Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The Library As Heterotopia
The Library As Heterotopia
www.emeraldinsight.com/0022-0418.htm
Abstract
Purpose Using Michel Foucaults notion of heterotopia as a guide, the purpose of this paper is to
explore the implications of considering the library as place, and specifically as a place that has the
curious property of being in relation with all the other sites, but in such a way as to suspect, neutralize,
or invent the set of relations that they happen to designate, mirror, or reflect (Foucault, 1986a, p. 24).
Design/methodology/approach The paper draws upon a range of literary examples and from
biographical accounts of authors such as Alan Bennett, Michel Foucault, and Umberto Eco to show
how the library space operates as a heterotopia.
Findings The paper finds that drawing together the constructs of heterotopia and serendipity can
enrich the understanding of how libraries are experienced as sites of play, creativity, and adventure.
Originality/value Foucaults concept of heterotopia is offered as an original and useful frame that
can account for the range of experiences and associations uniquely attached to the library.
Keywords Space, Place, Heterotopia, Michel Foucault, Umberto Eco, Library
Paper type Conceptual paper
Of other spaces
Although delivered in 1967, the text of Foucaults lecture on heterotopia was not
released into the public arena until shortly before his death in 1984 (Genocchio, 1995).
It was published in English with the title of Of Other Spaces in 1986, where it sparked
the interest primarily of scholars interested in postmodern approaches to urban
planning and geography (see Boyer, 2008; Crampton and Elden, 2007; DeCauter and
Dehaene, 2008; Faubion, 2008; Foucault, 1986a; Heynen, 2008; Knaller-Vlay and Ritter,
1998; Sohn, 2008; Teyssot, 2000) and, in particular, Edward Sojas (1989) Postmodern
Geographies: The Reassertion of Space in Critical Social Theory.
The concept of heterotopia addresses real places places that do exist (Foucault,
1986a, p. 24) as opposed to utopia, or non-places, created by the imagination and
representing a place ideally perfect in respect of politics, laws, customs, and
conditions (Utopia, 2014). Heterotopia is neither imaginary nor by any means perfect.
It refers to physical places in the real world where all people reside. Such places are
never without value. For example, ones home is a physical space with walls, a roof,
doorways, and so on. But it is known that ones home is different from the office where
one works, even though both are ultimately physical spaces, built with similar
materials, having similar dimensions, and having similar contents. The differences
between these two spaces do not lie in their physical reality, but rather are bound up in
a number of oppositions that enable one to make sense of where one is, and ones role
within that particular space. Such oppositions include those between private and public
space, family and social space, leisure and work space. Placement within a given
JDOC physical space is also placement within a contingent set of relations that enable people
71,4 to identify the space as a specific social site. People are able to distinguish such
places as the street, the caf, the cinema, the beach, the school, the prison, or the church,
as all being different. Each of these sites is imbued with particular expectations,
rules of conduct, and power relations that tell people who they are in this space,
how they should relate to this space, and how they should relate to others who are
736 sharing this space.
Foucault builds upon these observations to introduce his notion of heterotopia, his
other spaces. For Foucault (1986a), a defining feature of a heterotopic space is its
capacity to give rise to a sort of mixed, joint experience (p. 24) where one is neither
in one place or another, but where one has the potential to experience multiple places at
once within the same physical space. Foucault describes the joint and mixed experience
of the heterotopia in a very practical way by asking the reader to consider the
experience one has when looking in the mirror. Foucault (1986a) writes, In the mirror,
I see myself there where I am not, in an unreal, virtual space that opens up behind
the surface (p. 24). Foucault is describing looking in the mirror as an experience; the
sensation of seeing oneself in a virtual place which does not exist physically, but which
nevertheless has the appearance of being present. The physical mirror functions as a
heterotopia because it makes this place that I occupy at the moment when I look at
myself in the glass at once absolutely real, connected with all the space that surrounds
it (p. 24). However, at the same time, the mirror also renders this space as absolutely
unreal, since in order to be perceived it has to pass through this virtual point which is
over there (p. 24). With the mirror example, Foucault is attempting to capture the
feeling of a mixed, joint experience which arises when one knows that one is in a real
physical space (e.g. in front of the dressing table in your bedroom), and yet the
perception of that space passes through a point (the mirror) which is an unreal, virtual
space. The mirror that is on the dressing table also contains the contents of your
bedroom, but those contents are captured in the unreal and virtual space of the mirrors
reflection. One is privy to two different worlds: the world of the bedroom and the world
of the bedroom as contained in the mirror. Lewis Carroll (1910) famously developed this
theme of a world within (or beyond) the mirror in his Through the Looking Glass,
a tale in which Alice is described as passing through the threshold of the mirror and
actually entering the virtual world that opens up behind the surface (Foucault, 1986a,
p. 24). Defert (1997) notes that heterotopias share this characteristic of being places
where I am and yet I am not (p. 275).
