From Valerie Madill’s enlightened project, “Looking at Libraries”
Knowing there are only 21 main subject it was important to colour coding the labels. This is a major part of having the content design the space, it is the subject that “paints” the space. Since all Academic libraries use the same classification system, one can see the possibility of quickly familiarizing oneself with a specific subject’s colour, making it easy to place yourself in a new library. This opens new opportunities for signage and wayfinding designs. Books design the space—every library is familiar, yet unique. My favourite aspect of the colours is knowing a law library’s colour palette will be dramatically different then that of a Art & Design library. The colours are assigned to the subjects as a rainbow gradient since there is no such thing as 21 unique colours and the classification system is linear.
Doesn’t this have the practical problem of obscuring the most accessible and useful data - the title on the spine? Perhaps if the libraries’ sleve were tinted transparent cellophane, that would be a step up from this opaque clamp that only shows a call number.
Changes to a design must be functional first, an esthetic second. Introducing such a major regression to make a “pretty” design with marginal high-level benefit fundamentally disrespects the content itself - the book.
Comment by Mike — July 21, 2008 @ 8:09 am
@Mike: Yeah, it seems as though you could simply scale down the cover. I’m not sure about the practicality of using a paper cover, especially in a public library environment. I appreciate what she’s doing, but wonder how it could be made more efficient and practical.
This concerned me: “My favourite aspect of the colours is knowing a law library’s colour palette will be dramatically different then that of a Art & Design library.” Does that mean that every library uses its own color scheme? The beauty of the call number system is that it is consistent no matter where you go. Different color sets could be problematic, or maybe I’m missing the point.
It is an interesting look at how to better organize very large collections of data.
Comment by Matt — July 26, 2008 @ 11:06 am
Hi!
I came across the comments and thought I would mention ColorMarq Shelf Management ID Systems. It takes the basic ideas above but takes the concept to a much more detailed solution. Because ColorMarq also customizes it’s label to each library, even within sections of the library, ColorMarq can implement existing colors being used for identification as well incorporating any other identifiers desired (or as in a concern listed above…..if covered up). ColorMarq is adaptable to any size library and can even be used only in heavily used areas within the library if needed. So please take a look at the website…..I think you will find it interesting! Thanks for your time!
Comment by Penney Gunn — February 20, 2009 @ 2:40 pm