I'm with Renzo Piano and the library people on this one
The central public library in Vancouver
I’m with Renzo Piano and the library people on this one, but I’m not going to claim that I’m speaking on behalf of the people. There’s no need to do that. A public library is demonstrably and obviously a better and more sensible option than a museum of political development.
No tourist is going to visit a museum of Maltese political development, not unless he or she is a real jerk or masochist. And those who live here and visit will do so just once out of curiosity and never go again. A museum of political development is not something you repeat-visit.
A public library, on the other hand, is a community gathering space, one which families can visit every week and those who live and work in Valletta can visit every day. Contemporary public libraries are far from being musty spaces lined with rows of bookshelves. They are living, lively spaces where people congregate to catch up on the latest newspapers, magazines and journals, to use the internet, to listen to lectures, to talk about books and films, and to watch videos. They are brightly coloured, full of light and very, very welcoming.
Don’t expect The People to start posting comments or writing letters demanding a public library instead of a political museum. The People in their vast majority don’t read – which is why The Bargain Magazine is consistently voted Malta’s top publication (no text; just photographs of discounted goods and their prices) – and they would possibly prefer a political museum anyway so that they can fight for the next 60 years over how Dom Mintoff and the years 1971 to 1987 are going to feature.
Screw the political museum. What The People need is a mind-and-horizon-expanding public library, slap bang at the city’s gate where they can’t escape it or make excuses about the hassle of getting there. Perhaps Piano can come up with some amazing device to snare people coming off the buses and force them through its doors. Arrogance and ignorance go hand in hand. A decent public library might mean that we have less of both.
timesofmalta.com Wednesday, 1st July 2009 – 17:54CET
Library wanted in proposed Piano Valletta projects
The Malta Library and Information Association has asked why plans for a public library in Renzo Piano’s Parliament building designs have been changed and do not include a library.
In a statement it said that the City Gate area was the ideal location for the island’s main public lending library, currently in a place considered out of the way by many, including the association, in Floriana.
Most public libraries in European cities can be found in prominent, central and easily accessible locations.
The association said that it had drawn up a short report proposing a public library in this location and this could be downloaded from its homepage at www.malia-malta.org.
Considerable public support for this idea was gathered through an i-petition and a Facebook group and details have been presented to the Prime Minister in March this year.
“If there is not enough space in the allocated site for both a public library and a museum, MaLIA feels that a state-of-the-art public library service should take precedence over a museum in this location.
“Surveys have shown that all sections of the public, from school children to old-age pensioners, would prefer a centrally located public lending library.
“Such a public library would be of greater benefit than a museum.”
The organisation said that since most of the Palace, which currently housed Parliament, wasgoing to be changed into museum spaces, the museum being proposed for the new Parliament building could be housed there.
“If Renzo Piano himself is in favour of a public library in this important location, should not the general public including the ‘group that joined the fray’ who have proposed and promoted this idea, expect to see a public library as suggested originally?”
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http://www.miragebookmark.ch/most-interesting-libraries.htm
Totally with you on this one. Check out the fantastic Amsterdam library; such a joy to visit over and over again:
http://www.oba.nl/index.cfm/t/OBA_at_the_Oosterdok__OD_/objectid/AF40DBF2-9790-D0B8-F2ADBEF3BDF85EF3/vid/8A355FDE-B47B-8B40-69D28AE6D90F0E61/containerid/666415AA-C09F-296A-61DB669427684CB1/displaymethod/display_obaplayer
The world is going digital. Nobody will be reading hard copies of books in a few decades time.
[Daphne – Dream on. You know little or nothing about reading books if you fondly imagine that people will read a novel off a palm top. The only people I can picture reading a book off a palm-top are the sort of men who read David Baldacci on long-haul flights for about five minutes at a time before turning to the movie. People will either stop reading books altogether or carry on reading them in their current format. A book is a non-substitutable commodity because half of the pleasure derived from it is tactile. People didn’t stop painting or looking at pictures when photography was developed. And books, unlike newspapers to a certain extent, are not just about the imparting of information.]
Since when is ‘novel’ a synonym for ‘book’? Only a tiny percentage of books published are novels.
[Daphne – Nobody’s saying it’s a synonym for book. I could run through the various types of book if you like, and none of them are best read on a hand-held digital device. The market doesn’t settle for what’s more digital, but for what’s more efficient and practical – and satisfying to the senses.]