This mixed, joint experience of the mirror is also explored Eschers Hand with
Reflecting Sphere, in which the artist is pictured as a reflection in a glass sphere being
held in the artists hand (see Plate 1).
What is interesting about Eschers image is that all the detail in the room (the tables,
chairs, paintings on the wall, books on the bookshelves) is contained in the reflection
contained in the virtual space of the sphere. However, the hand holding the sphere is set
against a monochrome grey background with no details at all. Presumably, the hand of
the artist, holding the sphere, should be located in the actual space, and should indicate
some aspects of the environment in which it is located. But Escher has flipped these
positions, with the virtual space becoming more real than the presumably real space
inhabited by the hand, which in Eschers image is no space at all and is just a
featureless void. This juxtaposition and swapping of real and virtual spaces captures
something of the mixed, joint experience that Foucault is attempting to convey in his
description of heterotopia.
The library as
heterotopia
737
Plate 1.
M.C. Eschers Hand
with Reflecting
Notes: 2014 The M.C. Escher Company The Netherlands. All rights reserved, Sphere
www.mcescher.com
Examples of places that give rise to the mixed, joint experience of the heterotopia
given by Foucault (1986a) include: the cemetery (the space of the living and dead, see
Johnson, 2008), the church (the space of the mortal and the divine, see Shackley, 2002),
the museum (the space of the past and the present, see Lord, 2006), and the motel
JDOC (the space that is both home and away from home, see Wood, 2003; Foucault 1986a,
71,4 French, 2000). More recent scholarship has extended Foucaults concept of heterotopia
to virtual spaces and to peoples experiences within those spaces (Chun, 2006;
Veel, 2003), including distance-learning (Krikonis and Valsiner, 2008), online encyclopedias
(Haider and Sundin, 2010), online communities such as Second Life (Harrison, 2009),
cyber-cafes (Liff and Steward, 2003; Liu, 2009), internet pornography ( Jacobs, 2004), and
738 virtual fan communities (Bury, 2005; Meyer and Tucker, 2007). However, of interest here
is Foucaults identification of the library as a space which embodies the properties of
heterotopia, and this connection is addressed in the following sections using examples
from narratives.
Notes: View from above showing researcher desks. Library of Congress Thomas Jefferson
Plate 2.
Building, Washington, DC (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Main Reading Room
photograph by Carol M. Highsmith (reproduction number, LC-DIG-highsm-11604))
JDOC physical reality of walls and rooms. However, like the TARDIS, the space inside of the
71,4 library is much bigger (in a virtual sense) than the outside. To quote Foucault (1986a),
the space of the library lies outside of time and contains within its walls a perpetual
and indefinite accumulation of time (p. 26) that could, in principle, be explored forever.
On one level, the library is like the police box, a mundane everyday place that
users visit typically for quite short periods of time for specific reasons. However,
740 both the TARDIS and the library provide a distance, a space outside the everyday for
engagement with other times, other histories, other cultures (Kapitzke, 2001, p. 450).
It is, to use Foucaults (1986a) term, a mixed, joint experience of the finite and the
potentially infinite.
This finite/infinite experience is borne out in the recollections of the library
experience provided the writers and playwrights in The Library Book (2012) which
was collated and published as a justification and defense of library spaces in the face of
proposed spending cuts by the UK Government (see Morris, 2012). For example, Anand
(2012) writes that the library is a place where you could lose your mother and then lose
yourself in a book of Greek myths, or somebodys struggle to find love in class 5C or the
life cycles of a ladybird (pp. 5-6). Moran (2012) recounts a similar childhood experience:
The shelves were supposed to be loaded with books but they were, of course, really
doors; each book-lid opened was as exciting as Alice putting her gold key in the door
(p. 92). The space of the library, with its collections of books, falls neatly into Foucaults
metaphor of the mirror; one really can go through Alice in Wonderlands looking glass
into the Looking-Glass House (Carroll, 1910) and, indeed, to countless other virtual
places where readers can lose their mothers and themselves and spend days running
in and out of other worlds like a time bandit or a spy (Moran, 2012, p. 92). Anand (2012)
writes that the library was the best place in the world (pp. 5-6) and that the library
became the cathedral where I would come to worship and the stories were as precious
to me as prayers []. The library was my partner-in-crime []. We were naughty
together, the library and me. I would show it my membership and it would show me the
world (pp. 6-7).
