Affect and emotional geographies: how do personal experiences transform the library?

Why affect?

Coming from a strong background in feminist theory, I found studies on affect through a queer theory class and was immediately drawn to its multi-disciplinary nature. Affect theory is the study of affect (often, but not always called emotion) and how affects come to be experienced uniquely by each individual. Further, affect seeks to understand why, when, and how these reactions exist or are manifested in different settings.

In my undergraduate studies, I found myself having affectual ties to certain areas on campus. Namely, I had a specific study area in the library that I frequented and that had positive effects on my work habits because of the lack of reaction I had when I worked there. To me, this spot had added value because it allowed me to focus without the distractions of emotions. It was a positive, neutral space for me to study and I appreciated that.

Conversely, I had a spot within the library that was emotionally charged and held a strong affectual reaction. As mentioned before, I studied a fair amount of queer theory and feminist theory. Unfortunately, at the university I studied at, the queer theory books were often housed alongside books related to sex offenders. When I discovered this, I had a strong affectual reaction that immediately tied that location to a negative feeling.

What am I doing?

My experiences, my affectual responses, and my memories of them, are what drove me to select the topic of emotional geographies, affect theory, and how the two tie together to create personal understandings of space. I argue that emotion and affect give cultural relevance to libraries and archives, and add to their value. I seek to synthesize how affect can add value to a library space or item, and how individuals experience emotion within affect-charged spaces in the library.

An individual may have strong ties to their childhood bedroom, and how it existed alongside their upbringing, or someone may fondly remember a particular coffee shop where they met a

significant other. These emotionally charged spaces serve to define us and who we are - why shouldn’t the library be included as an emotional, affective location? Perhaps this would argue for the sake of keeping libraries as physical spaces, and contribute to the battle of whether or not libraries are still relevant in a modern, digital age (spoiler - they are!).

Has this been done before?

Finding peer-reviewed literature that touched on libraries as affectual spaces was, unsurprisingly, difficult to track down. I had more luck looking at archives and affect, affect as a cultural indicator, and general studies on the affectual interactions between people and objects. Affect and culture is a well fleshed out topic, and by combining this with studies on emotional geographies, I was able to find some semi-solid footing.

With more research being done on affect in the archives, I’m curious to see how this can be applied to libraries. Research in this is sparse, and while many works exist on the surrounding topics and theories, it is difficult to find peer-reviewed, high quality studies specifically on affect in libraries. There is a strong need to take what has been written about geographies, archives, objects, and culture and apply it to the library, helping to answer the question of how to value information and space in the library setting.

Methodology

Here, I am looking to my readers to help me decide which research method they feel would accompany my study best. I know that I will need to conduct a qualitative study in order to extract how people are feeling, where, and potentially why. This will be done first through a survey with both closed and open ended questions, and based on responses I will reach out to individuals and invite them for an interview or a series of interviews.

Respondents who have indicated that they may have strong emotional ties to the library, to its collections, or to a certain experience within the library will be invited to tell me their story however they feel it should be told. This could include them taking me to their spots, sitting with me and telling a personal story, or simply reflecting on their experiences in the library and what may have been going on in their lives at that time to create an emotional tie or sense of remembrance.

Can I take this information and apply a quantitative approach to it? While portions of my survey can be deemed quantitative in nature, because it has open-ended questions it is not purely quantitative. A few thoughts:

• Gather enough respondents that I can create a form of statistic (ie 75% of individuals feel a strong emotional tie to the library)

• Can a study on affect and emotion create an objective statement, or is it bound to always be subjective?

• Would I be able to gather enough data from respondents to entertain the possibility of creating a replicable, representative conclusion?

• Is it disrespectful, or even possible, to create data out of emotions?

Personally, I believe that mixed-methods will be the way to go, I simply have not yet decided my exact path. Because traditional conceptions of value are not “soft”, I think it will be important to translate my work into a “solid”, quantifiable way. Having a form of quantitative assessment would go leagues in solidifying that my research is important in the sense that affect can indeed add value to a library.