Do you want your philosophy straight, or with a dash of legerdemain?
—William J. Richardson, SJ
Throughout library history, from the Sumerians of the third millennium before the Common Era to today’s many faces of libraries, librarianship has been seen as intensely practical. As late as 1933, Pierce Butler wrote:
Unlike his colleagues in other fields of social activity, the librarian is strangely uninterested in the theoretical aspects of his profession. . . . The librarian apparently stands alone in the simplicity of his pragmatism; a rationalization of each immediate process by itself seems to satisfy his intellectual interest. Indeed, any endeavor to generalize these rationalizations into a professional philosophy appears to him not merely futile but positively dangerous.1
Butler was making a plea for the scientific method in librarianship and here, in the manner of writers at all times, overstates the opposite position. However, it is no coincidence that many of the towering figures of the founding years of modern librarianship were, essentially, doers rather than thinkers. For all of Melvil Dewey’s philosophical underpinnings for his Decimal Classification (Aristotle and all that), he was primarily concerned with arranging books on shelves. Antonio Panizzi’s whole career was one of overachievement and bustle—the typical Victorian man of action seeking problems and fixing them. Notwithstanding, there is a literature of the philosophy of librarianship, and there are some important library thinkers (notably Jesse Shera and S. R. Ranganathan); but most achievements in librarianship are the result of problem solving and the pragmatic approach. Even the more cerebral areas of librarianship—cataloguing and classification—turn out, on examination, to be based on theories that almost always have been developed after the event or by accretion of cases. (Ranganathan and Seymour Lubetzky are shining exceptions to this rule.)
We are, then, dealing with a profession whose practices and methods have evolved over many centuries without too much regard to philosophy, overarching principles, and values, but with great respect for the practical, the useful, and the utilitarian. One could almost say that we have evolved a kind of anti-philosophy of practicality—one that values what works and discards what does not. I hardly need to point out that utilitarianism is itself a philosophy—one that finds morality in the greatest good of the greatest number. One can be a perfectly good librarian if one acts on utilitarian principles. For example, constructing a catalogue that is usable by most library users and delivers relevant materials in the great majority of cases is utilitarian. Library instruction that reaches most library users and can be assessed as improving the skills of most students is utilitarian. A modern catchphrase tells us not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good, and that, too, is a utilitarian approach. To many of us, however, such intense practicality leaves a void, a sense of longing for more meaning and richer philosophical underpinning.
In her subtle analysis of Andrew Osborn’s pivotal article “The Crisis in Cataloging” (1941), H. M. Gallagher remarks that Dr. Osborn (himself trained as a philosopher) distinguished between “pragmatism” in its common meaning and the “American Pragmatism” of William James, John Dewey, and others.2 The latter was concerned not just with “what works” but with the broader question of what it is we are trying to work toward or to achieve in the most efficient manner possible. She makes a very persuasive case that Osborn’s article (which did change the face of cataloguing completely) was based on the attributes of American Pragmatism. This is significant, not least because the two strains of practicality and philosophy were united in Osborn’s approach.3
If librarians do exalt practicality over philosophy, it will be in the face of the similarities between librarians and philosophers pointed out by philosophy professor Abraham Kaplan:
Like your profession, mine also has thrust upon it, as its appropriate domain, the whole of knowledge, the whole of culture; nothing is supposed to be foreign to us, and we ought to be prepared under suitable circumstances to be helpful with regard to any and every area of human concern. Like you, we cannot even begin to occupy ourselves with the substance and content of this endless domain, but only with its form, with its structure, with its order, with the inter-relations of the various parts.4
Jesse Shera echoed Pierce Butler in stating, “Librarians have seldom asked themselves about the philosophy of librarianship.”5 However, he went on to attempt a delineation of such a philosophy in the series of lectures from which that quotation comes. His idea of the profession of librarianship was of one rooted in two great ideas: service and a core of intellectual theory. The service rendered by librarians is performed, in Shera’s words, “for the benefit of humanity and with a high sense of purpose and dedication.”6 That idea, expressed in that language, echoes a thought of Butler—“the librarian has come to conceive his office as a secular priesthood, administering a sacrament of cultural communion to individual souls.”7 This is high-flown to the modern taste but touches on the real feeling that there is something intangible and important behind the work we do—a feeling that is at war with our predominant mode of practicality and prizing what works best. Archibald MacLeish, poet and Librarian of Congress, was of the same opinion and spoke of the “true library,” asserting that “there is, indeed, a mystery of things” and, later in the same speech, of “the library’s implicit assertion of the immanence of meaning.”8
The conflict between pragmatism and idealism is inherent in our work, and is always with us whether we think about it or not. Lee Finks, in an accessible and brief but nonetheless important article, distinguishes between the need for library service and the urge that impels librarians to fulfill that need.9 In his words, “It is . . . a noble urge, this altruism of ours, one that seems both morally and psychologically good.” However, he also notes that libraries owe their existence to the fact that society needs us for practical reasons, and we must fulfill those practical needs or perish. Perhaps pragmatism and altruism/idealism are not in conflict but are two sides of the coin of what we do—complementary impulses and ways of thinking? We would do well to accept these competing impulses and simply let our idealism inform our pragmatism while remembering that an impractical idealist is as much a menace to a library as is a practical librarian without visions and dreams.
