To celebrate the launch of The Meeting Grounds Reader Edition 1: The Public Library, a selection of the publications contributors have been invited to join together for a group discussion on library environments as public spaces.

Join Pauline Agustoni (Librarian Informal Feminist Library), Simon Browne (Contingent Librarian Bootleg Library), Jasper Eikmeier (Maker at the Makerspace Bibliotheek Eindhoven), Juliana Laguna Bosch (Co-founder of The Wave Eindhoven and their feminist book club) and Claire O’Brien (Member of the Van Abbe Queen Constiuency and Co-founder of Queer Book Club) in conversation with Amy Gowen (City Curator at Onomatopee) to explore the politics of library environments and reading spaces, the role of the librarian and the function of the public library as public space in contemporary society.

This event will be audio recorded. All are welcome to join.

Join us via Jitsi here

Join us on Thursday 4 June for Notes on Texts, a session that annotates a library. It understands reading and writing to be fundamental library practices, and asks how new readers/writers may participate in producing texts that both describe the collection and represent themselves. 

This session will take place with (and within) the bootleg library, a shared digital and physical collection of republished texts. 

Bootlegs; unauthorised copies of source publications that represent ourselves, our multiplicity and our shared interests. 

A library; a collection of texts and also the readers collected around them.

Previous bootleg library sessions have been moments to meet in various spaces with the people who frequent them, discuss things we read, add to the collection, and offer each other contingencies through the texts we share. 

For this session we'll meet online in a web conference, in the digital bootleg library, and in a real time collaborative text-editing environment. We'll explore how the mediums and techniques we use will shape the texts we share. You are invited to experiment with styles of annotation to imagine ways that we can guide each other towards the things we read. How can we enrich texts through our annotations, and what kind of new texts can we produce through our notes?

Join us via Jitsi here

Over the past few months we became more and more accustomed to the private, domestic sphere; and our ability to access physical libraries, book shops and book clubs became either totally limited or transferred to the digital. 

As a response The Wave and Meeting Grounds invite you to turn your very own bookshelves into a book shop ‘n’ swap. 

Join us on Wednesday 3 June at 18.00 (CEST) to collectively explore each of our own bookshelves, choosing up to three of our favourite texts from our private stacks to share and discuss together. 

At the end of the session we will organise a postal book swap between all participants so we can continue to learn from our readings and grow our community through conversation. 

Join us via jitsi here

Join us on Tuesday 2 June for the IFL x Meeting Grounds // A life in a day : fragmented reading of Audre Lorde's Zami 

Let IFL (informal feminist library) add rhythm to your day with a fragmented reading of Zami : a new spelling of my name, a biomythography by Audre Lorde.

Three reading sessions are organized throughout the day, tackling different time periods of Audre Lorde's life based on her autobiography Zami : a new spelling of my name. 

Meet IFL librarian Pauline Agustoni as she reads out loud parts of the texts before opening a space for discussion and commentary at the end of each reading.

Organized by IFL in collaboration with Onomatopee for their program Meeting Grounds, the event inscribes itself in a series of online events on public libraries.

There is no prior reading needed and you don't necessarily have to attend all three events. You can download the ebook version of Zami by emailing info(@)paulineagustoni.com or amy(@)onomatopee.net 

Reading times :

Morning - childhood : 10am-11am

Midday - young adulthood : 3pm-4pm

Evening - adulthood : 8pm-9pm

Join us for all three events via Jitsi here or on Instagram Live @onomatopeenet

Join us for Club Silencio: The Reading Edition.

Both as a form of public intervention, and as an exploration into intimacy and readership in digital space, Meeting Grounds invites you to join our second Club Silencio, the reading edition.

For one hour you are invited to join us in a common, digital space where one thing and one thing only is expected of you: you must remain silent. For this edition we are focusing on the act of individual yet collective reading. So please bring along a book to read.

During Club Silencio we want to take the time to experience and consider reading practices in the digital public sphere. How can the collective act of individual reading form a moment of personal focus and group intimacy?

This one hour session will be audio recorded and later released on the Meeting Grounds SoundCloud page as an archived field recording. We therefore ask you to keep your mics on for the duration of the session as background noise is expected and welcome.

The chat box will be opened for the final 10 minutes of the event for an optional group discussion on the experience.

Join us via Jitis here

Part meetup, part workshop, part collective exploration, this event aims to challenge the conventions around reading and personal/public librarianship. Everyone is a librarian, but how do we navigate with the political and sociological implications of what we read and what we choose to place on our bookshelves. How can we explore our relationship to reading and librarianship through the lens of the public and private realms.