Novelist China Mieville (2007) explores this experience in the library in his childrens
book, Un Lun Dun written from the perspective of a 12-year old girl named Deeba.
The story posits the existence of a realm that opens up behind the surface (to use
Foucaults words). This theme of worlds existing behind the surface is one found in
much classic childrens literature, including Lewis Carrolls (1910) Through the Looking
Glass, Lewiss (1950, 1951, 1952, 1953, 1954, 1955, 1956) Chronicles of Narnia, and
Phillip Pullmans (1995, 1997, 2000) His Dark Materials trilogy. In Mievilles novel, the
virtual world inherent in the real space to be explored by the young protagonists does
not exist behind the surface of a mirror (Carroll), or a wardrobe (Lewis), or a portal
(Pullman), but behind the surface of the books contained in the library. This virtual
place is Un Lun Dun, an alternate version of the real London, which can be reached
through the booksteps and storyladders of the library:
When she came to school the next day, Deebas bag was packed []. That morning she didnt
talk to anyone []. At lunchtime she went to the school library [].
Right, whispered Deeba. She checked the contents of her bag one more time. Enter by
booksteps, she said, reading her hand. And storyladders.
No one was watching. She stepped up carefully and put a foot on to the edge of a shelf, then
reached up and took hold of another. Slowly, carefully, she began to climb the bookshelves
like a ladder. One foot above the other, one hand above the other [].
In front of her was a book called A London Guide for the Blazing Worlders. Deeba kept The library as
climbing. She was definitely beyond where the ceiling had been. Still she didnt look anywhere
but straight in front.
heterotopia
She clung to the edges of the shelves and climbed for a long time. A wind began to buffet her.
Deeba tore her gaze from a book called A Bowl for Shadows and at last looked down. She gave
a little scream of shock.
Far, far below her she saw the library. Children walked between the shelves like specks. 741
The bookshelf she was ascending rose like a cliff edge, all the way down and as far to either
side as she could see[].
She stopped being aware of time. She was conscious only of an endless succession of titles
and of wind growing stronger and louder and of darkness around her. Deebas fingers closed
on leaves[].
I might be climbing the rest of my life, she thought, almost dreamily. I wonder how far this
bookcliff goes. I wonder if I should start moving left. Or right. Or diagonally.
It was growing slowly lighter. Deeba thought she heard a low noise of talking. With a sudden
shock, she realized that there were no more shelves.
She had reached the top. She reached up and hauled herself over the top of the wall of books
and looked out over UnLondon (Mieville, 2007, pp. 178-187).
Mieville (2007) articulates the experience of moving from the space of the real to the space
of the virtual (the worlds in the books), while remaining in the confines of a real physical
space, the library and its real library shelves. The use of the terms booksteps and
storyladders juxtaposes the real and the virtual. They seem to be referring to solid, real
objects, at the same time as they operate as metaphors of a virtual journey. Is Deeba really
climbing storyladders, or is this an expression of a virtual journey through the reading
of a story? In Mievilles story, the distinction is not clear, and deliberately so. It is not the
descriptions of what Deeba actually does here (i.e. climbing the booksteps and the
storyladders), but rather how Mieville attempts to capture in Deebas breach from the real
into the virtual an experience something akin to Foucaults mixed, joint experience.
As can be seen from these narratives, the library as place is much more than a room
or building that contains a collection of objects; it is a place which makes possible
particular kinds of experiences. It is precisely the notion of the experience of being in
the library space and the experiences that this space makes possible that is at the heart
of Foucaults (1986a) notion of heterotopia.
Plate 3.
The reading room of
the bibliotheque
nationale, Paris Notes: By Vincent Desjardins (CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)),
via Wikimedia Commons
contending (striving, struggling) with the Byzantine cataloguing system, as if it were The library as
some creature from which knowledge has to be forcibly yielded. Following these heterotopia
adventures, Foucault is then able to return with his spoils to the relative safety of the
hemicycle, where he will be sheltered from the main reading room and he can plan his
next expedition into the stacks.
