest line at the grocery store. If I start reading a book, I always finish it sooner or later.

But; whenever I visit a bookstore or a library, and I get confronted by thousands of books, I completely lose my patience.

I know that there is a very clever and simple system to find what you are searching for, and that someone carefully placed every book in alphabetic order, neatly lined up on the bookshelves. But when I stand before the books, I get the same anxious stomach ache as when someone asks me a simple mathematical question that I usually can answer in one second, but in the stressed situation I turn red and stutter that I don’t know.

So how could I avoid this brain-freeze related paralyzation in the context of books?

Solution:

So lets start with the order of the books. The order is usually determined by the alphabetic order of the authors name or the title, which makes sense since it’s both practical and logical, which I’m a big fan of.

Now imagine that you stand before the alphabetically organized bookshelf, turning the pages in Hendrikje Koersen’s poetry collection De witte boot. You are now amazed over the treasure you found, and start to eye the bookshelf after more poetry.

Here is the interesting part:

Imagine every book containing poetry, magically hoovering in front of the bookshelf, making it easy as a piece of cake for you to find.

Sounds good right? Unfortunately I’m not a wizard and therefore not in a position to change the laws of nature, but I can however physically highlight a category of books, by tilting the short-side of them, so they hang over the bookshelves end, pointing out in the room, without actually falling down.

To angle these books, you could use a very simple wooden tool as in the illustration below.

Left picture: Angler, viewed from the side

Right picture: Angler, viewed from above

How:

I have chosen to call this tool an angler, since it is used to literally angle books. (Angler is also the word used to describe a person who is doing angling, a kind of sport fishing, which is fitting since you hold your fishing rod in a angle similar to my wooden tool.)

Left picture: The Angler

Right picture: Fishing rod 

The angler-tool is made of a very simple construction of wood. It can both be used in singles or in groups, but in the context of bookshelves, I will describe the usage of multiple angler-tools.

To use it you first have to fasten it to a bookshelf, and then put it in the angle that is needed. You can choose from five different angles, each representing a different category.

I have chosen to represent poetry, architecture, design, photography and fine art in this scenario, since I study at an art school where these subjects are the most presented in the school-library. In theory, you could add even more angles to the tools design, but I believe that that would affect the clarity of the category’s in a negative way.

Picture: The five different angles that can be used

The tool has five angles, each representing on of the category’s above.

The angles are:

90

110

130

150

170

The angle 170 will be most far out from the bookshelf, and thus also highlight the book. I want to use it as a category for Poetry, because I believe that poetry it is an underrepresented subject that is read the least in art schools in comparison to other subjects. Having this subject highlighted could direct more attention to poetry and maybe influence someone to take a look in the book, even if this person usually does not read poetry.

Angle 90 would be used for books about Fine Art, since I believe that Fine Art is the subject with the highest quantity of books, which therefore makes it important for them to stay further back so they don’t block the view of the angled books, hanging out a bit from the bookshelf.

It is also a category of books that are often used for research in an art university, so it is important for their title to be visible to make them easy to find.

Angle 110 would be used for the Design-category, for the same reason as Fine Art.

The 130 angle would be used for Architecture, and angle 150 for Photography.

Picture: Illustration of how a book-shelf using the angler could look.

Result:

By using this angler tool system a modified bookshelf will look like a relief due to the books protruding in different angles. If you are looking at the bookshelf from a distance, you should have an easy time recognizing the different categories by the angle of the books. Looking at the bookshelf from a closer distance, you would be able to find your book by using the alphabetic order.

By making the bookshelf look like a relief instead of a plain overview, it will invite the viewer for a more tactile experience of the books, because you are not only able to touch and see the spine of the book, but also the front and back side, the material of the cover and the colors of the pages.

The tool may only be a small object, but it would affect not only the angle of the books physically, but also the viewers visual perception of the bookshelf, both from  far and close distances.

Structure of library and structure of textile.

It’s all about information and network.

