Public Books: Art and Bacon in the Library
by
Laine Farley
Many observers of the evolution of technology have noted that this could be the era of the e-book. Projects to digitize older books have brought millions of titles to screens of all sizes. The attention generated by the Kindle but perhaps more significantly by the ability to read books on smart phones finally has spurred sales of e-books after their sluggish debut a decade ago. Interestingly, around that time, a Los Angeles artist was thinking about the impact of the burgeoning Internet and e-books on libraries and printed books. Jessica Holada observed in 2001 that “just as book enthusiasts see the Internet as simply another valuable research tool, Internet advocates might remind us that the access and excess available on the Internet is unparalleled, and only stands as a precursor to more ingenious information based systems which will further challenge libraries and books.” Jessica was one of the artists participating in “Six Degrees: Art in the Libraries,” a series of site-specific artworks installed and/or performed in libraries throughout the Los Angeles Basin by local artists. The event was sponsored by Side Street Projects and co-curated by Karen Atkinson, Sam Erenberg and Judith A. Hoffberg. I “met” Jessica while researching bacon bookmarks (more on that later), and learned that she later became a librarian. As I worked with her to resurrect a portion of her installation, I realized that it embodies the most fundamental forms of bookmarks—marks literally left by readers in books.  Jessica wanted to explore how books in a public setting “might be uniquely positioned to put into mind a human element and a sense of physical history lacking from electronic media.” She coined the idea of “public books” that are “curious artifacts from an age of direct touch, and are possibly the foremost representation of worn information.” Their markings from libraries in their work to catalog and brand books or from users in their intentional or careless interactions leave a trail documenting a life of service. Jessica said she “hoped people might consider the unknown readers before them (whose traces they typically never see), and think about their part in the physical continuum of books.”  In creating the installation, Jessica worked with the librarian at the John C. Fremont branch of the Los Angeles Public Library who helped create catalog cards for the altered books and place them in the stacks. Jessica designed a space with a lectern containing a special book introducing the exhibit accompanied by an audio tape, and an old style library table and chair with a small card catalog drawer listing the books and their location in the stacks along with slips of paper and those familiar stubby yellow pencils. She even consulted the Museum of Jurassic Technology for assistance in setting up the audio introduction to loop automatically. As she describes it, “Visitors could listen to an audio introduction (essentially my artist statement couched in the authoritative language of science and education), which offered up an eloquent if tongue-and-cheek case for valuing altered books (AKA defaced books) as rare traces of human contact and thought.” The audio directs visitors to a large book with three sections, the Past, with an image of a geological cross section of a midden, the Present with users defacing books in different ways, and the Future with a swirl of computer screens. After listening to the audio, visitors were invited to consult a small card catalog box to find the books on the shelf—an activity that inspired scavenger-hunt excitement at the opening. “  And then there was the “bacon book”, a 1950s-era text entitled Healthful Living. Jessica was inspired at the last minute by a story from one of the librarians who claimed she had found bacon in a returned library book. [Note: attempts to locate this librarian were unsuccessful; the search for a direct sighting continues.] Jessica provided a vivid description of this book: “The bacon has desiccated since 2001, but at the opening, the book reeked of freshly smoked bacon, and received visceral responses ranging from revulsion to utter delight. Instead of just one piece of bacon (or bookmark), there were several glistening slices placed throughout the book. The pieces stained the pages with halos of grease, bringing strange new attention to the advisory text on nutrition. I was grateful that the branch librarian allowed me to include the book since foodstuff in libraries is always a major no-no. After working at the Getty Research Institute, which owns a copy of Dieter Roth's Poemetrie (it contains pudding and urine-filled envelopes), my ‘bacon book’ seemed like a tame addition to the intentional-food-in-book tradition.”  When I asked Jessica how visitors reacted to the exhibit, she responded: “Most people laughed a lot, and found it had a scavenger hunt aspect. People darted around the library, looking for the call numbers, and then caught on to the green spine stickers that unified them as a group. One book had one of those trick rattlesnake noise makers attached to the front pastedown (essentially a bent piece of metal holding a taught, wound rubber band). I drew a picture of a snake–something a 7-year-old boy might do–and had a little label that read ‘Be Kind, Please Rewind.’ That book made some people really jump. Not the kind of behavior that you typically see in the stacks.” She noted in particular that Judith Hoffberg felt the show was successful because children were delighted by it. In a curatorial statement that Judith provided for the Six Degrees project, she stated that she was always looking for the “ah-hah experience”, something new, wild, or untested. She further explained that “by using found objects, appropriation, layering or collage, humor, and the unexpected, the artists I tend to gravitate to excite me and thus the viewers to the exhibition.” Certainly, Jessica’s work included all of these ingredients for a memorable experience.  At least one visitor was drawn into work, providing a singular form of commentary. Jessica described it as follows: “The only strong interaction–or playful, depending upon how you look at it–was the dismantling of one book that was completely wrapped in rubber bands. I visited the library regularly during the course of the exhibition (replenishing little pencils and scratch paper, checking the audio equipment, etc.). On one of my trips, I noticed that the 'rubber band' book was bare on the shelf. Then I started to notice rubber bands on the floor, scattered down the aisle like bread crumbs. The librarians reported that handfuls of rubber bands were found stuffed behind the periodicals stand, and others were found tucked here and there throughout the library. At first, I sort of panicked because, here it was happening, someone was not just looking/reading, but physically interacting with my work. Was it a long-time library patron with a sense of propriety? Was it someone who was a little crazy? Was it a kid? Was it another artist? I will never know. I took it home and proceeded to re-band the book. When I placed it back on the shelf and realized that the statement had changed. I was now saying, ‘There! Now I dare you to try it again.’ One of my intentions with the show was to give full ‘devil may care’ access to artist books, but secretly, I really hoped nothing would happen to my books as there were one-of-a-kind. Obviously, I was willing to challenge my secret hopes.”
As Jessica recalls, about four or five books were checked out of the library, but since circulation records are closely guarded by libraries to protect patron privacy, she doesn’t know to whom or for what purpose. None of the books was stolen nor did visitors add further to the intentional defacement of the books. There was no guestbook or way to record how many people listened to the audio introduction, nor was there an effort to count whether any of the books were removed from the shelves but left in the library during the two months the exhibit lasted. Just as with normal library operations, it is often difficult to document use since the impact of browsing and reading in-house is largely a private experience. Jessica observed that nowadays it would be possible to provide a URL for viewers to leave comments, “O humbling candid opinions” as she described them. Sometimes it seems as though our activities are over-documented in this day and age with photos on Flickr and every move chronicled on Facebook or Twitter. She observed that documentation just wasn’t a priority at the time and she was “sort of in the moment about it all”.  What does remain of this attempt to document a moment in the evolution of the Internet and to recognize the markings acquired by books in their life span? That indestructible pork is still in place, and Jessica wryly commented that “While the bacon has lost some of its glistening charm, they certainly make for better bookmarks in this stiffened state.” The other remnants are the books themselves. Jessica has the copies she altered, but it might be fascinating to find some of the books from the exhibit listed below in a library near you and see what markings they contain, “the beauty, the patterns, the audacity, the ideas, the humor, the mess,” and “delight . . . in the workings of anonymous borrowers” before you.
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