In this meetup, we aim to examine the Meeting Grounds temporary library that has been created and transformed throughout the week, alongside pictures brought if from each participant of their own personal libraries at home according to categories such as gender, nationality, sexuality and materiality. 

Through this exercise and our subsequent discussion we will investigate the ways in which the books that we read and the bookshelves that surround us in our daily lives are interwoven with wider political structures and debates. In this, we are particularly interested in countering hierarchies of knowledge that inhabit our bookshelves and our reading practices both in public institutions and in the private domain. Everyone is a librarian, but what responsibilities does this come with?

Please bring along a picture (either digital or physical) of your bookshelf, or a collection of books that you own.

A work session with Simon Browne

what will we do?

     we’ll have an introduction to the “bootleg library”, which is a shared digital and physical library of bootlegged texts. let’s make user accounts, download and upload some texts, talk about what we’re reading and how we like to organise our bookshelves, and together discuss libraries, both private and public.

what to bring?

     a computer and some of your favourite ebooks (PDF, EPUB, whatever)

about the bootleg library

     the bootleg library is a digital, and physical collection of texts. the library consists of bootlegged texts, not in the sense of cheap knock-offs, but instead as unauthorised, fairly faithful reproductions of source publications. the physical library is a growing collection of republished books, currently stored in an old champagne case. most of these are bootlegged by library members, some donated by visitors. the digital library is a collection of ebooks, served from a small computer running open-source software.

the current collection

     the bootleg library is small but growing. texts are individually uploaded and catalogued by readers who are motivated simply by the desire to share what they read. and so the collection represents the readers and their interests, which range from critical theory to feminisms to literature to technical manuals and zines (and a lot more).

All are welcome to join in. Tea, coffee, soft drinks and snacks will be provided throughout the day.

Join us for the first meet up of Meeting Grounds’ first edition. Centred around exploring the Bibliotheek Eindhoven as a public space and a social space - a site of conviviality.

This informal meetup will act as an introduction to the broader programme of Meeting Grounds as well as the themes of this particular edition. We will consider questions around the nature of what makes a public space and why such spaces are important in contemporary society. Using this as our starting point, we will then situate our ideas directly in relation to the Bibliotheek Eindhoven as we begin to examine the library’s importance to the city of Eindhoven as a space that can be understood as both public and social.

This first informal meet up and discussion will be introduced by City Curator, Amy Gowen, tea, coffee, drinks and snacks will be offered as we delve deeper into our understandings of the Eindhoven Public Library.

Ahead of Meeting Grounds first edition, we will explore the Witte Dame area with a collective City Walk Workshop.

This workshop is free and part of the ongoing Meeting Grounds programme.

Inspired by SerraGlia’s “City Wanders” project, this workshop is aimed at anyone with an interest in art, design, visual perception, architecture, urban space and communication, to together explore urban scapes with fresh eyes.

“We are used to walking the same route every day. We are so keen to get where we’re going as quickly as possible that we ignore all the beauty and wonder induced by the visual elements around us.
The result is that we tend not to see anything special in our daily routines - not because there’s nothing interesting to look at, but because we’re paying attention only to practical matters.
It’s different when we go somewhere for the first time - as a tourist, for instance. We notice things that surprise and inspire us. Away from home, even a supermarket or a barber’s sign gains an unexpected charm. But is it possible to discover something wonderful without having to travel to a new place?
This workshop wants to bring that tourist state of mind into our everyday routine.”

The workshop will last for two hours, in which we will explore the Witte Dame area, home to the first edition of the Meeting Grounds, by collectively walking, documenting and photographing the area so as to seek the unfamiliar from what can be typically understood as familiar grounds, and to determine key visual clues that are specific to the street, the area and city that can help us to depict power signs and symbols and ways of navigating our shared public spaces. Through this workshop we hope to provide fresh insights and perspectives in our interpretation of what makes a public space in Eindhoven.

POSTPONED

A workshop run by Simon Browne, Paloma García and Artemis Gryllaki

We read texts, and write notes in the margins; usually in private, isolated from other readers. We come across texts with others’ notes on them; the author unknown, their thoughts obscure. What happens when we share our notes, vocalise and perform them?

In this workshop we’ll read, annotate and discuss an open letter which asks for pirate library practices to come out of the shadows. We’ll read aloud and perform parts of the text, enriched by our doubts, sympathies, tensions and diverse understandings. We’ll personalise the text, opening it up for collective conversations. Our voices will occupy the space and leave traces on the text.

All texts and writing material will be provided at the beginning of the workshop. Tea, coffee, soft drinks and snacks will be available.