First of all what is a structure ?

1. the way in which the parts of a system or object are arranged or organized, or a system arranged in this way
2.  the arrangement of particles or parts in a substance or body  ex: “molecular structure”
3. the relationship or organization of the component parts of a work of art or literature

I get interest in the structure of materials, and in especially structure of fabric. Then I looked for the definition of fabric.

1.  structural plan or style of construction
2.  the basic structure of something
3. A distinctive, complex underlying pattern or structure:
   contexture, fiber, texture, warp and woof, web

I decided to assimilate information to threads which are connected to each other in an interweaving organization and which need each other to create a textile and here a complet knowledge.

Then, I considered the book not as an object which is part of a shelf but as a composant of it. As the equivalent of a thread in a piece of fabric. The library couldn’t exist without books as the textile without threads.

A book is already subject to an organisation and structuration : composed of letters making words, sentences, informations on a theme.

Paragraphs, pages, chapters, subjects. All the elements are accumulated and are mixed.

It’s the same in the library. All the books make links to other ones : by there subjects, the movements, the contexts they deal with, or the references they make.

An artist is part of a movement which combines several artists. Thus we already acquire new information to organize.  We also have to take in count that a movement is included in a period of time which makes echoes to events and context.

Thus, HOW TO ORGANISE BOOKS IN A LIBRARY ?

First, I decomposed the notion of book and the notion of textile in the form of a web in order to understand and make a link between Textile and Book. I realized this two approaches shared the notions of Web-work and Information. Then, it came the bas e of my concept.

This structure made of links, interweaving of subjects, shared thematics is the base of the organisation I would like to try.

I took a book by chance in the library and decided to put it in the center of a « web » made of criteria and information.

It was a book about Marina Abramovic’s works and I made a list of the criteria which were related to this book.

Criteria

-Artist book : Marina Abramovic

-Categorie : Conceptual art

-Technique : Performance, video

-Subject : Body, pain

-Collection of the book : Museum of Modern Art Oxford

As we could expect, this book is already linked to many others in the library and we can look for books which the same criteria.

This way of selection and organisation let us the possibility to associate information on a subject more efficiently. The research we make can be more detailed and in depth

Thus, this tidying of books is undertaken through a web, a kind of tapestry of knowledge.

But many criteria can be considered and we could even use tags for each books :

Marina ABRAMOVIC’s book :

#Marina Abramovic

#Artist book – Monograph

#Conceptual Art

#Performance

#Body

My first idea was to take one tag # for one thread. And thus, to consider that the tags are representing by the warp strings, and each book by one weft string.

Now, let’s take the same book as above. We have this book about Marina Abramovicwhich which refers to five tags and thus, refers to 5 strings in the warp.

All these related words can complicate and confuse the organisation we try to make. But what is interesting, is the fact that each tag # is also linked to another one, so linked to another book in the library.

But before, I would like to introduce briefly the principe of warp and weft :

The warp threads are held in place by the loom while the weft thread travels over and under the warp threads.

Books are related to each other because of the subjects, themes and notions they deal with. I chose three books in the library,  that I’ve represented by colors weft threads in the weaving :

Colors of the threads in the photo below :

Marina Abramovic book

Marcel Duchamp book

Joseph Kosuth book

Indeed, we remark that two of the books I’ve chosen share some notion. For instance Marina Abramovic and Marcel Duchamp’s books broach the notion of performance. Thus, in the weaving the weft threads which correspond to them will be weaved on the warp thread that correspond to “performance”.

With this way of thinking, the organization of books lets appear a pattern and create a weaving.

A tapestry which reflects how the books are organized.

However, this research of layout and combination reminded me the Jacquard Loom and its mechanism.

Then, I get interest in the paper tapes constructed from Punched Card  made for controlling textile looms in the 19th century.

I choose to represent the thematic and subject tags by the horizontal threads (the weft strings) and the technics/medium used tags by the vertical threads which correspond to the warp strings.