The dominant image from Maceys description of Foucaults activity in the library is
that Foucault is treating his research as play (such as playing at soldiers or playing at 745
being an explorer), and the library is the terrain in which the play can take place, and
which makes the play possible. This should not be surprising, since the notion of play is
critical to Foucaults concept of heterotopia. The main characteristic a space must have if
it is to be considered as heterotopia is the curious property of being in relation with all the
other sites, but in such a way as to suspect, neutralize, or invent the set of relations that
they happen to designate, mirror, or reflect (Foucault, 1986a, p. 24). Having spaces
become or contain other spaces is what children do in their games. Mundane spaces
such as attics, backyard corners, the Indians tent or the parents bed (Defert, 1997, p. 274)
become forts, spaceships, and other sites of imaginative adventure. As Johnson (2006)
notes, The childrens inventive play produces a different space that at the same time
mirrors what is around them (p. 76). This idea is beautifully explored in Bill Wattersons
comic strip Calvin and Hobbes where the space inside a simple cardboard box can
become a time machine, a transmogrifier, or a cerebral enhance-o-thon (see Godinho,
2007). Calvin can use his cardboard box to transport himself to faraway places and
experiences. As Busby and Lufkin (1992) note, He climbs into the box as a kid and climbs
out, transformed into alien creatures or elephants (p. 450) (see Figure 1).
Foucaults experience in the heterotopia of the library is an example of this kind of
experience. The library as heterotopia is a place one enters with the objective of being
transformed. Foucault (1988) famously said that The main interest in life and work is
to become someone else that you were not in the beginning (p. 9) and that there are
times in life when the question of knowing if one can think differently than one thinks,
and perceive differently than one sees, is absolutely necessary if one is to go on looking
and reflecting at all (Foucault, 1985, p. 8).
The heterotopia makes possible the imagination of the child at play, transforming
one space into another. The library is a grander version of Calvins cardboard box/time
machine. The box, the mirror, and the library make imagination and creativity possible.
There is no limit to the library as heterotopia. Like Calvin, both Umberto Eco and
Michel Foucault are children run amok, having adventures and embarking on forays.
They are Deeba climbing the booksteps and the storyladders, which go on seemingly
forever but then tip us into the new realm that is UnLunDun.
Figure 1.
CALVIN AND
HOBBES 1992
Watterson
Source: Reprinted with permission of UNIVERSALUCLICK. All rights reserved
JDOC Conclusion
71,4 Using Foucaults (1986a) notion of heterotopia, a view of the library as space has been
presented that is intended to challenge prevailing views of the library experience. It is
clear that the library is much more than a space where certain things happen: reading,
checking out materials, research, and so on. That is the very least of it. Soja (1995)
remarked that the library as heterotopia has much more in common with fleeting,
746 transitory, precarious spaces of time, such as festival sites, fairgrounds, and vacation
and leisure villages (p. 16). Both the theme park and the library can be understood as
compressed, packaged environments that seem to both abolish and preserve time and
culture, that appear somehow to be both temporary and permanent (Soja, 1995, p. 16)
such the Westinghouse and Futurama exhibits at the 1939-1940 Worlds fair in
New York City as discussed by Wood (2003). Both the library and the theme park
are spaces whose existence sets up unsettling juxtapositions of incommensurate objects
which challenge the way we think, especially the way our thinking is ordered
(Hetherington, 1997, p. 42). Further, according to Hetherington: It is the juxtaposition of
things not usually found together, and the confusion that such representations create, that
marks out heterotopias and gives them their significance (Hetherington, 1997, p. 42).
The library as heterotopia, then, does not embody permanence, although at first
glance the grand architecture of the library would certainly imply such permanence.
The experience of the library and the theme park is not that everything is fixed and
unchanging. Rather, these two spaces are constitutive of experiences of continual change,
excitement, surprise, and discovery. In the library, as in the theme park, one never knows
what experience is going to come next, and revels in the excitement of moving from one
extreme experience to another. The thrill of the theme park experience and, by extension,
the library experience, is that one enters into it with the expectation of surprise, of
not knowing what will happen next, of encountering situations and characters one does
not and cannot encounter in so-called real life. The library as heterotopia has the
potential to fascinate and to horrify, to try and make use of the limits of our imagination,
our desires, our fears and our sense of power/powerlessness (Hetherington, 1997, p. 40).