To analyze the complex dualism of pragmatism and idealism in thinking about modern libraries, I will discuss the ideas on the topic of four twentieth-century librarians: S. R. Ranganathan, Jesse Shera, Samuel Rothstein, and Lee Finks.
Shiyali Ramamrita Ranganathan (1892–1972) is, by common consent, the greatest figure of librarianship in the twentieth century. A mathematician by training, he brought to the study of “library science” (an unfortunate term—one of his few mistakes) a belief in the scientific method and rational examination of social phenomena. Though best known for his considerable contributions to the theory of classification and subject retrieval, he studied all aspects of librarianship and, based on that study, formulated his famous Five Laws of Library Science. It would be more accurate to call them precepts rather than laws, but they are based on his scientific training, his training as a librarian (at University College, London), and his rigorous, objective analysis. The five laws are:
• Books are for use.
• Every book its reader.
• Every reader his book.
• Save the time of the reader.
• The library is a growing organism.10
Though these laws are based on a scientific not philosophical approach, they do imply a context of values. If we examine them carefully, looking beyond the vocabulary of more than seventy years ago, we can see the values upon which they depend. The first law operates on a basis of rationalism and utilitarianism. It tells us that collections are useful or they are nothing. Treating the word “books” as a surrogate for all library resources in all formats, we understand that all collection-development policies must be based on the application of reason and the touchstone of utility. The rational approach is necessary if we are to answer the intensely practical question of which materials are useful—now and in the future—to the members of the community that the library serves. The second and third laws are expressions of both democracy and service. It is democratic to say that all library users are entitled to the materials they need, and that materials should be selected with an eye to meeting those needs. Without the ethic of service in action, it would be difficult if not impossible for all library users to find the materials they need or for all materials to reach the users for whom they are intended. The fourth law is also rooted in service and is strikingly modern in that every modern work on service (in both the private and public sectors) stresses the importance of time saving. The fifth law is another product of rationality, but it is also related to stewardship in that libraries must allow for growth in their collections and services if they are to be good stewards for the indefinite future.
It was an audacious thing to propose laws that define a whole profession in just twenty-four words, but Ranganathan had an unshakable belief in his scientific approach. The fact that we can still find meaning across the decades in those twenty-four words is a justification of his audacity.
Jesse Hauk Shera came to call his redefinition of librarianship “social epistemology” and discussed it in many of his writings.11 “Epistemology” is defined as: “The study of the methods and the grounds of knowledge, esp. with reference to its limits and validity; broadly the theory of knowledge.”12 Shera’s idea, therefore, was to broaden librarianship to comprehend everything about the nature of knowledge and how it is recorded, preserved, transmitted, and so forth, in society. This is an expansive and scholarly view that goes beyond the narrow pragmatism that characterizes some library methods and policies, and, though Shera is famous as a “bookman,” it transcends any particular medium by which knowledge is recorded and transmitted. He envisaged his epistemology—“a body of knowledge about knowledge itself”—as serving the individual but also as working toward our ultimate objective, the betterment of society.13 He implies that betterment is the ultimate value that underlies all our work. The components of “social epistemology” as proposed by Shera are:
• the problem of how humans know
• the problem of how society knows and how the knowledge of an individual becomes part of the knowledge possessed by society as a whole
• the history of knowledge and the philosophy of knowledge as it has evolved through time and across cultures
• existing library systems and how effective they are in meeting the communication needs of individuals and societies
This is far from a description of the curricula of today’s successors to library schools and, alas, far from the American Library Association’s standards for accrediting master’s programs in “library and information science,”14 but it would be hard to imagine a better basis for a would-be librarian’s course of study.
