The Library Examined was a workshop held in January 2018 at Senate House Library, University of London. The workshop was designed and facilitated by Heiba Lamara and Rose Nordin from OOMK and Hudda Khaireh from Thick/er Black Lines in discussion with Laurence Byrne and Leila Kassir, Research Librarians at Senate House Library. The Library Examined was aimed at non-library-card-holders with the ambition to help demystify library processes and spaces and to provide a forum for the discussion and critiquing of the organisation of knowledge within the library. This article describes in the first three sections the librarians’ view of the workshop and why it was initiated, before Heiba and Hudda outline their invitation and research, and the workshop itself.
A version of this paper was presented at the annual conference of ARLIS UK & Ireland held at the Architectural Association, London, in July 2018.