The Community Throughout Time:
For our Hyperlinked Communities module, I was heavily drawn to the Westmount Public Library’s Postcard Collection video. When diving deeper into this special collection, I found it resonated with my belief that users should be able to see their own community—those who are with us and those who aren’t—throughout the space. The collection “was established in 1974 to commemorate the Library’s 75th birthday with the purpose of preserving a pictorial history of Quebec since the 1890’s” (Westmount Public Library, n.d.). The WPL has over 40,000 postcards, most of which continue to be donated by Westmount locals, in the collection designed to encourage community involvement—the oldest dating all the way back to 1878 (Baiocco, 2016). Users see and interact with the postcards on the library’s multitouch table through DokLab’s Local Stories application.
Postcards, of course, aren’t just postcards—they’re stories! More specifically, stories of the community. Stories allow users to connect with those who came before and increases community involvement “On the table, every touchpoint is important. We try to delight our users with every interaction, hoping that they will be compelled to keep touching the table and moving through the story” (Baiocco, 2016). Stories define who were once were and who we are today. I find it a beautiful thing for a community to see itself evolve into what it is now!
Note. A postcard from the WLP collection.
Note. Another postcard from the WLP collection.
Libraries and users change over time. I do, however, find value in the past. As I expressed earlier, users should see their own community throughout the space—this shouldn’t exclude community members who are no longer with us. These members are still alive through stories, as seen in WLP’s postcard collection. Through partnership of the library and its users, the community’s stories are cherished and encourages involvement.
References
Baiocco, L. (2016, May). Labor of love: Opening up archival gems for community engagement. Computers in Libraries, 36(4).
Geer, J. (2015, December 6). Local stories [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAfw2logFJM
Westmount Public Library. (n.d.). Special collections. https://www.westlibcat.org/iguana/www.main.cls?p=*&v=53169841-0bc5-4287-a04a-0dc782ef3638