Shera’s concerns, in all his writings, are for knowledge, learning, scholarship, the transmission of the human record, and the role of the library in the improvement of society. He believed in the value of reading and learning and, though not opposed to technology per se, was skeptical about the transformational power of technology. In referring to the “information explosion” (a much-touted threat or promise of the 1960s), he quoted Archibald MacLeish with approval:
It is not additional “messages” we need, and least of all additional “messages” that merely tell us that the medium that communicates the message has changed the world. We know the world has changed. . . . What we do not know is how, precisely, it is changing and in what direction and with which consequences to ourselves.15
The values that we can derive by inference from Shera’s social epistemology are scholarship, stewardship, literacy and learning, service, and the greater good of society.
In 1967, Samuel Rothstein, then director of the library school at the University of British Columbia, gave a speech at the Canadian Library Association annual conference criticizing the ALA Code of ethics for librarians for its “generality and banality.”16 He described that Code, in a magnificent phrase, as “fatuous adjurations.” His criticisms went beyond the deficiencies of that particular code of ethics to an attack on the very idea of a code of ethics with any relevance to work in libraries in the late 1960s. What we needed, in his opinion, was not such a code but a declaration of principles. The declaration would have three components:
• a statement of values, beliefs, and goals;
• a description of the abilities and knowledge that are special to librarians; and
• a list of the dilemmas, problems, and issues that face librarians in particular.
Rothstein’s brief attempt to sketch such a statement of principles is of enduring interest, as is his linking of values, special abilities, and special issues that define librarianship. Rothstein listed four values:
• a special commitment to reading;
• enlarging the horizons and elevating the taste of the community, using the discriminating selection of materials as a tool;
• intellectual freedom; and
• helping people to secure the information they need.
Have the passage of time and the advancement and depredations of technology rendered Rothstein’s values outmoded? Before answering that question, it is interesting to note that his appraisal of the needs of library users of all those years bears great similarity, rhetorically and substantially, to the common wisdom today. Before the smartphones, social media, digital networks, the Internet and the Web, and interactive digital streaming, before downsizing and job mobility, Rothstein wrote:
In an age of mass media, which so often distort and debase communication, the library has a particularly important role to play in the fullest provision of impartial, many-sided information. In an age when information explodes and people must go on learning all their lives, librarians have a particularly important role to play in helping people secure the information they need.17
The world Rothstein saw was different in degree rather than kind from the world we see today. Though couched in terms that are different from those with which we feel at ease today, his proposed values should speak to us. Do we not believe that reading is “good and important” and that the understanding reading of complex texts is an essential component of scholarship? Do we no longer believe that we should do all we can to foster reading? The belief that reading lessens in importance because of technology is a common delusion of technophiles. The simple fact is that the ability to read and understand complex texts is central to the life of the mind. It is impossible to be educated and illiterate or aliterate at the same time. The first of Rothstein’s values still stands.
