• To appreciate the political-economic, ontological, epistemological, technological, and ethical dimensions of “discovery”; to interrogate what it means to “discover” something; to consider how evolving social and technological forces impact what it means to “search” for new knowledge and experiences; and to recognize — and redistribute — the privilege and possibility inherent in exploratory practices
• To reclaim exploration and imagine how we might frame it as a resistant, liberatory practice 
• To catalogue and experiment with various approaches to search and discovery from across disciplines and fields of practice, and to imagine how we might productively cross-pollinate methods from one field to another, across contexts and collections — or even invent new methods; and to invite others into our exploration   
• To highlight the wealth and variety of knowledge institutions in our metropolitan region — and to demonstrate how New York City can serve as a national and global beacon, an embodiment of the vital importance of trusted public knowledge, of robust investment in cultural institutions, and of mutual aid, solidarity, and coalition-building
• To juxtapose (or cross-reference!) institutions, collections, and ideas — and explore their prismatic refractions
• To discover what new knowledges and creative practices might emerge through integrative thinking and interdisciplinary, inter-institutional collaboration
• To seek commonalities and complementarities — from the individual to the institutional scale — and to build foundations for future partnerships
• To experiment with more humane, creative, principled, and generative models of “making knowledge public” – from idea-germination, through peer review, through the fabrication and distribution of a material artifact or experience

*How are we defining knowledge institutions? Capaciously, in true cross-referenced fashion! Let’s think about what the entire GLAM sector (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums), the education sector, and other civic institutions — the post office! public housing! — could do together.