And with regards to your comparision to painting and photography; they are two different works of art, while an ebook and a hard copy of a book is the same exact work.
[Daphne – You see, that’s the mistake you make. Reading an actual book is a sensory experience, only part of which has to do with the text.]
A better analogy would be to compare books and ebooks to hard copy photographs and digital ones. How many people actually print their photos these days?
[Daphne – You don’t read, do you?]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/jun/28/george-weidenfeld-nicholson-publishing
“I believe the electronic book has a future,” says Weidenfeld. “But that is the case for reading for information – some genres will, broadly, disappear in paper format. There will still be beautiful books, though, ones you’d want on your library shelves. They will remain as works of art or in the case of a book you want to have constantly in front of you. It will, of course, have an effect on the number of publishers.”
There’s nothing beats the musty odour of an old tome.
@ Drew
Reading an e-book is just not the same as reading hard copy. As a child, the first thing I used to do with my new school books every year was to bury my head in the pages for a good sniff! Still do this actually…
How about when you open the cover of a book you’re about to read, with a growing sense of anticipation and getting stuck into Chapter 1? There’s something rather special about the feel of the paper in your hands as you turn page after page if it’s a particularly riveting read… T
Something else you don’t get from an e-book.. when you borrow books from a library or indeed a friend, sometimes you find annotations by previous readers, or comments, or underlined phrases.. which could make you smile, or even wonder what that phrase must have meant to someone….
And one last thing… I very much doubt how safe or indeed possible it would be to enjoy an e-book in the bath!
Well said John, I love the odour of old books, or even new ones, come to think of it. Nothing beats the feeling of sitting down with a book and a cup of tea. It’s the best form or relaxation for me.
You lot are all clearly very very old and old-fashioned. Yes, Daphne, I do read.. ebooks almost exclusively. I have about 500 which I can carry around with my everywhere and all the time. The only time I settle for a hard copy is when an ebook version isn’t available. However, I do not read novels.
[Daphne – That figures. I have lost count of the number of Maltese people who say, as though it is something to be proud of, that they never read novels. It is clear to me that they come from the sort of educational background where all novels are by Danielle Steele and read by their mothers. Let me guess: you don’t actually read those 500 books. You ‘refer to them’ and ‘look things up’.]
The fact that I don’t read novels is definitely not something that I’m proud of. I merely don’t enjoy them and I’m not going to force myself to. It all probably started with being forced to read novels like Jane Eyre for school, because before that I remember enjoying novels. But then again, at the time we didn’t have a computer, or any interesting tv channels, and I wasn’t particularly into sports either.
I have actually read a good number of those 500 books. Obviously quite a few of them are DIY, how-to, textbooks, and other reference-type books which do not require cover-to-cover reading.
[Daphne – “Obviously”. I guess I haven’t lost my ability to suss a person out.]
I guess I’m in the minority when I say that I don’t read cookery books and encyclopedias from cover to cover.
[Daphne – When people’s shelves (or electronic devices) are packed with nothing but reference books, I don’t regard them as bibliophiles or people who love reading, but as precisely the sort of people who would take to reading ‘books’ in electronic format.]
I never claimed to be a bibliophile.
Anyway, we’ll settle this in about 20 years time. Hopefully you’ll still be blogging then, and I’ll refer you to this post.
http://www.longbets.org/179 – Hey, at least I’m not as short-sighted as this “predictor”.
Drew: Libraries aren’t just about books in the conventional format. Digital media have their place there too. I’m a member of a library that has a vast electronic collection – which I can only access on site.
@Drew
get a book, dude – a real one.
@ the picture in this contribution – That is what I would call a dynamic space!
I’m all for the library too.
Books should be part of our education, without which we cannot have a healthy democracy. Having parliament house built over a library would mean that we want to build our democracy on education. Education and democracy should go hand in hand. A political museum can be housed in a hall in the presidential palace maybe, or better still in Belt is-Sebh near the bastion cemetery.
One renowned international architect on another :
Renzo Piano
By Richard Rogers Sunday, Apr. 30, 2006
Renzo Piano is an absolute master of light and lightness. He has a fantastic understanding of construction and the scale of pieces. I don’t think there is anybody like him. He’s the son of a builder who was very close to his father and very proud that he was a builder; it gives him tremendous roots. The unusual thing about Piano, 68, is that he works from small to big. I had never met an architect like that before.