It is possible that some will wince at the idea of librarians seeking to raise taste and encourage discrimination in the communities they serve. This is a noble goal but one that no longer has the foundation of belief that supported what was once a widely accepted view of the role of the librarian. In the 1880s, Melvil Dewey wrote:
The new library is active; an aggressive, educating force in the community; a living fountain of good influences; an army in the field, with all guns limbered; and librarians occupy a field of active usefulness second to none.18
Whether this type of muscular librarianship is relevant today depends, to some extent, on the kind of library. It is easier for a school librarian and a children’s librarian to seek to raise the cultural level of students and children in general, but, even in that milieu, charges of elitism are easy to level. The ethos of the modern public library seems to be in direct conflict with the ideas of discriminating selection and elevating taste. Society no longer has a generally agreed definition of taste or culture, and even in the academy, “great books” programs are seen by many as a form of elitism. The growing trend of universities being run on “business lines” and being rated on the amounts earned by their graduates certainly rejects such a view of academic librarianship, and even of education itself. If Rothstein’s second value survives at all today, it survives in individual acts of selection and recommendation and in the missions and beliefs of individual librarians—a kind of cultural guerrilla movement rather than a generally accepted belief in action.
Intellectual freedom is, broadly speaking, accepted as a key value of the profession of librarianship today as then. It is up against different challenges because of societal changes, “the war on terror,” and technology; but the old challenges remain, and the defense of intellectual freedom is no easier now than then. We should note that Rothstein’s touchstone for the provision of library materials was legality. He wrote of the only acceptable censorship being that imposed by law and, even then, said that librarians should “hold themselves obliged to seek appropriate liberalizations in the law.”19 Even in many democratic countries, the twin threats of an empowered surveillance state and a Big Technology assault on privacy make the defense of intellectual freedom harder than it was in previous generations. National and local laws concerned with intellectual freedom are, in some ways, more liberal now than they were decades ago, but the application of “community standards” in small communities provides a persistent threat to the intellectual freedom of those communities.
Rothstein’s final value—helping people to secure the resources they need—is surely unchallengeable today as it was then. When it comes down to it, libraries exist to make the connection between their users and the recorded knowledge and information in the human record that they need and want. Everything that we do—building collections, giving access to digital resources, performing reference work, providing a bibliographic architecture, and on and on—is dedicated to that connection. The disputes are not about that value or the ends to which we are dedicated, but about how to realize them and which means should have higher priority than others.
It is interesting to note the abilities that Rothstein deemed necessary to realize his values and the problems and issues that stand in the way of that realization. (One can only admire the way in which he described the three parts of his statement of principles in what amounts to a one-page manifesto. Concision and clarity are not always found in library literature.) He thought a professional librarian should possess ability and skill in the following areas:
• collection development
• bibliographic control
• reference and information services
• reader’s advisory work
• a specialized field, where appropriate
• administration
The issues and dilemmas he outlined also have a familiar ring:
• Is librarianship one profession or are we a loose confederation of related groups?
• “Do books and libraries and librarians have a future, or is librarianship as we know it to be phased out in favor of ‘bits’ and ‘data banks’ and documentalists?”20
• Are librarians educators or just technicians and managers?
• Do we try to reach everybody or just the small percentage that appreciates our services?
• Do librarians set policy or execute policy set by others?
• What is the relationship of the chief librarian to the professional staff—a first among equals or a general giving orders to subordinates?
It is not easy to believe that any of these questions has been answered satisfactorily or that any one of them has no resonance today. All go to the heart of the professional nature of librarianship—indeed, the very existence of that profession.
Rothstein believed that his delineation of our values, abilities, and dilemmas, considered together, constituted an “ethos”—the distinguishing characteristics that define librarians and librarianship. One might argue with some of the specifics, but it is difficult to argue that his concept is irrelevant or his conclusions outdated.
Library educator Lee W. Finks wrote the most important article on values in librarianship of the past few decades.21 In it, he described his “personal taxonomy of values,” divided into three broad categories accompanied by a category of “rival values.” Finks’s categories are:
• professional values
• general values
• personal values
Finks defined professional values as those that arise out of the nature of librarianship and the functioning of libraries in society. The first of these is service. As with the other values adduced by Finks that are the subject of other chapters, I will not dwell on this value here but use Finks’s description in the appropriate chapter. His second professional value is stewardship. By this he means not only our responsibility for passing the records of humanity intact to future generations, but also our duty to be good stewards in our everyday work. We must ensure that we are seen to be, in his words, “honest, industrious men and women who know our jobs and do them well.” His next subcategory of professional values is itself a group that he calls philosophical values. They are a belief in reason and learning, a respect for scholarship, neutrality in the “battle of competing ideas”; and prizing the good over the trivial and vulgar. Then come democratic values—an attachment to democracy as a societal ideal and openness to all kinds and conditions of people. His last professional value is an attachment to reading and books. Even in 1989, his blunt statement that “we are bookish” may have been less debatable then than it is now. One would like to hope that most librarians are indeed women and men who love books and reading and find the latter “a superior way to pass the time,” but it may not be so. It is certainly a love that I share and value and believe is essential to the survival of libraries, but it is not something that all librarians must adhere to in order to do their work. In my sunset years, I would guess that this is an issue that breaks largely on generational grounds. I suspect, without empirical proof, that a reverence for books and reading is all but universal in librarians over the age of fifty and less commonly found in those below middle age.
