Reading the Library: An Ethnography of Place in One Baltimore City Library

In its mission statement, The Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore aims to "empower, enrich, and enhance the quality of life for all through equitable access to information, services, and opportunity." At the branch level, I argue that a successful public library must encourage dialogue between the institution and its users. This dialogue is influenced by the library’s physical spaces. Understanding space as an ecology of interactions, I report how a brick-and-mortar library building successfully facilitates a dynamic institution-user relationship. My findings come from a six-month ethnographic study of a Pratt branch in Northeast Baltimore that asks how its users shape the greater Pratt mission through their interactions within the branch’s physical spaces. Along with providing traditional library services, this branch library functions as a location where users both directly and indirectly create community through the manipulation of static spaces. Despite these successes, this library building exists in a state of underlying tension as to the future of its physical infrastructure. My reading of space in this branch library also provides useful insights into other institution-user dynamics.