The Library is not "Infrastructure"

Kritika Kultura, an international, open-access journal of literary, language, and cultural studies published by the Literary and Cultural Studies Program of Ateneo de Manila University, in partnership with the Literary and Cultural Studies Program of the School of Humanities, PLUME, and the Rizal Library, recently hosted a public lecture titled “The Library Is Not “Infrastructure”: Rethinking Libraries as Infrastructures (Material Systems, Cultural Forms, and the Work of Reimagining)” featuring Dr. Benedict “Bono” Salazar Olgado.

Dr. Olgado offered a critical re-examination of how modern society conceptualizes infrastructure, libraries, and archival systems. The lecture articulated a dual imperative for the future of information systems, calling on the humanities to attend more closely to the concrete material practices, maintenance, repair, and labor through which infrastructures endure, while encouraging librarianship and information science to take situated professional expertise seriously without allowing it to harden into insular gatekeeping.

The lecture was held last November 9, 2026 at the First Pacific Hall on the 5th floor of the New Rizal Library, Ateneo de Manila University.

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Photo courtesy of https://www.ateneo.edu.