{"id":778,"date":"2025-11-09T17:47:47","date_gmt":"2025-11-10T00:47:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mdia300\/?p=778"},"modified":"2025-11-09T17:47:47","modified_gmt":"2025-11-10T00:47:47","slug":"the-living-library-mediating-morality-in-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mdia300\/archives\/778","title":{"rendered":"The Living Library: Mediating Morality in Books"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In early October, Ela Chua published a response to Umberto Eco: A Library of the World<\/em> <\/a>and intertwined its themes with Tim Ingold\u2019s Making<\/em>. Though we have since moved past Eco\u2019s work in our course, I continue to reflect on the combination of ideas that Ela illustrated. Most notably, the concepts of \u201cvegetal memory\u201d and physical media become newly relevant when seen through Bollmer and Verbeek\u2019s insights on materializing media and morality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ela\u2019s original post analyzes Umberto Eco: A Library of the World<\/em> as a meditation on the relationship between media, materiality, and knowledge. She draws parallels between Eco\u2019s physical engagement with books and Ingold\u2019s concept of \u201cmaking,\u201d emphasizing that media are living things, not static objects. Her discussion of Eco\u2019s notion of \u201cvegetal memory\u201d positions books as dynamic participants in collective knowledge rather than mere commodities. I would argue that Umberto Eco: A Library of the World<\/em> represents one of the most pivotal moments in our course for connecting abstract concepts in media theory with tangible examples from material culture. Ela effectively reframes reading and archiving as material practices that blur the boundaries between mind, media, and memory, and while she beautifully captures the idea of a living and ever-changing archive, my recent engagement with Bollmer (2019) and Verbeek (2006) has inspired me to extend this conversation into the realm of design and mediation. Through their frameworks, I reinterpret Eco\u2019s cherished books \u2013 and his broader \u201clibrary of the world\u201d \u2013 as a technological system that performs ethical and cognitive mediation, revealing how books themselves reconfigure and deliver information in ways that shape our collective morality and behaviour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ela adeptly presents Eco\u2019s library as a living archive that mediates the relationship between media and memory, providing insights into how books shape thought, culture, and history. However, on a higher level, I argue that Eco\u2019s \u201clibrary of the world\u201d acts as designed systems of mediation that directly influence a user\u2019s perception of information and subsequent actions. Both Bollmer and Verbeek argue against the common misconception that media and technology are neutral, immaterial tools, and instead posit that technologies are deeply performative: they shape how we act, think, and relate to the world around us. Bollmer\u2019s (2019) point of performative materialism states that in order to know what media are, the concentration should not be on the content that it presents but rather what actions they create in the material world. Verbeek echoes this sentiment through his concept of technological mediation, or the role of technology in human action (how we are present in their world) and human experience (how the world is present to us). For example, cataloguing systems such as the Dewey Decimal system or Eco\u2019s personal organization shape what readers see as \u201crelated knowledge.\u201d Bollmer (2019)\u2019s idea that \u201crelations of opposition and conflict\u201d are inseparable from design\u2019s performative agency (pp. 174\u2013176) is relevant when we consider the political implications of archival organization, such as the separation of \u201cnational\u201d and \u201clocal\u201d history based on the dominant ethnic groups (Brown & Davis-Brown, 1998). The mediation in this technological system occurs not only through absorbing the content presented by the books themselves but through the way information is structured and retrieved. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eco\u2019s focus on physical media and the surrounding space of library archives displays the unique expectations and material effects that translate from the archival system to human behaviour. Verbeek (2006) draws from Don Ihde\u2019s notion that technologies have \u201cintentions\u201d embedded in their design to argue that media artifacts are able to influence moral human decisions. He introduces the concept of scripts, or implicit instructions that artifacts have immersed in their material design (p. 367). For example, books have the script \u201cflip my pages slowly so they don\u2019t rip\u201d, and we follow this instruction because of what it signifies, not because of its material presence in the relation between humans and the world. This inherent prescription encourages ethical learning through slowness and touch. Bollmer\u2019s concept of neurocognitive materialism (2019, pp. 171\u2013175) highlights how the body, brain, and media form a single interactive system, and speak to the physical relationship Eco holds with his books. Eco demonstrates how media reconfigures human cognition and sensation with his refusal to put on gloves to preserve a book\u2019s material, rather letting it decay, breathe, and live in its environment. In comparison to digital systems, the tangible experience that libraries create for users also directs certain actions and behaviours from its users. For example, a Google search flattens knowledge into relevance rankings and a convenient AI summary, whereas Eco\u2019s physical search forces conscientiousness and slowness, changing the ethical and cognitive nature of how we \u201cfind\u201d information. Eco\u2019s books literally embody moral mediation by encouraging reflective engagement rather than passive consumption. Thus, it is clear that the library, as a system, trains perception and shapes patterns of thought just as modern interfaces (such as smartphone swipes) train behavioral habits. Overall, Verbeek and Bollmer stress that as media consumers and creators, we must recognize that these artifacts literally shape the embodied experience of being human.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This added perspective of design mediating morality shifts the conversation of media theory past the immaterial\/material binary and a physical vs. digital debate to show that media, regardless of the form it takes, always performs important ethical work by shaping perception and behaviour. Overall, my own reflection has inspired some questions for us as media students and creators: how might digital design learn from Eco\u2019s tactile ethics of reading? Can we design interfaces that nurture moral reflection rather than automate it? Whether through pages or pixels, designers and users alike participate in the ongoing ethical mediation of knowledge. As Bollmer (2019) concludes, \u201cIf we want to create a better world, we have to begin with what matters.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Citations:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bollmer, G. (2019). Materialist media theory: An introduction. Bloomsbury Academic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brown, R. H., & Davis-Brown, B. (1998). The making of memory: The politics of archives, libraries and museums in the construction of national consciousness. History of the Human Sciences, 11(4), 17\u201332. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1177\/095269519801100402<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ingold, T. (2013). Making: Anthropology, archaeology, art and architecture. Routledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ferrario, D. (Director). (2022). Umberto Eco: A library of the world [Film]. Stefilm, Altara Films.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Verbeek, P.-P. (2006). Materializing morality: Design ethics and technological mediation. Science, Technology, & Human Values, 31(3), 361\u2013380. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1177\/0162243905285847<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In early October, Ela Chua published a response to Umberto Eco: A Library of the World and intertwined its themes with Tim Ingold\u2019s Making. Though we have since moved past Eco\u2019s work in our course, I continue to reflect on the combination of ideas that Ela illustrated. Most notably, the concepts of \u201cvegetal memory\u201d and … Continue reading The Living Library: Mediating Morality in Books<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":103482,"featured_media":780,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[152,88,34,65],"class_list":["post-778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-critical-response","tag-grant-bollmer","tag-ingold","tag-materiality","tag-umberto-eco"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mdia300\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mdia300\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mdia300\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mdia300\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/103482"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mdia300\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=778"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mdia300\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/778\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":781,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mdia300\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/778\/revisions\/781"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mdia300\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mdia300\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mdia300\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mdia300\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}