WALKING LIBRARY: NIGHT WALK, STANFORD UNIVERSITY & PALO ALTO, CA 2013
On 28 June 2013 the Walking Library walked from dusk to dawn to visit the sleeping libraries of Palo Alto and Stanford University as part of the Performance Studies International Conference 19: NOW THEN: Performance and Temporality. We walked with rucksacks filled with books that prompt reflection on the various temporalities of walking – the historical practices of walking, the rhythms of walking, the relationship of time to the walker’s experience – duration, time-space, the futurity of walking, slow reading…
Carrying a map of all the libraries in Standford and Palo Alto, we aimed to visit each one in turn. All but the main campus library were closed. In the quiet of night time we read to each other and to the darkened libraries, posting into each Book Return Box a Walking Library patch and leaflet, letting the guardians of these public places know we had visited, had spent time here, in the dead of night. We read in the shadows of darkened book shelves, beneath street lamps, while sleepwalking, until the dawn chorus.
The Walking Library 