At gallery, a warning about the loss of libraries

Mindy Nierenberg and some of the card catalog drawers that are part of "Bibliotheca Publicus: An Endangered Species." (Pat Greenhouse/Globe Staff)

Even in the Internet age, Medford artist Mindy Nierenberg believes there's something special about walking into a public library.

Maybe it's the pungent smell of ink and paper. Maybe it's the sight of volumes neatly stacked on shelves, all there for the borrowing. Maybe it's the hush of concentration among readers and researchers. Maybe it's how you can walk up to a reference librarian and ask a question in simple English, rather than ponder what might be the right key words to get Google to cough up data.

"I love libraries; I absolutely adore them," said Nierenberg, senior program manager at Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service at Tufts University and a mixed-media artist who infuses her creations with a sense of purpose and activism. "It's the one place you can go to transport yourself to another place."

Nierenberg's installation, "Bibliotheca Publicus: An Endangered Species," now on display at Tufts University Art Gallery, is both an homage to libraries and a warning that they are threatened by budget cuts and the perception (erroneous in Nierenberg's opinion) that the Internet has rendered them obsolete.

Nierenberg's piece is one of five works on display as part of "5x5," the annual summer Tufts artist series featuring artists who have created spatial and perceptual environments.

"Bibliotheca Publicus" is perhaps the most politically pointed of the five works. Two walls are each filled with about 1,700 yellowed and battered cards, held together like a patchwork quilt, retrieved from the card catalog once used at the Medford Public Library. Emblazoned across one of these "quilts" are statements about libraries from such luminaries as Isaac Asimov, Germaine Greer, and Andrew Carnegie.

"Whatever the cost of our libraries, the price is cheap compared to that of an ignorant nation," said Walter Cronkite.

On the other "quilt" are quotations about library budget cuts and closings, including one from the mayor of Bridgeport, Conn., that fills Nierenberg with horrified amazement: "We are getting back to basics. . . . Libraries are not essential services."

"People are forgetting that libraries are the cornerstone of our democracy," she said.

Nierenberg's installation also includes a card catalog, saved from the scrapheap. Inside the drawers, where the cards used to go, she has placed bits of artwork and ephemera reflecting on the history of libraries. The drawer labels are a whimsical play on alphabetical listings as in: "Ambiguity to Answers," "Art to Awakening," "Flight to Freedom," and "Courage to Create."

But 12 of the 48 drawers are locked shut - reflecting sizable budget cuts. More ominously, against a wall are about 200 books Nierenberg purchased at library sales and plastered white to resemble tombstones.

"This is a memorial to reading," she said. "I had read that only 40 percent of Americans had read a book within the last two years."

Nierenberg, a 52-year-old native of Long Island who has lived in Medford for 18 years, began her art career focusing on printmaking; she now works in multimedia with an emphasis on activism and social engagement. Her recent works have included pieces on child abuse, Cambodian genocide, and women's issues. She teaches the course "Art, Activism, and Community: Visual Art for Social Change" at the Experimental College at Tufts and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and speaks fervently about how art can motivate people.

The spark for the "Bibliotheca Publicus" came when she was visiting her husband's hometown of Niagara Falls, N.Y., and she learned that the local library might close for lack of funds.

Then on a visit to the Medford library she found the staff using the old catalog cards as scrap paper. She persuaded the staff to let her have the cards and "that brought the whole thing together."

"It's not that I don't love the Internet - I love that, too," Nierenberg said. "But I recognize for that many people the Internet is a privilege; people don't have it. For me, I would never read a book online; I need to feel the physical book. From the time I was a young child, I learned how to create a world out of books. It was an escape for me. It's somehow now connected with that paper - with that touch, with the pages. I don't think the Internet can ever replace the written pages of a book."

After the Tufts show closes Aug. 10, Nierenberg said, she hopes that "Bibliotheca Publicus" might go on display elsewhere to alert library goers that an American institution could be headed for the endangered species list.