An Interview with a Librarian Who Curates a Living Art Collection in the Stacks
At first glance, the library appears to be doing what libraries have always done: holding stories in careful rows, preserving knowledge, and offering quiet corners for concentration. Yet between the shelves, a different kind of archive is taking shape. Paintings lean beside poetry collections, handmade objects occupy reading-room cases, and artists’ traces become part of the building’s daily rhythm.
Mara Ellis, a research librarian and independent curator, calls it a “living art collection.” Her project invites visual artists, makers, photographers, and writers to respond to the library itself. The resulting works do not sit apart from the books. They converse with them, interrupt them, and sometimes change the way visitors move through the stacks.
Mass Musings spoke with Mara about collecting contemporary art, creating accessible cultural experiences, and making room for creative practice inside an institution built around preservation.
The library as a working studio
Mass Musings: When did you begin thinking of the library as a place for art?
Mara Ellis: I had always noticed the visual language of libraries: handwritten notes, bookplates, worn spines, old repair tape, the changing color of dust jackets. Those details felt like an accidental exhibition. The turning point came when an artist donated a series of small cyanotypes made from discarded library cards. We placed them near the local history section, and people began stopping to talk about memory, classification, and who gets remembered.
That response showed me that the library was already a cultural meeting point. It did not need to become a gallery. It needed to recognize the creative activity already happening around it. Students sketch in the margins of their notebooks, readers annotate passages, and visitors bring their own histories into contact with the collection.
Mass Musings: Does that change how you define a library collection?
Ellis: It expands the definition. A collection can include objects, conversations, gestures, and relationships. The artworks we host are cataloged, but they are also activated by proximity. A photograph beside a book on migration acquires one meaning; the same photograph near a gardening manual may suggest another. The stacks create unexpected forms of visual storytelling.
Listening to artists and their materials
Mara’s curatorial process begins with conversation rather than acquisition. She asks artists what they notice when they enter the building, which spaces draw their attention, and what kind of contact they want with the public. Some artists create new work, while others lend pieces connected to their existing practice.
The distinction matters because the collection is built through exchange. A sculptor might use retired shelving brackets in a wall-based assemblage. A sound artist could record the low mechanical hum of the ventilation system and layer it with voices reading passages from banned books. A textile artist may transform checkout slips into a woven panel that changes as sunlight moves across it.
“I’m interested in work that acknowledges where it is,” Ellis says. “The library is never a neutral container. It has rules, habits, histories, and power. Artists can make those visible without turning the space into a lecture.”
This approach also gives emerging creators a meaningful platform. Their work is encountered by people who may not visit commercial galleries or formal art institutions. A person arriving to renew a book might encounter a photographic series about local waterways, then discover a new way into both the artwork and the surrounding research materials.
How a living collection grows
Unlike a conventional permanent collection, the library’s artworks have changing lives. Some remain for a season, some are loaned for several years, and some become part of the permanent holdings. The decision depends on durability, relevance, conservation needs, and the artist’s wishes.
| Work or format | Relationship to the stacks | Typical visitor experience |
|---|---|---|
| Artist book | Shelved alongside literary and visual culture titles | A tactile encounter during browsing |
| Site-specific installation | Responds to architecture, light, or circulation | Discovery through movement |
| Photography series | Connects local history with contemporary life | Reflection and visual research |
| Participatory artwork | Invites notes, contributions, or shared making | Community exchange |
| Audio piece | Uses headphones or ambient sound zones | Slower, more intimate attention |
Ellis keeps a collection file for every work, including installation notes, access requirements, conservation information, and the artist’s own description. She also records visitor responses when appropriate. These notes become part of the artwork’s social history.
“Preservation is often imagined as keeping something untouched,” she explains. “But some pieces need interaction to remain meaningful. Our responsibility is to protect the work while understanding the kind of life it was made to have.”
That balance can be complicated. A participatory piece may gather hundreds of handwritten contributions, while a delicate paper sculpture may need strict limits on handling. The library’s staff must develop practical systems without removing the sense of discovery that makes the collection feel alive.
Designing encounters beyond the display case
The artworks are accompanied by reading lists, artist talks, listening sessions, and informal gatherings. These events create pathways between creative disciplines rather than treating each piece as an isolated attraction. A display about botanical illustration might lead to a poetry workshop, a conversation with a local ecologist, and a shelf of books selected by the exhibiting artist.
Ellis believes this layered approach is essential to community-centered curation. “A label can tell you what something is,” she says. “A program can help you understand why it matters to someone else. Then you have an opening for your own response.”
The library also collaborates with neighborhood organizations, schools, and independent publishers. For larger cultural projects, partnerships with experienced creative production services can help bring together visual identity, event logistics, editorial storytelling, and audience engagement without flattening the artist’s voice.
Accessibility shapes each decision. Events may include captions, tactile materials, quiet hours, large-print interpretation, or alternate ways to participate. The goal is to make the collection available to more people while respecting that attention, movement, and sensory experience differ from visitor to visitor.
The hidden labor of cultural care
Curating art in a public library involves more than selecting beautiful objects. It requires maintenance schedules, budget planning, permissions, insurance, installation safety, and communication across departments. Ellis works with librarians, facilities staff, archivists, educators, and artists to ensure that the work can function within a busy public environment.
There are also questions of representation. A living collection should reflect the community without turning identity into a quota or asking artists to speak for an entire group. Ellis looks for a range of practices, materials, ages, geographies, and viewpoints, while allowing each artist to retain complexity.
“Care means staying in relationship,” she says. “We check in after the opening. We ask whether the interpretation is accurate. We notice who is engaging and who might be missing. The collection should keep teaching us.”
That commitment makes the library feel less like a passive venue and more like a cultural ecosystem. Its art changes with the seasons, the neighborhood, and the people who encounter it. Even temporary work leaves a residue: a new question in a visitor’s notebook, a conversation between strangers, or a book borrowed because of an artwork nearby.
Ways to build a more responsive collection
For librarians, community organizers, and independent curators interested in developing a similar project, Ellis recommends beginning with modest, attentive steps:
- Start with the architecture, routines, and local histories already present in the space.
- Invite artists into the planning process before deciding what the final display should look like.
- Create clear agreements covering loans, credit, access, conservation, and documentation.
- Pair artworks with books, recordings, workshops, or conversations that deepen the encounter.
- Gather visitor responses while protecting privacy and avoiding pressure to participate.
The most successful projects, Ellis says, are designed for continuity rather than spectacle. A single installation can be memorable, but a sustained relationship with artists creates trust. Over time, the library becomes known as a place where creative work is welcomed, discussed, and cared for.
That may be the collection’s greatest value. It gives art room to meet people in the middle of ordinary life: between research sessions, on the way to a story hour, or while searching for a book whose title has just slipped from memory. The stacks become a place of discovery in the fullest sense, where knowledge is held, questioned, remixed, and shared.
Libraries everywhere are rich with overlooked textures, local stories, and collaborative possibility. Begin by noticing what your own community already gathers, then create a small opening for artists and audiences to meet there. A shelf, a reading room, or a single thoughtful invitation can become the first piece of a living collection.