Finks defined general values as those that are shared by “normal, healthy people, whatever their field.” (One of the many engaging things about this seminal article is the robust directness of Finks’s views and worldview.) He calls the first group of general values work values. This term encompasses competence, professional autonomy, and the search for excellence. He quite correctly points out that the realization of these values depends greatly on the environment within which the individual librarian works. It should be sobering for all library administrators to realize that even the most gifted and dedicated librarians cannot reach their goals and fulfill their aspirations unless the library in which they work has an atmosphere and actuality that allows the fullest flowering of abilities and ideals. Values work only in places in which they are allowed and encouraged to work. Finks’s next grouping is social values. These include tolerance and respect for others and all the other things that we are supposed to learn in kindergarten and carry throughout our lives. The reader will realize that she is reading someone from the idealistic end of the pragmatism-idealism scale when Finks mentions optimism and comes up with the sentence that summarizes what all his values are about: “Being happy librarians in happy libraries; it is not an impossible dream.” His last general values group is satisfaction values. These might be summed up as the fact that it is impossible for us to serve individuals and society unless we have self-respect and self-esteem.
Finks’s personal values are those that apply particularly to librarians as a class. Without falling into stereotyping or rejecting the diversity of our profession, it is possible to agree with Finks that most librarians share or aspire to certain characteristics. He defines them as humanistic values, idealistic values, conservative values, and aesthetic values. I share Finks’s view that most librarians are humanists and idealists believing, in his words, “that the human spirit can flourish” and hoping for “inspiration, self-realization, and the growth of wisdom in all people.” I also agree that most librarians are (very small “c”) conservative in that we tend to prefer steady evolutionary change, order over disorder, and standardization. (Many years ago, I was told that hard-core cataloguers always vote for the party in power because, if it wins, there will be far fewer government headings to change in the catalogue. The precipitous decline in the number of cataloguers means that this phenomenon is of decreasing psephological importance.) Finks points out that our innate conservatism is a necessary curb on our idealism—the yin and yang of a librarian’s soul. Last, I agree that aesthetics are important to librarians. We seek to satisfy our aesthetic sense through harmony in the architecture of library buildings; beauty in literature, music, and the arts; and even elegance in library systems.
An idealistic and optimistic picture of librarians and their values is constantly threatened, in Finks’s view, by what he calls rival values—bureaucracy, anti-intellectualism, and nihilism. Bureaucracy can sometimes be found in small libraries and is endemic in large libraries. It is, in one sense, the natural product of our desire for order and regular procedure. There is an anti-intellectual tinge to much of the discourse about technology that can be found in statements that equate cyberspace and a research library; “research” using search engines and serious reading; any of a number of “literacies” with true literacy; and playing videogames with learning. We stand for excellence and the intellect, for scholarship and culture, or we stand for nothing. Nihilism is the philosophy of the despairing, and a librarian who loses faith in the future of libraries or the value of librarianship is succumbing to that despair.
Finks’s values and taxonomy of values are the most important accessible statements on the topic. If every librarian were to absorb them into her working life, the future of libraries would be both guaranteed and bright.
My reading and distillation of the four authors discussed here and other writings on librarianship have led me to formulate the following central values of librarianship. I am sure that the list of values that I offer is different from those that others might advance, but it is difficult to believe that these values (possibly with different wording) would not show up on any composite list.