This discussion of libraries as examples of heterotopia has explored the nature
of the library experience through a consideration of the library as a physical space.
The concept of heterotopia provides a means to rethink traditional ways of articulating
and understanding the library experience. It demonstrates that the library is much more
than just a life-less repository of books or a static monument to knowledge. We advocate
for further conceptions of the library and the library experience that embrace this spirit of
joy, serendipity, and adventure contained in Foucaults notion of heterotopia.
References
Aabo, S. and Audunson, R. (2012), Use of library space and the library as place, Library and
Information Science Research, Vol. 34 No. 2, pp. 138-149.
Aabo, S., Audunson, R. and Varheim, A. (2010), How do public libraries function as meeting
places?, Library and Information Science Research, Vol. 32 No. 1, pp. 16-26.
Anand, A. (2012), Character building, in Gray, R. (Ed.), The Library Book, Profile Books,
London, pp. 5-8.
Atlas, M.C. (2005), Library anxiety in the electronic era, or why wont anybody talk to me anymore?
One librarians rant, Reference & User Services Quarterly, Vol. 44 No. 4, pp. 314-319.
Audunson, R. (2005), The public library as a meeting-place in a multi-cultural and digital
context: The necessity of low-intensive meeting places, Journal of Documentation, Vol. 61
No. 3, pp. 429-441.
Bawden, D. (2013), Knowledge, documentation and a London location, Journal of Documentation, The library as
Vol. 69 No. 1, pp. 4-5.
heterotopia
Bennett, A. (2012), Baffled at a bookcase, in Gray, R. (Ed.), The Library Book, Profile Books,
London, pp. 25-43.
Boorstin, D.J. (1996), Library: The Drama Within, University of New Mexico Press,
Albuquerque, NM.
Borges, J.L. (1962), The library of babel, in Borges, J.L. (Ed.), Labyrinths: Selected Stories and 747
Other Writings, (Trans by J.E. Irby), New Directions, Norfolk, CT, pp. 51-58.
Boyer, M.C. (2008), The many mirrors of Foucault and their architectural reflections,
in Dehaene, M. and DeCauter, L. (Eds), Heterotopia and the City: Public Space in a Postcivil
Society, Routledge, New York, NY, pp. 53-73.
Brooks, M. (2012), It takes a library, in Gray, R. (Ed.), The Library Book, Profile Books, London,
pp. 115-118.
Bury, R. (2005), Cyberspaces of their Own: Female Fandoms Online, Peter Lang, New York, NY.
Busby, D.M. and Lufkin, A.C. (1992), Tigers are something else: a case for family play,
Contemporary Family Therapy, Vol. 14 No. 6, pp. 437-453.
Buschman, J. and Leckie, G.J. (2007), The Library as Place: History, Community, and Culture,
Libraries Unlimited, Westport, CT.
Carriere, J.-C. and Eco, U. (2011), This is Not the End of the Book (Trans by P. McLean), Harvill
Secker, London.
Carroll, L. (1910), Alices Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, Macrae
Smith Company, Philadelphia, PA.
Chapman, J. (2006), Inside the TARDIS: The Worlds of Doctor Who, I. B. Taurius, New York, NY.
Chase, S. (2005), Narrative inquiry: multiple lenses, approaches, voices, in Denzin, N.K. and
Lincoln, Y.S. (Eds), The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research, 3rd ed., Sage, Thousand
Oaks, CA, pp. 651-679.
Chun, W.H.K. (2006), Control and Freedom: Power and Paranoia in the Age of Fiber Optics, MIT
Press, Cambridge, MA.
Clandinin, D.J. and Connelly, F.M. (2000), Narrative Inquiry: Experience and Story in Qualitative
Research, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA.
Cole, J.Y. and Reed, H.H. (1997), The Library of Congress: The Art and Architecture of the Jefferson
Building, Norton, New York, NY.
Crampton, J.W. and Elden, S. (Eds) (2007), Space, Knowledge and Power: Foucault and Geography,
Ashgate, Aldershot.
DeCauter, L. and Dehaene, M. (2008), The space of play: towards a general theory of
heterotopias, in Dehaene, M. and DeCauter, L. (Eds), Heterotopia and the City: Public Space
in a Postcivil Society, Routledge, New York, NY, pp. 87-102.
