For more information contact Jeffrey Schiff at 860-685-3525 or jschiff@wesleyan.edu

(MIDDLETOWN, CT) -- There is something strangely familiar about the string of numbers and letters on the wall at Neon Deli in Middletown. A similar string is posted in O'Rourke's Diner. And at the Destinta Theater. And all over the Wesleyan University Campus.

Secret code? A new Homeland Security initiative? International phone numbers?

Library books.

New numbers are part of an intriguing art installation created by Jeffrey Schiff, a professor of art at Wesleyan. Each number - there are more than 500 of them - corresponds to a specific book in the Wesleyan's four on-campus Libraries. The books, in turn, relate to something about the physical location where the call numbers were placed.

For example, the number placed above the meat slicer at Neon Deli, GT2860 R36 2003, is the call number for How we eat: appetite, culture, and the psychology of food by Leon Rappoport. The call number at O'Rourke's - NA7855.G87 2000 is the number for American diner: then and now by Richard J.S. Gutman. A number on a tree by a local parking lot, QK477.2.6 T73 1999 refers to Tree-ring analysis: biological, methodological, and environmental aspects edited by R. Wimmer and R.E. Vetter. A number on the front of Wesleyan's Olin Memorial Library, LC 3.4/2: 92/2003 is a match for a series of copyright information circulars from the Library of Congress. Copyright Office.

And there are more than 500 others.

Schiff says the installation in part came out of his desire to do a project that would "explore the institution of the library as an index to the larger world." It is also has roots in a project he did in the mid-1990s that used art to explore the foundations and presuppositions of Diderot's Encyclopedia.

The idea is to challenge people to see the profound influence of the library on their daily lives and draw them into the library.

"The basic strategy has been to mark the world in terms of the library," Schiff says, "This project aims to reverse the customary view that the library is an index to the world, and instead to see the world as an index to the expanding universe of the library."

It also offers a clear element of fun.

More than two years in the making, the installation was created by Schiff and three of his students. It is one of eight art exhibits created by his group for the Olin Library. The others are titled "Planet," "Yeast," "Deluge," "Number," "Worlds of…," "Masterpiece," "Excavations" and "Index." The projects are supported by The Christian Johnson Foundation, Wesleyan's Office of Academic Affairs, and Olin Memorial Library.

> Back to Press Releases