• preserving the human record to ensure that future generations know what we know
• caring for and nurturing education for librarianship so that we pass on our best values and practices
• being professional, good stewards of our libraries so that we earn the respect of our communities
• ensuring that all our policies and procedures are animated by the ethic of service to individuals, communities, society, and posterity
• evaluating all our policies and procedures, using service as a criterion
• maintaining a commitment to the idea that all people in a free society should be able to read and view whatever they wish to read and view
• defending the intellectual freedom of all members of our communities
• defending the free expression of minority opinion
• making the library’s facilities and programs accessible to all
• organizing and managing library services in a rational manner, applying rationalism and the scientific method to all library procedures and programs
• encouraging literacy and the love of learning
• encouraging lifelong sustained reading
• making the library a focus of literacy teaching
• ensuring that all library resources and programs are accessible to all
• overcoming technological and monetary barriers to access
• ensuring the confidentiality of records of library use
• overcoming technological invasions of library use
• playing our part in maintaining the values of a democratic society
• participating in the educational process to ensure the educated citizenry that is vital to democracy
• employing democracy in library management
• seeking through all our policies and practices to work for the good of all library users and the communities and societies in which they live
I examine each of these values in individual chapters of this book, with an eye to describing the present state of libraries and the likely future of libraries and librarianship.
Having listed the core values of librarianship, let us consider the value of libraries . . .
Notes
1. Butler, Pierce. An introduction to library science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993; Phoenix Books, 1961. page xi.
2. H. M. Gallagher, “Dr. Osborn’s 1941 ‘The crisis in cataloging’: a shift in thought toward American Pragmatism.” Cataloging and classification quarterly, volume 12, numbers 3/4 (1991) pages 3–33.
3. For a further discussion of “The crisis in cataloging,” see: Gorman, Michael. “1941: an analysis and appreciation of Andrew Osborn’s ‘The crisis in cataloging.’” Serials librarian, volume 6, numbers 2–3 (Winter 1981/Spring 1982) pages 127–131.
4. Kaplan, Abraham. “The age of the symbol.” In The intellectual foundations of library education; edited by Don R. Swanson. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965. pages 7–16.
5. Shera, J. H. Sociological foundations of librarianship. Bombay: Asia Publishing House, 1970. page 29.
6. Ibid.
7. Butler, An introduction to library science. page xiii.
8. MacLeish, Archibald. “The premise of meaning.” American scholar 41 (Summer 1972) pages 357–362 (adapted from an address delivered at the opening of the library of York University, Toronto).
9. Finks, Lee W. “Values without shame.” American libraries (April 1989) pages 352–356.
10. Ranganathan, S. R. The five laws of library science, second edition. Bombay; reprint, New York: Asia Publishing House, 1963.
11. See, for example: Shera, Jesse H. “Toward a theory of librarianship and information science.” In Shera’s Knowing books and men: knowing computers too. Littleton, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 1973. pages 93–110.
12. Webster’s Third new international dictionary. Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster.
13. Shera, “Toward a Theory of Librarianship.” pages 95–96.
14. Standards for accreditation of master’s programs in library & information studies (2008). www.ala.org/accreditedprograms/standards (consulted July 16, 2014). These standards are, as I write, undergoing revision, but the draft revisions show little, if any, improvement.
15. MacLeish, Archibald. Champion of a cause. Chicago: ALA, 1971. page 246.
16. Rothstein, Samuel. “In search of ourselves.” Library journal (January 15, 1968) pages 156–157. See also: ALA Code of ethics, promulgated in 1938 and reprinted in the American library annual, 1958. New York: Bowker, 1958. pages 111–112.
17. Rothstein, “In search of ourselves.”
18. Quoted in: Noted living Albanians and state officials: a series of biographical sketches. 1891. AccessGenealogy.com. www.accessgenealogy.com/new-york/biography-of-melvil-dewey.htm (consulted July 16, 2014). Please note that an “Albanian” in this context is an inhabitant of Albany, New York, not Albania.
19. Rothstein, “In search of ourselves.”
20. Ibid. Note that “documentalists” were earlier, more benign, versions of those who now call themselves “information scientists.”
21. Finks, Lee W. “Values without shame.” American libraries (April 1989) pages 352–356.