POSTPONED

Everyone is a librarian is a week long event exploring what it means to house multiple library spaces (both public and private) in one temporary setting. Each day will include a series of workshops and activities that explore different areas of reading and librarianship and the responsibilities that come along with it. The aim is for the library to evolve throughout the week, transforming the trailer into a performative, hybrid space that may look or feel different each and every time you enter.

Build-A-Library

Day 1: Monday 30th of March, 10.00-18.00

Here is the chance for you to collectively select, build, categorise, catalogue, code, design and produce a temporary, performative library within the Meeting Grounds mobile trailer. For one week only we will be housing books from a range of different academies, schools, museums, libraries and individuals across Eindhoven, all of which can be used to create and evolve our very own public reading space in the trailer. 

Together we will build this temporary library from scratch, looking to explore each of the processes of librarianship along the way. Discussing what it means to host all of these different libraries in one temporary space alongside what it means to create and curate a library - how objective and inclusive can the act of librarianship truly be? Let’s find out!

Librarianathon

Day 2: Tuesday 31st of March & Day 3: Wednesday 1st of April

Day 2 and 3 of the programme offer the chance to meet the librarians from each of the contributing libraries who will share their knowledge around their personal takes on the categorisation of books and documents. Together we will observe how a trained librarian views the temporary library and what it means to be a professional librarian. They will have the opportunity to move the books around, to re-categorise, to add or to take away - all whilst leaving traces of the books that were there before. 

You are invited to join, intersect, challenge and change their decisions in these sessions, to question or to observe all to understand how each librarian views and understands their role and the responsibilities that come with it.

Meet Up #3: Unlearning the Bookshelf

Day 4: Thursday 2nd of April

On the penultimate evening of the programme, we will host Meeting Grounds Edition 1, Meet Up #3, a gathering around the shelves of the self-made library. During this meetup we will discuss what knowledge has been included and excluded, what audiences and members are attracted by certain libraries and what spaces does this in turn create. We question if the temporary library in the trailer could be seen as a public space, how does it act as a library space and for whom? 

Each participant should bring along a physical or digital photo of their own personal libraries, so we can begin to discuss and unravel how our everyday shelves intersect with ideas of politics, representation and intersectionality and accessibility.

The Reading Room is OPEN

Day 5: Friday 3rd of April and Saturday 4th April

For the final day you are welcome to join us in the temporary library to celebrate our reading room. Feel free to come and take a look at the books, read, discuss and share ideas. Stay as long as you want! Together we will look at which books have been popular, what we are missing in the collection or which might seem better off somewhere else. You can read together or in silence, stay for 10 minutes for 5 hours. Tea, coffee and cake will be served and reading groups are more than welcome!

During the day of Friday 3rd April, performance and readings will take place in the reading room throughout the day, all around the ideas of collective reading, authorship and voice.

Meet up #2: Unlearning the Bookshelf, Thursday 2 April 2020, 19.00-21.00

Part meetup, part workshop, part collective exploration, this event aims to challenge the conventions around reading and personal/public librarianship. Everyone is a librarian, but how do we navigate with the political and sociological implications of what we read and what we choose to place on our bookshelves. How can we explore our relationship to reading and librarianship through the lens of the public and private realms.

In this meetup, we aim to examine the Meeting Grounds temporary library that has been created and transformed throughout the week, alongside pictures brought if from each participant of their own personal libraries at home according to categories such as gender, nationality, sexuality and materiality. 

Through this exercise and our subsequent discussion we will investigate the ways in which the books that we read and the bookshelves that surround us in our daily lives are interwoven with wider political structures and debates. In this, we are particularly interested in countering hierarchies of knowledge that inhabit our bookshelves and our reading practices both in public institutions and in the private domain. Everyone is a librarian, but what responsibilities does this come with?

Please bring along a picture (either digital or physical) of your bookshelf, or a collection of books that you own. 

POSTPONED

A future vision of the library sees it make the transformation from institution to function, becoming more flexible, agile and able to realise new revenue models in the face of increasing austerity, and decreasing literacy levels. But what becomes its new function? In a purely functional sense, how can the library continue to give access to knowledge, and how can library members have a say in what is acquired? During our session, we will lay the foundations for the development of the new Boekstekje Bureau branch of the Eindhoven Public Library, one which responds to the needs of its members, reflects on what is missing or under-represented in its collection, and offers directions for new growth. The Boekstejke Bureau creates space, time and care for collective discussion and questioning of the role and function of library cataloguing, collections, potential and missing books, open access and membership participation.