Professor Alistair Black has received an award from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Research Board for his project "Buildings of Hope: The Design of Public Libraries in Britain in the Long 1960s."
The project examines what modernist library design meant to librarians, architects, local politicians and planners, and the public. The research will contribute to recent revisions of the thesis that the 1960s in Britain was in effect a “failed” decade.
The grant from the Research Board will provide for Black to undertake fieldwork in Britain during the Summer of 2013.
Black is the co-author of Books, Buildings and Social Engineering: Early Public Libraries in Britain from Past to Present (2009, Ashgate Publishing), which explores the development and symbolism of the public library built form in Britain between 1850, when public libraries first appeared, and 1939. The book is co-authored by Simon Pepper and Kaye Bagshaw of Liverpool University.