Defert, D. (1997), Foucault, space, and the architects, in David, C. (Ed.), Politics, Poetics:
Documenta X the Book, Rutz-Cantz, Kassell, pp. 274-284.
Dickson, P. (1986), The Library in America: A Celebration in Words and Pictures, Facts on File,
New York, NY.
Eco, U. (2005)., De bibliotheca (Trans by A. McEwan), in Hofer, C. (Ed.), Libraries,
Schirmer/Mosel, Munich, pp. 7-14.
Eco, U. (2011), The Prague Cemetery (Trans by R. Dixon), Houghton Mifflin Harcourt,
New York, NY.
JDOC Faubion, J.D. (2008), Heterotopia: an ecology, in Dehaene, M. and DeCauter, L. (Eds), Heterotopia
and the City: Public Space in a Postcivil Society, Routledge, New York, NY, pp. 31-39.
71,4
Foray (2014), In Oxford English Dictionary, available at: www.oed.com (accessed January 8, 2014).
Foucault, M. (1972), The Archaeology of Knowledge (Trans by A.M. Sheridan Smith), Pantheon
Books, New York, NY.
Foucault, M. (1977), The fantasia of the library, in Bouchard, D.F. and Simon, S. (Eds),
748 Michel Foucault: Language, Counter-Memory, Practice, Cornell University Press, Ithaca,
NY, pp. 87-109.
Foucault, M. (1985), The History of Sexuality, Volume Two: The Use of Pleasure (Trans by R.
Hurley), Random House, New York, NY.
Foucault, M. (1986a), Of other spaces, Diacritics, Vol. 16 No. 1, pp. 22-27.
Foucault, M. (1986b), Postscript: an interview with Michel Foucault by Charles Raus,
in Foucault, M. (Ed.), Death and the Labyrinth: The World of Raymond Roussel
(Trans by C. Raus), Doubleday, New York, NY, pp. 169-186.
Foucault, M. (1986c), Death and the Labyrinth: The World of Raymond Roussel (Trans by C. Raus),
Doubleday, New York, NY.
Foucault, M. (1988), Truth, power, self: an interview with Michel Foucault, in Martin, L.H.,
Gutman, H. and Hutton, P.H. (Eds), Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel
Foucault, University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst, MA, pp. 9-15.
French, P. (2000), This looks a nice place to stop, The Observer, December 16, available at:
www.theguardian.com/film/2000/dec/17/features.review (accessed January 8, 2014).
Fry, S. (2012), Have you heard of Oscar Wilde?, in Gray, R. (Ed.), The Library Book, Profile
Books, London, pp. 65-70.
Genocchio, B. (1995), Discourse, discontinuity, difference: the question of other spaces,
in Watson, S. and Gibson, K. (Eds), Postmodern Cities and Spaces, Blackwell, Cambridge,
MA, pp. 36-46.
Godinho, J.M. (2007), A red spaceship on the monitor, your vileness: Travelling through the
imagination in Bill Wattersons Calvin and Hobbes, in Macedo, A.G., Lourdo, F., Rayner, F.,
Ermida, I. Paisana, J., Perieira, M.E. and Harwood, R. (Eds), Intertextual Dialogues, Travels,
Routes, Universidade do Minho, Braga, pp. 253-262.
Haider, J. and Sundin, O. (2010), Beyond the legacy of the enlightenment? Online encyclopaedias
as digital heterotopias, First Monday, Vol. 15 No. 1, available at: http://journals.uic.edu/ojs/
index.php/fm/article/view/2744/2428 (accessed January 8, 2014).
Harrison, R. (2009), Excavating second life: cyber-archaeologies, heritage, and virtual
communities, Journal of Material Culture, Vol. 14 No. 1, pp. 75-106.
Hetero (2014), In Oxford English Dictionary, available at: www.oed.com (accessed January 8,
2014).
Hetherington, K. (1997), The Badlands of Modernity: Heterotopia and Social Ordering, Routledge,
New York, NY.
Heynen, H. (2008), Heterotopia unfolded?, in Dehaene, M. and DeCauter, L. (Eds), Heterotopia
and the City: Public Space in a Postcivil Society, Routledge, New York, NY, pp. 311-323.
Hill, S. (2012), A corner of St. James, in Gray, R. (Ed.), The Library Book, Profile Books,
London, pp. 109-113.
