A 5x7 photo book featuring all 41 of the University of Wisconsin-Madison's campus libraries.
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The “Libraries of UW-Madison” project began as a nine-photo series for my first photography assignment: a typology. I attempted to photograph pay phones around Madison; but, unfortunately, their growing obsolescence meant that I was only able to find about five before it became evident that photographing more would require a state-wide road trip (and a car).

As I was considering alternative themes for my assignment, I returned to an observation that one of my past English professors (Jon McKenzie) had shared a year before in a digital design course. In explaining UX (user experience) design, Professor McKenzie took my class on a walk around campus to demonstrate that, though the majority of campus buildings house academic information, their unique designs and architectural aesthetics can be read to tell us about how the stakeholders (the designers, users, and the university itself) think about and utilize the subject matter within each building. For example, the brutalist architecture of the 60s found in buildings like Humanities and Helen C. White suggests that art and literature were of great focus during that time period in the same way that more recent updates to buildings like Chamberlin reflect the current emphasis on science and technology in recent years.

I wanted to capture the idea of this differentiation between types of information, but wanted to do so in a way that was visually consistent so that viewers would be more easily able to draw connections and conclusions from the images. The innumerable different scales and forms that campus buildings take was a bit detrimental to this hope; so, I began to think about other physical commonalities between campus’ majors and departments. One thing that everyone who’s ever been on a UW-Madison campus tour knows is that the campus has a huge library system—roughly one for each major academic department. I knew I could guarantee a similar structure throughout all of the libraries (rows of shelves packed with books); so I started there. On site, I realized that there was another commonality in libraries that would echo the thoughts I’d had earlier about architectural variety—chairs. The difference in style, color, comfort, and age of the chairs encapsulated the concept of the buildings that I’d remembered better than I could’ve hoped. The next feature of the typology (the objects on the chairs) developed from my own need to take notes: after I had explored three or four unfamiliar collections, I knew that I would need a reminders to remember which departments were represented in which images. I decided it would be easy enough to take my notes in my photos by pulling a descriptive book from a nearby shelf and taking an extra picture with it included to reference later. But, upon visiting the Limnology Library, I realized that the information kept in the libraries included more than just books: the fishing nets, free condoms, and fluffy children’s puppets that I found provided me with an even deeper understanding of the UX design that I had originally been inspired by and painted a more holistic picture of the academic diversity at UW-Madison than I’d ever before seen. The diverse faculty and student population that I had the opportunity to interact with and learn from only added to my appreciation for the scope of the work going on around campus. I hope that viewers of all interests and areas of academia see these images and come to the understanding that their experiential definition of “library” or “information” is not someone else’s; and that by becoming attuned to how others’ experiences have influenced their ideas, they’ll be able better able to collaborate and communicate in the future—a process that I think is applicable present-day to more than just libraries.