Admittedly, I have been living in Westwood and going to school at UCLA for four years and I have never been to the Louise Darling Biomedical Library. Upon entry, I was immediately confronted with what seemed like a combative environment. Half of the library seemed very technologically advanced while the other half of the library seemed like a traditional library. It was clear that there were some major expenses that had been spent on technology to help students study, however it seemed like other portions of the library were completely left out of the renovations.
Not only was the technology contradicting (between new apple computers to huge old desktops sitting against the walls), but some of the furniture was contradictory as well. On the outskirts of the room, there were extremely old style student desks that were secluded while in the middle was a more open concept and modern style library similar to that of the Young Research Library. The outskirts of the room also had some artwork on the walls which consisted mostly of nature scenes with a repeating pink floral canvas. I felt like the artwork was out of place and just there to fill space in the room.
This library represents the clash of cultures that we see in both the art and science aspects of this class. Where science and art collides, like the clashing of old and new, we find an organized chaos left behind. For example, when you walk into this library, you see two different worlds of technology but looking at it as a whole we see the transition from old knowledge to new knowledge. The new graphics, special effects, nanotechnology open up a new world that was previously unexplored by the old world, resulting in a third, combined culture.