Jacobs, K. (2004), Pornography in small places and other spaces, Cultural Studies, Vol. 18 No. 1,
pp. 67-83.
Jiao, Q.G. and Onwuegbuzie, A.J. (1999), Self-perception and library anxiety: an empirical study,
Library Review, Vol. 48 No. 3, pp. 140-147.
Johnson, P. (2006), Unravelling Foucaults different spaces, History of the Human Sciences, The library as
Vol. 19 No. 4, pp. 75-90.
heterotopia
Johnson, P. (2008), The modern cemetery: a design for life, Social and Cultural Geography, Vol. 9
No. 7, pp. 777-790.
Kapitzke, C. (2001), Information literacy: the changing library, Journal of Adolescent & Adult
Literacy, Vol. 44 No. 5, pp. 450-456.
King, S. (1990), The library policeman, in King, S. (Ed.), Four Past Midnight, Viking, New York, 749
NY, pp. 403-604.
Knaller-Vlay, B. and Ritter, R. (1998), Heterotopia, in Ritter, R. and Knaller-Vlay, B. (Eds),
Other Spaces: The Affair of the Heterotopia, Haus der Architektur, Graz, pp. 14-19.
Kohli, H.S. (2012), The punk and langside library, in Gray, R. (Ed.), The Library Book, Profile
Books, London, pp. 15-20.
Krikonis, M. and Valsiner, J. (2008), The instant of being everywhere: options and obstacles
in technology-mediated education, Qwerty: Rivista Italiana di Tecnologia Culture e Formazione,
Vol. 3 No. 2, pp. 65-72.
Lewis, C.S. (1950), The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Harper Collins, London.
Lewis, C.S. (1951), Prince Caspian, Harper Collins, London.
Lewis, C.S. (1952), The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Harper Collins, London.
Lewis, C.S. (1953), The Silver Chair, Harper Collins, London.
Lewis, C.S. (1954), The Horse and His Boy, Harper Collins, London.
Lewis, C.S. (1955), The Magicians Nephew, Harper Collins, London.
Lewis, C.S. (1956), The Last Battle, Harper Collins, London.
Library (2014), In Oxford English Dictionary, available at: www.oed.com (accessed January 8, 2014).
Liff, S. and Steward, F. (2003), Shaping e-access in the cybercaf: networks, boundaries and
heterotopian innovation, New Media and Society, Vol. 5 No. 3, pp. 313-334.
Liu, F. (2009), It is not merely about life on the screen: urban Chinese youth and the internet
caf, Journal of Youth Studies, Vol. 12 No. 2, pp. 167-184.
Lord, B. (2006), Foucaults museum: difference, representation, and genealogy, Museum and
Society, Vol. 4 No. 1, pp. 11-14.
McDermid, V. (2012), Going to the dogs, in Gray, R. (Ed.), The Library Book, Profile Books,
London, pp. 51-58.
Macey, D. (1993), The Lives of Michel Foucault, Hutchinson, London.
Makri, S. and Blandford, A. (2012a), Coming across information serendipitously part 1:
a process model, Journal of Documentation, Vol. 68 No. 5, pp. 684-705.
Makri, S. and Blandford, A. (2012b), Coming across information serendipitously part 2:
a classification framework, Journal of Documentation, Vol. 68 No. 5, pp. 706-724.
Meyer, D.E. and Tucker, M.H. (2007), Textual poaching and beyond: fan communities and
fandoms in the age of the internet, Review of Communication, Vol. 7 No. 1, pp. 103-116.
Mieville, C. (2007), Un Lun Dun, Pan Books, London.
Moran, C. (2012), Alma mater, in Gray, R. (Ed.), The Library Book, Profile Books, London,
pp. 91-94.
Morris, N. (2012), Revealed: the full cost of the cull of public libraries, The Independent, July 31,
available at: www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/revealed-the-full-cost-of-the-cull-of-
public-libraries-7988028.html (accessed January 9, 2014).
Pullman, P. (1995), Northern Lights, Scholastic, London.
JDOC Pullman, P. (1997), The Subtle Knife, Scholastic, London.
71,4 Pullman, P. (2000), The Amber Spyglass, Scholastic, London.
Radford, G.P. (1998), Flaubert, foucault, and the bibliotheque fantastique: toward a postmodern
epistemology for library science, Library Trends, Vol. 46 No. 4, pp. 616-634.
