Revisiting Ranganathan: The Making of Rule N° 5

A.M. Alpin; Amanda Belantara

doi:10.18357/kula.288

Authors

A.M. Alpin New York University https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2298-6195
Amanda Belantara New York University https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7923-7275

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18357/kula.288

Keywords:

libraries, audiovisual installations, curation, knowledge organization, sound art, librarians

Abstract

Rule N°5: The Library Is a Growing Organism is a collaboratively created installation located in NYU’s main library that centers the voices of library workers in six sculptures. The work takes its name from Ranganathan’s five laws or “rules” of library science published in 1931 and focuses on how the spirit of the fifth rule or law, which reads “the library is a growing organism,” continues to inform the life and work of the library. As an interactive audio experience, Rule N°5 invites listeners to open doors and drawers, plug in, and push buttons to explore what it means to collect the world’s knowledge, preserve the past, and shape the future. Rule N°5 examines practices and objects that shape how we can search, who we will find, and what we remember.

In this article, the makers behind the installation share stories of the project’s creation and a deeper inspection of the invisible labor and conversations about questions of power, authority, and the politics of seemingly innocuous library work that inform the work.

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Author Biographies

A.M. Alpin, New York University

A.M. Alpin is an award-winning filmmaker, librarian, and scholar who uses digital and analog technology to tell compelling stories. Her work has been supported by the Sundance Institute, the Gotham/Independent Filmmaker Project, the Austin Film Society, the Southern Humanities Media Fund, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Amanda Belantara, New York University

Amanda Belantara is an audiovisual artist-anthropologist, librarian and co-founder of the art collective Kinokophone. She has worked as a creative producer and teaching artist, collaborating with cultural heritage institutions in New York, Japan, and the UK to create interactive audio installations, audio tours, and oral history projects. Her work explores the social constructions of the everyday and often incorporates sound recordings to uncover perspectives that are missing from written works.

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