DIY-brary
Rick and Megan Prelinger couldn't find a library
with what they wanted, so they made their own
R.U. Sirius | Make Vol. 16- 2008 | Pdf | pgs | mb
It's an overcast Monday afternoon as I arrive at
8th and Folsom in San Francisco's seedy, bohe-
mian SOMA district. I find 3018th Street and then
buzz Room 215. A voice says hello. I tell him who
I am and he buzzes me in. I take an elevator to the
second floor, walk past several closed offices, and
enter a small room packed to the rafters with four
rows of shelves filled with books stacked 15 feet
high. This is not your typical 21st-century urbane.
haute-culture library.
The Prelinger Library (prelingerlibrary.org) is
the brainchild of Megan Shaw Prelinger and Rick
Prelinger. Founded in 2004, it's a DIY, appropriation-
friendly, intuitive, and highly personalized context for
organizing and sharing this couple's books, periodi-
cals, printed ephemera (like obscure government
documents from the Department of Indian Affairs),
and - most of all - their obsessions. In addition to
its physical presence in San Francisco. it has an on-
line presence of more than 3.000 scanned volumes
at the Internet Archive (archive.org).
...
