The social context of place is the collection of forces that operate on an individual as a result of relationships to other people and social institutions.
The context also ‘‘helps to determine the impact of the physical setting’’
(Steele, 1981, p. 15), while conversely ‘‘The physical setting also affects the impact of the social setting, rendering certain forces more or less potent’’
(p. 17). As indicated earlier, this interactive quality is among the defining characteristics of place.
Sir Russell Brain addresses in terms of knowledge the physiology of place sensing in a lecture series on ‘‘The Nature of Experience.’’ This neurologist notes that the human brain is the product of millions of years of evolu- tionary selection to achieve the capacity to react commensurately with an ever more complex physical environment.15 More specifically, he states that ‘‘the receptive function of the cerebral cortex is to provide us with a symbolical representation of the whole of the external worldyat the same time giving us similar symbolical information about our own bodies and their relationship with the external world’’ (Brain, 1959, p. 32). There is a connection between the environment and the human capacity to react to it that is real in a physical sense. A team of psychologists describes this phe- nomenon as a function of the cognitive system:
Like any other cognitive system, place-identity influences what each of us sees, thinks, and feels in our situation-to-situation transactions with the physical world. It serves as a cognitive backdrop, or perhaps better said, as a physical environment ‘data base’ against which every physical setting experience can be ‘experienced’ and responded to in some way. Broadly speaking, what is at stake is the well-being of the person. (Proshansky et al., 1983, p. 66)
library as place, we need to bear in mind that, throughout history, the library has been labeled with an elitist connotation,16only part of which is owed to the normal use requirement of literacy.
Unfortunately, unlike the hard sciences, librarianship would be hard pressed to record for purposes of replication any particular experience, least of all one as subjective as the sensing of place. However, a composite per- ception can be extracted from a combination of one’s own personal expe- rience and those experiences heard and read about over the years.
Accordingly, the library presents a commingling of culture, nature, and human nature through a range of virtually all subjects, tastes, and points of view. And, of particular importance, it does so in a manner that situates the potential of this intellectual experience immediately in evidence to those who may be receptive. It offers the possibility of easy immersion in a vast, com- plex, and layered network of knowledge, understanding, and expression, whose connections are created only by the individual contemplating them, when and as the individual chooses.
For the individual, this setting invites communication with the thoughts, creations, and discoveries of many others, both past and present. These conditions lead to the pursuit of insight and the continuous construction of completeness, raising further questions and, in turn, rekindling the quest for answers. Such pursuits are undirected by anyone else, but the library does provide just enough fundamental order by which to find one’s own way to one’s own destination even if that destination is imprecise or unknown.
One’s guiding thoughts and methods during this intellectual voyage are protected to the extent that the individual determines them to be. The library does not create this free style process, but enables and encourages it.
The library sets the stage then steps back to allow us to construct, create, and clarify exactly as we may wish, and to take whatever deviations from what might at first seem to be the logical course toward what we may originally have thought to be the objective, which changes without warning.
The library is not demanding and not judgmental about reasons and motivation. A unique social institution, the library also creates the locus for a sense of special community among the apparently like-minded. The visitor knows that in large measure, he/she is communing with others of similar world view, with kindred spirits undeclared, even though their exact inter- ests almost surely differ. It is the experience of library that they share, albeit in quite different ways. One feels like a privileged guest in the library place, but at the same time like its steward.
The library is dependable in this regard, despite operational problems that do, on occasion, give rise to frustration. But even in the face of them, the
library remains an anchor of reliability and stability for the spirit and the intellectual experience it contains just for the taking. We know that it will help us put our thoughts and feelings into a broader context for better understanding. So we return to the library. It is often a sense of context we lack and seek in the confidence that we can discover it in that place and in ways not necessarily clear even to us. Context makes possible the kind of distancing that provides new perspective and discovery.17 Contemplation and informed serendipity are the tools that are crafted in the library to achieve this through the stimulation of imagination, curiosity, and creativ- ity.18Whether or not we find the specific piece of information we have been seeking, we will have had a fulfilling experience because of other discoveries made along the way and within ourselves.
So the library is, indeed, an outstanding place for self-discovery, for energizing the imagination, and for seeing the world anew. The inner self can be revealed continuously through the process of identification with the intellectual intersections of one’s chosen paths of inquiry leading toward a higher level of understanding. This process of discovering the inner self also encourages self-expression. The library can thus be a place of great intel- lectual comfort, even if not always physical comfort.
Comfort is a recurring theme in any description of place and, again, there must be as many connotations of that sense as there are individuals to experience it. Moreover, ‘‘At various times and in response to various out- side forces – social, economic, and technological, the idea of comfort has changed, sometimes drastically’’ (Rybczynski, 1986, pp. 230–231).19 It is particularly useful in the examination of library as place to note that the Latin root of the present-day English noun ‘‘comfort’’ is the verbconfortare, which conveyed the meanings ‘‘to strengthen’’ and ‘‘to console.’’ These concepts aptly describe the positive experience of the kind of intellectual comfort afforded by the library. And, Fritz Steele points out that ‘‘One of the most consistently important contributions of place has been to provide a sense of security to individuals and groups: a feeling that they are at home or have a home that they can go back to, which provides a sense of control over their own fate’’ (Steele, 1981, p. 7). Indeed, Robert David Sack states cat- egorically that ‘‘control is a defining quality of home’’ (Sack, 1997, p. 263, note 31), and that while home provides security and comfort, it also stim- ulates ‘‘a sense of responsibility for that place’’ (p. 14). Like the sense of home, the library connotes both a physical place and a state of being. The library is an intellectual home.
Another recurring theme in place description is that of the production of a world view, which provides both the context for self-definition and its
product. To discover one’s self is to rediscover the world. Robert David Sack makes this relationship quite clear.
As a locus of experience, personal place provides a holistic sense, interweaving elements from the realms of nature, meaning, and social relations. From its other side, it sets in motion the potential to see the world from somewhere else, and then unravel the threads and trace them back to the particular realms. The key to understanding the relation between these moments lies in the connection of place to awareness. (Sack, 1992, p. 30)
As we learn about ourselves through the introspection that is stimulated by heightened awareness, we interpret the world around us differently and gain a more advantageous perspective on life, thereby achieving a greater understanding of our situation in the world. So, it is logical that ‘‘The more we experience a behavior setting, the greater its power to alter our percep- tion of the ‘real world’’’ (Gallagher, 1993, p. 129).20Synesthetic experience is commonly associated with the identification of place, as can readily be judged from references to the literary work of Marcel Proust, which figure prominently among examples offered by scholars who are representative of diverse fields. In the novel’s most famous scene, the protagonist ofRemem- brance of Things Past dips a Madeleine cookie into a cup of lime blossom tea, the resulting combination of whose flavor and aroma unleashes his involuntary memory and thus helps him better understand the present. The experience is not just literary, of course, but more broadly human and physiological. The neurologist Sir Russell Brain notes that ‘‘an object seen is seen endowed with those qualities which experience has shown it to have for other sensory modalities, tactile shape, texture, temperature, weight, &c’’
(Brain, 1959, p. 33). Yi-fu Tuan advances this information: ‘‘An object or place achieves concrete reality when our experience of it is total, that is, through all the senses as well as with the active and reflective mind’’ (Tuan, 1977, p. 18). The library is about providing information; but it is more, or more profoundly, about understanding. At its best, the library experience is about both understanding of self and understanding of world.