ABSTRACT

This paper asks how libraries have rhythmed women’s education and everyday lives. It draws on women’s narratives of library use in a multicultural suburb of Birmingham, UK. It shows that women’s use of libraries exists in rhythmic relations with other times and places, both public and private. The narratives reveal the value of the library in offering space for women to claim time for themselves in the Lefebvrian “weak time, the stops, silences, blanks”. Routines, cycles and continuity of use over various scales are important in women’s engagements with libraries. Memorable too are particular moments. Punctuating the quotidian rhythms of library use, these moments are individual stories of rupture; times of great significance in women’s lives. Changes to library provision have, therefore, rhythmic consequences, with reduced opening hours and library closure bringing arrhythmia. Through the library, women are linked to particular histories and they enter into shared rhythms, within both the present and the past. Libraries, this paper argues, offer not only an important public space but also public time.¹

摘要

本文探讨图书馆如何为女性教育和日常生活安排节奏。它借鉴了英国伯明翰多元文化郊区女性对图书馆使用的叙述。它表明女性对图书馆的使用与其他时间和地点（公共和私人）存在节奏关系。这些叙述揭示了图书馆的价值，它为女性在列斐伏里安“虚弱的时间、停止、沉默、空白”中为自己争取时间提供了空间。各种规模的日常使用、循环和连续性对于女性与图书馆的互动非常重要。难忘的时刻也是特别的时刻. 标点图书馆使用的日常节奏，这些时刻是个人破裂的故事；在女性生活中具有重要意义的时代。因此，图书馆提供的变化具有节奏性的后果，开放时间减少和图书馆关闭会导致心律失常。通过图书馆，女性与特定的历史联系在一起，她们在现在和过去都进入了共同的节奏。本文认为，图书馆不仅提供重要的公共空间，还提供公共时间。¹