He doesn’t approach a building from the point of an idea; it grows out of the ground. He’s also one of the most elegant architects I know. He’s elegant in person, but also his structures are very elegant, very humanistic. They aren’t pieces of abstract sculpture. They grow out of understanding how buildings go together and how light comes through them; he designs roofs that pull light in. Piano has moved on from the massive machine—like the Pompidou Center in Paris, which we designed together and which is full of people, like a big climbing frame—to very beautiful museums and libraries. Each one is a bit more elegant. Piano has terrific range. I love the San Nicola football stadium in Bari, Italy, which is a massive statement—big petals of concrete that come out of the ground. Then there is the Beyeler building in Switzerland that is as light as anything. I won’t say which of his buildings is my favorite. I will say he’s my favorite architect. He’s one of the supreme modern architects of his generation. He’s also a fanatical sailor. He designs his own boats. When we were first friends, almost 40 years ago, he designed a concrete sailing boat. And actually it worked very well.
Why Piano’s plan for the open theatre does not include a glass roof such as the picture above? That would be just lovely!
[Daphne – He’s Renzo Piano and you’re ‘mary’. Don’t question it or give him advice. Just accept it, for god’s sake.]
As regards to the public library, we already have a central one at Beltissebh. So in my humble opinion I would rather see a national portrait gallery, in place of the library at Piano’s parliament house. Education should not always be about books, but also about building an awareness of the arts. A central gallery that will be a showcase to both tourists and nationals where one can see classical and contemporary art done by our past and present artists.
[Daphne – Where do you plan to obtain these portraits, exactly, and precisely what purpose will they serve? The purpose of a national portrait gallery is not to provide people with the opportunity to look at likenesses of the dead and the living, but to look at great paintings.]
Dear Daphne sometimes you get so picky! I am not advising Piano….as if! I am only airing my views. I imagine we do have freedom of expression here, or should we be nodding our heads and remain submissive to whatever anyone dictates? I have already wrote before how I am looking forward to see this project finished. Hopefully by 2015 we will be having two Smart cities. The only at Rinella and the other in Valletta.
As regards to a national gallery, I ask – why should we have another public library when we have one already?
[Daphne – We don’t have one already. We have a shambles that underfunded librarians are struggling to keep afloat, and that is not accessible by bus or by car. It wouldn’t mean two public libraries. It would mean moving the public library from its current location buried way back behind the Grand Hotel Excelsior to the entrance to Valletta.]
Why not a National Gallery – we still are without a proper one.
[Daphne – Mary, you haven’t been following the discussion or the news. When parliament and the various offices are moved out of the Grandmaster’s Palace, the whole of the palace is going to be turned into a variety of museums, under the supervision of Giovanni Bonello.]
Who wouldn’t be proud to see classical and contemporary paintings and other forms of art done by past and present artists on display? A national art gallery goes well with the House of Parliament.
A library would be ideal at the entrance to the city; one of the first things you’d notice when walking into Valletta.
A museum of Maltese political development? I’ve got a better idea – have an empty room in the abovementioned library building, stick an EU flag in the middle, and that’s your museum of Maltese political development.
A library should be built instead of those flats and that shopping mall, opposite of Freedom square. This will complement the new parliament. The problem is the cost to remove all those shop owners and those living above the shops. I dream of a huge library full of books and digital media.
About the political museum, I think they should build one still because the Maltese tend to forget what happened in the last century, Politics in Malta has been marred by violence, political murders etc and all of these should be remembered so as the future generations will not descend in the chaos Malta was in during the last century. Also in this museum they should put on display the various constitutions Malta had. Although the Maltese state is still young, the origin of Maltese statehood is a remarkable one.
How right you are.
The Maltese should know all about the political developments during the last century. The granting of self-government by the British, the Sette Giugno Affair, the Language Question, the Integration referendum of the fifties, the squalid politico-religious happenings of the sixties and the Catholic Church’s presumed right to manage the control of the government of the people, Independence and the declaration of the republic.
The past is not only the 1981-1987, you know.
That’s one way of ensuring the space remains empty for several decades. It’s taken close on 60 years to sort out the opera house site. The central narrative of Malta’s political history may be sorted out much sooner, but I’m not holding my breath.
