This week's readings begin with Nyquist's "Poverty, Prejudice and the public library". It examines the ways in which the library has been complicit in maintaining the status quo in society and in the collections. Written in the 1960's it asks that we make stakeholders of the poor and the disenfranchised. Not only taking them into consideration in our discussions but actually holding discussions with them.
It is a challenge - If we actually believe that libraries are a social good for communities then we should invest in all communities, geographic,ethnic, racial and experiential. The authro rightly calls us on our "hypocrisy" for believing only in the value of our communities, and not striving to make a wider impact.
While the article's proposal that the flight of white's means a loss of leadership is both racist and outdated, the article does make good points with regard to the economic impact of suburbanization on the urban core of the American city. Yet at the same time it neglects the lack of governmental and other investment in that same urban core. It neglects to speak of the Interstate system which cut mighty swaths of roadway through the middle of vital communities. I should hope that we have moved beyond the point of viewing the poor and disenfranchied as mere " social dynamite" to take a term from Harvard President, James B. Conant (p.81).
It is furthermore naive to assume that the same parents who want the best for their kids are also those who are not bringing their kids to the library. To say that the library audience is comprised of only the middle and upper class ignores the head-start classes that flood story-times. It ignores the illiterate man "reading" the magazine. To a certain extent this article is a measure of progress, but it is also a picture that deletes the obvious.
The short essay " Libraries to the people" was interesting for its rage and interesting for its almost mimeographed presentation style. It puts to words the lack of attention that emerging audiences can feel when their newly ackowleged needs are not met by a library stuck in its traditions. While it is a trip down memory lane, to a time when Rolling Stone and The Village Voice were truly independent and interesting, it is also a present day call to be away of the print media available that are commonly ignored by the mainstream of society. It is these ideas, the new and the cutting edge, that the library should be giving voice to in our collections.
It is also a call to be aware of things as simple as subject headings. As much as it is rude to speak disparaging of someone without cause we should not catergorize people and subjects into demeaning and limiting subject headings. This practice limits the discourse around the marginalized topics and further hinders discussion about them in a serious manner. I should hope that we are more open to the idea of many perspectives that we are not still insisting that the majority religion can determine what is God and what is not.
Following the theme of the previous essay, Samek's "Intellectual Freedom and Social Responsability in American Librarianship" challenges what it means to be a librarian. We are called by this essay to be activists for the right of expression in all forms. We are to expect support from A.L.A. in this work and when it is not presented, we should demand it. The "Library Bill of Rights" is mere words until we back it up with our deeds and our refusal to back down from our principles.
Changing the pace, Miller's " Shopping for Community..." analyzes the ways in which the idea of the public lbirary has been merged with that of a commercial bookshop (think Borders or Barnes and Noble). With the establishment of such mega-bookstores our notion of how books and community function have changed. We no longer rely exclusivly on the library for our literary community. Instead we have the opprotunity to go to large spacious stores that sell books, true - but also offer coffee, and exclusive Author meet-and Greet sessions.
The author places this in the context of not only the library world ,but also the bookstore world. In doing so she puts the library in the same place as the independent bookstore that wants to respond to the new market presence but also maintain a sense of individuality. She finds many independent ( and I can back this up with my own research) bookstores making an appeal to the moral highground of supporting local business. She suggests that some of the support for the independent bookseller is based on a distaste for the "commericalization of the printed word".
Research suggests that modern life has changed as well. We view communities as "lifestyle centers" according to Miller, and this week's readings from Nyqist suggest that a certain segment of the population has abandoned the urban core - long the home of the independent bookseller. While the trend may be reversing with recent banking troubles, one need only look to downtown Madison to notice the lack of independent peddlers of new printed works.
Furthermore, Miller finds herself frustrated with the marketing efforts that libraries must undergo to make their services known, and popular. She decries value-added services such as coffee-bars, feeling that they displace the printed word. Yet, anyone who has enjoyed a good book in a quiet place will tell you, that it goes much better with coffee - at least in my opinion.
In thinking about the cultural economy of a city. One must consider that the culture is not merely what we want it to be - it is its own animal. in some places the culture is very mall oriented. We can make attempts to change that but it might not go so well. In other places where there is more of an established downtown, an effort to preserve that space is valued. But what are we if not impostors if we go so far as to build imagined downtowns just to support our urbane cultural whims.
Buschmann's On Customer Driven Librarianship further decries the bookstoreishness of some new libraries. The author alleges that it focused the patron and the taxpayer ultimatly on the profit margin derived from such services, when the value of literacy is seldom measurable explicitly in tax revinue or in the number of books circulated. He argues that we must not only offer what is popular, we must also offer what is unpopular. Customer counts are for retail he argues, and we should not be modeling ourselves so much on that big-box format that we do only that which is screamed for the loudest. The meek amongst us might want something different, and if they whisper in our proverbial ears for a small but unpopular request, we should value that as well. We are not measured by our customer counts because the value of discovery cannot be understood in financial terms or in how many times the gate clicks. Our best brand identity is that of the availablity of knowlege. Knowlege he argues is not for consumption but for discourse. It is through this discourse that we grow as a society. It is in in it's absence that we are merely a people gathered together, reading alone.
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