A Place Not a Place: Reflection and Possibility in Museums and Libraries

by David Carr

Museums and libraries inspire us to cross the limits of routine thought, into experiences of reflection and possibility. Each of the essays in A Place Not a Place examines the ways these and other cultural institutions influence us and proposes ways to strengthen their role as advocates for critical thinking and inquiry.

Genres: Museums, School, Nonfiction

176 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

David Carr was a journalist who wrote for The New York Times. His peers often praised him for his humility and candor.

Carr overcame an addiction to cocaine and wrote about his experiences as an addict in The Night of the Gun. The New Yorker called it "bracingly honest memoir. In sharp and sometimes poetic prose, the author takes a detailed inventory of his years of drug addiction."

In February, 2015 he collapsed in the New York Times newsroom and was pronounced dead shortly after. He was married to Jill Carr and had three children.

Reviews

[Candis]

Read for background information in my Libraries as Cultural Heritage Institutions course this term. Some of the essays were actually very thought provoking, actually glad I managed to read it before I started my course assignments that require museum visits. Not much else to say as it is a textbook.

[Olivia]

Lots to chew on in each essay. Not the most inspiring overall but I did find a number of inspiring passages and ways in which of thinking to rethink your museum practice.

[Tara]

Very good textbook for Library Science and Museum Studies students... I specifically like how it incorporates Education and Bloom's Taxonomy to create tiers of information exposure for patrons.