Libraries through the lens
Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Library, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID), Maison de la Paix, Geneva, Switzerland.
THIS month’s Libraries through the lens is influenced by the events in Ukraine. Kremlin aggression has seen Russian troops enter the country, missiles launched on cities, and thousands of Ukrainian civil- ians looking for a way to escape the danger of war.
Photographer and librarian Thomas Guignard explains: “This image is not the one I had initially selected for this issue of Information Professional. As I was preparing this month’s contribution, news of the Russian military invasion of Ukraine started pouring in. Suddenly, all my preoccupations around architectural
March 2022
innovation for library spaces became mundane in comparison to images of people seeking safety on subway plat- forms. How can I speak of elegance, comfort and convenience when personal safety, that most primordial of needs, is being denied to others?
“So, I went back to my archives for any- thing that could have some connection to what I wanted to express, to an image of the library of Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, Switzerland. It is located in the ‘Maison de la Paix’, unveiled in 2013 as the Institute’s new headquarters and also home to several international and
non-governmental organisations dedicated to peacekeeping.
“One of the most prominent alumni of the Graduate Institute was the late Kofi Annan, laureate of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize for his work as Secretary General of the United Nations. These words pro- nounced during his acceptance lecture resonate with me: ‘We can love what we are, without hating what – and who – we are not.’
“As I watch the news from Ukraine and those, closer to home, of deepening so- cietal divisions, I can only wish for more awareness of the humanity that binds us rather than what tears us apart. Peace.”
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