Sometimes when I’m talking about 2.0-ish stuff, it can be hard to think of immediate examples of how libraries have always been doing a lot of this stuff, we just now have the tools to make it easier. A case in point is an email I received this morning from the Finkelstein Memorial Library. They have an exhibit at their library of drawings from David Friedman, a Holocaust survivor, who found peace and quiet in libraries upon his arrival in the US. He made a series of sketches of people enjoying the library that are available online as a slide show. While the library didn’t use Flickr for this particular web page, they could have, and they could have done so without much technical knowledge whatsoever.
While working on this series, it was his trips to the library that offered him the necessary respite from the torment and agony of his memories. The artist said, “I needed to forget about the concentration camps and the horror that was there. So it was a pleasure to go to the library.” The artist’s wife, Hildegard, and his daughter, Miriam Friedman Morris, have donated Mr. Friedman’s drawings of libraries in St. Louis, Missouri during the period 1962-1972 to the Finkelstein Memorial Library in Spring Valley, New York. We have digitalized the images and it is our great pleasure to share them with you online.