Then appears a kind of pattern, created by the different locations of the book in the “weaving organisation”.

Each blocks of colors corresponding to a book, I transposed them is a uni-color pattern.

Then, by combinations we can put the books in a “web”. And as the punched cards, each marks (here in black) contain information and their positioning in the structure correspond to the way their will be tidy.

Some find comfort in mess and even manage to bring a certain order and coherence in it. As for me satisfaction comes in organization. By organization I imply functionality as well as visual clarity. When I found myself in front of a very extensive pile of book clarity was what I needed. My own bookshelf is sorted out by size, my clothes rack by color, stretching from black to blue through different shades of green, grey and pink. It brings order in the room. I know where things go and where exactly I can find them. I decided to experiment with my own bookshelf.

From grey to black. One entire shelf for the white ones. Brown, then yellow, red then come all the different colors from the visual spectrum. Although not all the book edges come with a singular color, the writing on it need to taken in account. The typography, its size and its color can completely change the order from one book to another. Organizing a library in such a way is a never-ending game. Taking one book out means it needs to go back in the exact same spot. At any moment the order can be ruined but finding the right former location is the same feeling as fitting the last piece of the puzzle in the whole picture.

A bookshelf organized by color is not only a piece of furniture filled with books, it becomes an architectural piece. The color coordination makes it a whole with a strong visual character. As the color together convened makes it look pleasing, it forms a new building, a construction in the space. Using books to build up the space is the main material of Fernanda Fragateiro. This Portuguese artist transforms books in “material prima”, which she uses to make her sculptures. What was supposed to be read before now is to be seen. By using books in her works Fernanda Fragateiro creates series of abstract sculptures in which the holder of the content turns into the actual content of the piece. However this content is closed and sealed and so forth silent. She picks the books for their visual property not for the content of it. Sometimes she even makes the books herself in order to get the right colors. This way the book is reduced to its only material quality and its symbolic value.

Another example of someone sorting books by color is Willy Fleckhaus who designed the edition Suhrkamp from Suhrkamp Verlag. He created a very specific though simple visual identity consisting in the rainbow colors. He developed a highly ordered layout of evenly spaced rules with a single weight of Garamond for all the text but then gave each of the original 48 covers in the series a separate color, so that when lined up in order their spines formed a perfect graduated rainbow. The result was to make the series instantly collectable.

This visual identity is very specific to that edition and is still going on right now. In general a series represents a group of books which visually and thematically accompany one another and that are designated as series titles by the publisher. In a successful series the individual titles interact with one another, frequently presenting different perspectives on similar themes. By recreating a similar color ordered system as Willy Fleckhaus I was aiming towards a unity of the library. Books now relate to each other not through theme or author. They all have the same thing in common that makes them a whole rather than individuals. They stay distinctive in a sense because their content has nothing to do with the order they are placed in.

Some accidental situation can yet be fortuitous. Combinations happen while not expected. I find it most beautiful to randomly pick a book in a library. This organizing system creates the randomness for you and allows you to discover other books and not only the one you were expecting. A library needs to be able to surprise you and give you more than the Internet. Internet cannot give you random. You type in a request knowing already what you want. It then makes connections for you based on words, topics, or dates. That is also something I noticed while reorganizing my bookshelf; I have not be noticing a lot of books before because they were drowning in the whole mess. I put them together and discovered a bunch of them looking for their color. In the end I must have spent a few hours doing that getting caught by some unknown books on my way. I realized I have two volumes of New Perspectives in Drawing from PHAIDON editions: Vitamin D in english and Vitamine D2 in french. I opened both of them and definitely got new perspectives on drawing because doubled.

In this randomness I still find some order. Publishers working together with authors design, decide on how a cover should look like, what the colour should be according to its content. The example that comes almost immediately is the black cover and yellow typeface of most detective novels. Moreover how a book is physically designed, advertised, distributed, not only determines whether it is part of a series, but also who will purchase or read it.