Radford, G.P. and Radford, M.L. (2001), Libraries, librarians, and the discourse of fear,
The Library Quarterly, Vol. 71 No. 3, pp. 299-329.
750 Radford, G.P. and Radford, M.L. (2005), Structuralism, post-structuralism, and the library:
de saussure and foucault, Journal of Documentation, Vol. 61 No. 1, pp. 60-78.
Radford, M.L. and Radford, G.P. (1997), Power, knowledge, and fear: feminism, foucault and the
stereotype of the female librarian, The Library Quarterly, Vol. 67 No. 3, pp. 250-266.
Rai, B. (2012), The magic threshold, in Gray, R. (Ed.), The Library Book, Profile Books, London,
pp. 119-124.
Reissman, C.K. (2008), Narrative Method for the Human Sciences, Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA.
Shackley, M. (2002), Space, sanctity, and service: the english cathedral as heterotopia,
International Journal of Tourism Research, Vol. 4 No. 5, pp. 345-352.
Smith, Z. (2012), Library life, in Gray, R. (Ed.), The Library Book, Profile Books, London,
pp. 139-148.
Sohn, H. (2008), Heterotopia: anamnesis of a medical term, in Dehaene, M. and DeCauter, L.
(Eds.), Heterotopia and the City: Public Space in a Postcivil Society, Routledge, New York,
NY, pp. 41-50.
Soja, E.W. (1989), Postmodern Geographies: The Reassertion of Space in Critical Social Theory,
Verso, New York, NY.
Soja, E.W. (1995), Heterotopologies: a rememberance of other spaces in the Citadel-LA,
in Watson, S. and Gibson, K. (Eds.), Postmodern Cities and Spaces, Blackwell, Cambridge,
MA, pp. 13-34.
Taleb, N.N. (2007), The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, Random House,
New York, NY.
Teyssot, G. (2000), Heterotopias and the history of space (Trans by D. Stewart), in Hays, M.
(Ed.), Architecture Theory Since 1968, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, pp. 298-305.
The Library Book (2012), Profile Books, The Library Book, London.
Thomas, N.P. (1996), Reading Libraries: an interpretive study of discursive practices in
library architecture and the Interactional Construction of Personal Identity, PhD,
Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ.
Topia (2014), In Oxford English Dictionary, available at: www.oed.com (accessed January 8, 2014).
Utopia (2014), In Oxford English Dictionary, available at: www.oed.com (accessed January 8, 2014).
Veel, K. (2003), The irreducibility of space: labyrinths, cities, cyberspace, Diacritics, Vol. 33
No. 3, pp. 151-172.
Wood, A. (2003), The middletons, futurama, and progressland: disciplinary technology and
temporal heterotopia in two New York Worlds fairs, The New Jersey Journal of
Communication, Vol. 11 No. 1, pp. 63-75.
Further reading
Cenzatti, M. (2008), Heterotopias of difference, in Dehaene, M. and DeCauter, L. (Eds.),
Heterotopia and the City: Public Space in a Postcivil Society, Routledge, New York, NY,
pp. 75-85.
Eco, U. (1983), The Name of the Rose (Trans by W. Weaver), Warner Books, New York, NY.
About the authors The library as
Dr Gary P. Radford (PhD, Rutgers University) is a Professor of Communication Studies at heterotopia
Fairleigh Dickinson University, Madison, New Jersey, USA. He is the author of On the Philosophy
of Communication (Wadsworth, 2005) and On Eco (Wadsworth, 2003). He is the Editor-in-Chief of
the Atlantic Journal of Communication. Dr Gary P. Radford is the corresponding author and can
be contacted at: [email protected]
Dr Marie L. Radford (PhD, Rutgers University) is an Associate Professor and Chair of the
Department of Library and Information Science in the School of Communication and Information 751
at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA. She is Co-Principal Investigator of the
Seeking Synchronicity and Cyber Synergy projects funded by the IMLS, Rutgers University, and
OCLC. Her latest book is entitled Leading the Reference Renaissance (Neal-Schuman, 2012).
Dr Jessica Lingel (PhD, Rutgers University) is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the
Microsoft Research New England, working with the Social Media Collective. She has an MLIS
from the Pratt Institute and an MA from the New York University. Her research interests include
information inequalities and technological distributions of power.
For instructions on how to order reprints of this article, please visit our website:
www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/licensing/reprints.htm
Or contact us for further details: [email protected]