Public Knowledge Infrastructure
1 December 2024
When opening the creaking door, we are greeted by a waft of dampness and the smell of old paper. Rummaging past a collection of 90s children’s books, a pile of dictionaries and guide books for now obsolete versions of office software, our attention is drawn to a jolly looking instructions book.
A beautiful Minibieb in Den Haag
Titled “Choose your Colour”, the book features seasonal fashion and beauty advice for young women. In times when most of us get their inspiration from Instagram influencers or, maybe, from a fashion blogger or Youtuber, it seems obscure to rely on something as static and timeless as a printed book for style advice. The same thought must have crossed the mind of the person who found this book in a long-forgotten corner of their house and decided to place it in their local street library.
Timeless fashion advice
Street libraries, or Minibiebs, as they are dubbed in Dutch, are a fascinating and often under-appreciated piece of urban technology. While some of them are built by schools, cultural institutions or even train station architects, the vast majority of Minibiebs are installed and maintained by individual volunteers.
Ranging from repurposed plastic crates or old pieces of furniture to elaborate, purpose built constructions, most Minibiebs are placed on public land. Owing to relatively generous spatial regulations, which tend to allow homeowners and tenants in most Dutch municipalities to make use of the space in front of their house, as long as it does not interfere with foot traffic, the hurdles for placing your own Minibieb are quite low.
Final poster design
Thanks to the tireless efforts of volunteer mappers and (mostly retired) Facebook enthusiasts, we know that there are more than 10.000 street libraries in the Netherlands alone. Every first of June, Minibieb maintainers across the Netherlands celebrate “Dag van de Minibieb” (National Street Library Day). To mark this special occasion, Papertrail designed a special poster that utilises found visual materials to celebrates the different modes of participation that Minibiebs enable as nodes of public knowledge infrastructure.
Unlike mainstream digital media, which are centred around principles of automation, virality and information overload, street libraries create friction and demand proactive engagement to access. The actions they facilitate among their users are reflected in the list of verbs running across the entire poster. The images forming the second layer were taken from books found in street libraries. Their selection and amplification celebrates randomness and timelessness as modes of creative discovery.
Source materials include:
- Physics course book about different types of pumps (1991)
- Dog breed atlas (1951)
- Motorcycle magazine (1972)
- Fashion advice book (1984)
- Guide to growing cactuses and succulents (1972)
- Swiss recipe book (1972)
- Catering supplies catalogue (2003)
A3 Posters self-printed on Risograph SF 5350 at Grafische Werkplaats in Den Haag in Blue and Teal on Metapaper Rough AIR 120gm. Selected for Intercontinental Biennial 2024 in Argentina. Selected as highly-rated entry and curated for the International Poster Exhibition in Glasgow as part of International Assembly festival 2024 (28 Nov to 5 Dec 2024). Published in the International Poster Book 9 (2024).
Public Knowledge Infrastructure
1 December 2024
When opening the creaking door, we are greeted by a waft of dampness and the smell of old paper. Rummaging past a collection of 90s children’s books, a pile of dictionaries and guide books for now obsolete versions of office software, our attention is drawn to a jolly looking instructions book.
A beautiful Minibieb in Den Haag
Titled “Choose your Colour”, the book features seasonal fashion and beauty advice for young women. In times when most of us get their inspiration from Instagram influencers or, maybe, from a fashion blogger or Youtuber, it seems obscure to rely on something as static and timeless as a printed book for style advice. The same thought must have crossed the mind of the person who found this book in a long-forgotten corner of their house and decided to place it in their local street library.
Timeless fashion advice
Street libraries, or Minibiebs, as they are dubbed in Dutch, are a fascinating and often under-appreciated piece of urban technology. While some of them are built by schools, cultural institutions or even train station architects, the vast majority of Minibiebs are installed and maintained by individual volunteers.
Ranging from repurposed plastic crates or old pieces of furniture to elaborate, purpose built constructions, most Minibiebs are placed on public land. Owing to relatively generous spatial regulations, which tend to allow homeowners and tenants in most Dutch municipalities to make use of the space in front of their house, as long as it does not interfere with foot traffic, the hurdles for placing your own Minibieb are quite low.
Final poster design
Thanks to the tireless efforts of volunteer mappers and (mostly retired) Facebook enthusiasts, we know that there are more than 10.000 street libraries in the Netherlands alone. Every first of June, Minibieb maintainers across the Netherlands celebrate “Dag van de Minibieb” (National Street Library Day). To mark this special occasion, Papertrail designed a special poster that utilises found visual materials to celebrates the different modes of participation that Minibiebs enable as nodes of public knowledge infrastructure.
Unlike mainstream digital media, which are centred around principles of automation, virality and information overload, street libraries create friction and demand proactive engagement to access. The actions they facilitate among their users are reflected in the list of verbs running across the entire poster. The images forming the second layer were taken from books found in street libraries. Their selection and amplification celebrates randomness and timelessness as modes of creative discovery.
Source materials include:
- Physics course book about different types of pumps (1991)
- Dog breed atlas (1951)
- Motorcycle magazine (1972)
- Fashion advice book (1984)
- Guide to growing cactuses and succulents (1972)
- Swiss recipe book (1972)
- Catering supplies catalogue (2003)
A3 Posters self-printed on Risograph SF 5350 at Grafische Werkplaats in Den Haag in Blue and Teal on Metapaper Rough AIR 120gm. Selected for Intercontinental Biennial 2024 in Argentina. Selected as highly-rated entry and curated for the International Poster Exhibition in Glasgow as part of International Assembly festival 2024 (28 Nov to 5 Dec 2024). Published in the International Poster Book 9 (2024).