Maybe we should have as many museums as there are opinions on what is politically and historically significant. Or simply set up a people’s parliament on the ground floor of the real one, where the know-alls can vent their spleen and provide entertainment for passersby.
why does one get the distinct impression that a number of people . . . (with their pontifications about e-this and e-that and promoting this electronic shite) . . . . are a bunch of semi-illiterate idiots who haven’t held a book in their hands or seen the inside of a library in decades?
If they’re trying to sell anybody the idea that an electronic book and the real thing are in any way similar they have never read a proper book in their life. That says a lot about our unfortunate population and goes a long way in explaining some people’s reactions to certain recent events.
I’m all for a public library, too. It would be very accessible. Why do we need a “museum” of political development? This suggestion was made by George “L-espert tal-affarijiet ta’ barra minn hawn” Vella, so I guess this was Gonzi’s way of giving Labour a rope and hoping they hang themselves with it, if they were to oppose the project.
Er, a museum of political development for a 360 sq km microstate? What, to make us gaze even deeper inside our navels?
Baxxter do you read books, various books have been written about the political development of this 360 sqKm micro state.
A political museum might be the catalyst which will see books written by Henry Frendo, J.J Cremona and J.M Pirotta being read by the public and not just history students.
You’re unwittingly making my point. The political history of Malta is best studied by reading books, not visiting a museum and looking at what, footage of the 7th June riots? Political manifestos? A waxwork of Mintoff shagging Il-Fusellu’s mum?
[Daphne – Oh, you knew about that. Had it been anyone else, I would have deleted that reference, but since you’re talking about those two men, that’s all right. Lucky for us that one’s dead and the other doesn’t believe in computers. Round my neck of the woods it was taken for granted that this was the reason he got to throw his weight around and have such a strong hold over ministers and total immunity from prosecution – not that Mintoff was still shagging his mother at that stage, of course, but that he might well have been the result.]
I know about that, and a lot more besides. And believe me, the best sources of information aren’t to be found in Malta, because those in the know tend to be rabid partisans so you’ll only get their side of the story. Which is why I find the whole idea of a “museum of political development” highly ludicrous. It would be a sanitised version of the truth to avoid upsetting anyone, like our social studies textbooks of yore.
I love books. I read books. All kind of books. Novels, reference, history, science, religion, politics….. And I keep them. And read them again. And look them up to quote them. How would one know to refer to a particular book if you hadn’t read it? – unless one is just randomly looking for something interesting to improve otherwise boring writing/conversation?
One of my primary concerns when looking for a house was, where am I going to put my books?
So clearly part of the joy of reading and owning books is the joy of possession. But people vary. My brother and I keep our books once we’re done, my mother and my partner pass them on as soon as they turn the last page. I don’t think its a female thing, but we are all avid, eclectic, and constant readers, so trying to relate one’s attitude to physical possession of books to whether or not they would want an ebook is a non-starter. Its a question of personal taste.
But not withstanding the joy of possession, and clearly not being a semi-literate idiot, rather a lifelong professional bookworm, I’d LOVE a good quality ebook in which I can keep all my books, especially since I’m normally reading two or three at a time, and could easily jump from one to the other.
Don’t just assume that an e-book is or will remain a clunky square monochrome thing – there are lots of technologies which are being worked on or which are viable today (but expensive for now) which will allow us to have all sorts of ebooks which can be bright/flexible/rollable/waterproof/foldable/multisized. And since they’re digital – you automatically have an audiobook. We also have some mobile phones coming out with short range projectors – you could transfer the e-book to your phone (many already do) and project it onto the seat in front of you. The possibilities are endless. THis is a technology the versatility of which cannot be sumarily diismissed.
Here’s an anology. I started ripping my cd’s to my pc’s HDD in 1998. My friends all laughed at me and thought I was crazy. No-one went as far as calling it e-shite, but they couldn’t see the value. The fact that I could then access all my music with miminal effort and myriad combinations was not considered relevant. Neither was the fact that CD’s have a 20 yr lifespan. Nor could they believe that we would be able to carry all our music with us, or that we would want to, but 10 years later……..
The following article is very interesting. I especially like the comment about the ‘random’ function. I wonder how long it will be before we read a similar article about books. I prefer to take the long view.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8117619.stm
I agree with you 100% on this one Daphne. I love reading books. During my lunch break at work, in waiting areas, by the sea…evrywhere that is! Would love to have a modern public library on the same level of other countries.