The Menial Collection is a non-circulating arts library and community research center located at 243 W. Read St. in Baltimore, Maryland. The Collection aims to reimagine the library as a site for curation and experimentation in the collective production of knowledge through reading, research, and collaborative play.
The non-circulating library holds a collection of books, documents, and ephemera, with a special focus on art, education, and social practice. We use a democratic cataloging system, which means that our organizational structure is constantly evolving, especially with the help of our bi-monthly Collective Catalogings. We invite every one of our visitors to create the groupings that they find the library to be lacking in as well as to remove or reorganize the existing categories. This system is in place to encourage critical thinking about the designations that are given to us as well as our power to subvert them.
As we are a library, we charge no fees or membership dues to our community, and all of our programming and talks are free of charge. This means we rely completely on donations in order to operate, and are immensely grateful to those that give to keep The Menial Collection afloat.
If you have any inquiries or wish to submit writings or proposals to The Menial Collection, feel free to email us at any time at:
themenialcollection@gmail.com.