about the second edition of the library
This Second Edition of A Working Library retains the principles and sense of experimentation of the First Edition, but in a slightly different guise: one that privileges the reading experience above all else. The revised design makes this a site that is both about reading and for reading – both an exploration of and an advocate for the reading experience.
—Mandy Brown October 2008
about the first edition of the library
The phrase ‘a working library’ is usually taken to mean a collection of texts on a given subject, for the purpose of an academic or professional work. So, people speak of a working library on Proust, for example, or on psychotherapy. This working library differs in two key regards: there is no defined subject, and the purpose is so far opaque. This is intentional.
There are, however, some ideas at play. The first is that every book is connected to many other books, such that no book can or should be considered in isolation. When you read a book, you bring to it all the other books you’ve read (and been affected by), so your reading of it is necessarily unique. The second is that criticism should be generative, not merely critical; I will be responding to books, not reviewing them. And third, while the subject matter will vary, my own perspective is steady: that of a designer keenly interested in process and theory.
Great book design is invisible; it gives form to the text such that you could imagine the words no other way. It makes a graceful entrance, and then disappears as you read. I have sought to achieve these same qualities with the design of this site, though I believe it has been an asymptotic approach. It is likely that I will experiment with the design as time goes by, such that neither the form nor the content of the site are immutable.
—Mandy Brown June 2008
