Erinn Batykefer

Guest Writer / Librarian / United States / Library as Incubator Project

www.libraryasincubatorproject.org

Erinn Batykefer is one of the three founders of the Library as Incubator Project.

The Library as Incubator Project was created by Erinn Batykefer, Laura Damon-Moore, and Christina Endres, all graduates of the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Library and Information Studies.

The mission of the Library as Incubator Project is to promote and facilitate creative collaboration between libraries and artists of all types, and to advocate for libraries as incubators of the arts.

Erinn Batykefer earned her MFA in Writing from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2007 and her Master of Library and Information Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2012. Her first poetry collection, Allegheny, Monongahela (Red Hen Press 2009), won the Benjamin Saltman Poetry Prize and the poem “Pittsburgh as Self-Portrait” was featured on the Pennsylvania Center for the Book’s Public Poetry Project broadsides, which were displayed in coffeeshops, libraries, and public transit around the state. Batykefer focused on public librarianship during her MLIS and is particularly interested in ebooks and electronic access, social media marketing, community programming and engagement, and teen lit.

Contributed Articles

Archives & Libraries

Highlights from the Paul Rand Library

By Erinn Batykefer June 14, 2012

Library as Incubator Project, an organization whose mission is to encourage artists and designers of all types to work with libraries in ways that inspire increased creativity, explores graphic designer Paul Rand’s (1914–96) personal library, now held by Yale University, where Rand taught design for 35 years.

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Announcements

Now is Better by Stefan Sagmeister

Now is Better

By Stefan Sagmeister
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: October 2023

Combining art, design, history, and quantitative analysis, transforms data sets into stunning artworks that underscore his positive view of human progress, inspiring us to think about the future with much-needed hope.

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Design Emergency: Building a Better Future by Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli

Design Emergency: Building a Better Future

By Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: May 2022

Rawsthorn and Antonelli tell the stories of the remarkable designers, architects, engineers, artists, scientists, and activists who are at the forefront of positive change worldwide. Focusing on four themes—Technology, Society, Communication, and Ecology—the authors present a unique portrait of how our great creative minds are developing new design solutions to the major challenges of our time, while helping us to benefit from advances in science and technology.

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Love Letter to a Garden by Debbie Millman

Love Letter to a Garden

By Debbie Millman
Contributions by Roxane Gay
Publisher: Timber Press
Published: April 15, 2025

From the award-winning artist, designer, and the host of the podcast Design Matters, Debbie Millman, this book tells the visual story of falling in love with gardening—and the philosophies that work conjures. Spread throughout are simple recipes using the garden’s ingredients from Millman’s wife, best-selling author Roxane Gay.

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Milton Glaser: POP by Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber

Milton Glaser: POP

By Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber
Publisher: The Monacelli Press
Published: March 2023

This collection of work from graphci design legend Milton Glaser’s Pop period features hundreds of examples of the designer’s work that have not been seen since their original publication, demonstrating the graphic revolution that transformed design and popular culture.

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Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall by Alexandra Lange

Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall

By Alexandra Lange
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published: June 2022

Chronicles postwar architects’ and merchants’ invention of the shopping mall, revealing how the design of these marketplaces played an integral role in their cultural ascent. Publishers Weekly writes, “Contending that malls answer ‘the basic human need’ of bringing people together, influential design critic Lange advocates for retrofitting abandoned shopping centers into college campuses, senior housing, and ‘ethnocentric marketplaces’ catering to immigrant communities. Lucid and well researched, this is an insightful study of an overlooked and undervalued architectural form.”

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Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902–1911 (Facsimile Edition) by Diane V. Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds, and Megan Brandow-Faller

Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902–1911 (Facsimile Edition)

By Diane V. Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds, and Megan Brandow-Faller
Publisher: Letterform Archives Books
Published: October 2023

This facsimile edition of Die Fläche, recreates every page of the formative design periodical in full color and at original size, accompanied by essays that contextualize the work, highlighting contributions by pathbreaking women, innovative lettering artists, and key practitioners of the new “surface art,” including Rudolf von Larisch, Alfred Roller, and Wiener Werkstätte founders Koloman Moser and Josef Hoffmann.

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