LISSTEN library tours

Brenda Welch

In October, Rick and Megan Shaw Prelinger hosted a tour of their own personal library, which they have opened to the public. A small group of SLIS students, faculty members, and alumni attended the LISSTEN-sponsored event. The Prelinger Library is an appropriation-friendly, browsable collection of approximately 40,000 books, periodicals, printed ephemera and government documents located in San Francisco. Megan and Rick discussed their motivation for sharing their own personal collection, the rationale behind the organization of the library, and why they encourage visitors to bring their digital cameras.

The origins of the Prelinger Library date from Rick and Megan’s marriage. While combining their households, the pair found that their book collections took up an excessive amount of space. The majority of their collection was put into storage until they considered the possibility of making their collection available to friends with similar research interests, an idea that evolved into making the collection available to the public. Consequently, the Prelingers located a commercial space in a building on 8th Street in San Francisco. The collection, which does not follow the Dewey Decimal, Library of Congress, or any other formal classification system, is based on what makes sense to the Prelingers. Both Megan and Rick, who are trained archivists, found the organization systems in libraries to be difficult to navigate and understand and have had more success when stumbling across items due to serendipity. That is why the library has a custom system of shelving designed to facilitate and emphasize browsing.  For instance, "Suburbia" is next to the section on "Domestic Environments" then "Architecture" which becomes "Graphic Design" which in turn leads to "Typography" and "Fine Arts" and then "Advertising" and "Sales."  Furthermore, types of materials are intershelved, so ephemera, books, and government documents on a topic are located in one place. There is no card catalog or OPAC at the Prelinger Library.

Attendees were invited to bring their digital cameras because the Prelinger Library is appropriation-friendly. That means visitors to the Prelinger can capture the text and images in the collection and use it for whatever purpose they like. The Prelingers also provide a copy machine and digital scanner for this purpose. They also indicate whether items in the collection are under copyright or not.

For those interested in visiting the Prelinger, it is open for drop-in hours once a week. Currently, the Prelinger is open Wednesdays from 1 p.m. to 8 p.m., but that is subject to change. You may also contact the Prelingers to schedule a private appointment.

The Prelinger Library web site: http://home.earthlink.net/~alysons/library.html