Core Chapter Concept: Librarians are agents for radical positive change who choose to make a difference.
I began the introduction to library science class I teach in the summer of 2014 with a story:
The Arab Spring had come to Egypt. In early 2011, on the heels of a successful revolution in Tunisia, Egyptians took to the streets to demand reforms from a regime that had been in power for nearly thirty years. Although the media largely fixated on the protesters who occupied Tahrir Square in the Egyptian capital of Cairo, many protests started in the port city of Alexandria, where, as in Cairo, people from all generations and socioeconomic backgrounds protested to demand liberty, justice, and social equity. In an attempt to restore the constitution, what was seen primarily as a peaceful uprising led to the death of at least 846 people and the injury of an additional 6,000 across Egypt.1 On January 28 at 6 p.m., after the prisons had opened, releasing murderers and rapists, all security forces withdrew, and gangs of looters roved the streets of Alexandria to take advantage of the resulting chaos.
In Egypt’s chief port city, the violence and looting devastated government buildings. Where offices once stood, only burned-out rubble remained. Protesters went from building to building, pulling down the symbols of corrupt power. Some looters and protesters then began to eye the Library of Alexandria.
President Mubarak, the focus of the uprising, had built the modern library in 2002 at a cost of about $220 million, to “recapture the spirit of openness and scholarship of the original,”2 the famous ancient Library of Alexandria—one of the marvels of the ancient world.
When it became apparent that the library might be in danger, protesters joined hands and surrounded it. Their goal was not to attack the library or to raid it, but to protect it. And, indeed, throughout the protests and looting, the protesters—men, women, and children—stood firm and did protect the library. In essence, they were retaking the library for the people. Even after the uprising subsided, President Mubarak stepped down, and the protesters were celebrating their victory around the country, not a window of the library was broken, and not a rock was thrown against its walls. Why, in the midst of tearing down the regime, did the people of Alexandria protect their library?
My answer was that, over the years, the librarians had been a service to the community and become part of the community—not simply a service of a government seen as disconnected and corrupt. I went on to say the reason the library was unscathed was not that the librarians inside it were exceptional, but rather that they did their job. To be clear, they were brave and brilliant, but to call them “exceptional” is to expect too little of every other librarian. This was the bar, I argued, that all librarians should strive toward.
When I tell this story to students or practicing librarians, I’m met with an unspoken fearful question: “Would I be expected to support a revolution or take part in an uprising?” I would respond with a lighthearted joke to set my audience at ease and move on.
Among those attending that summer 2014 class was Jennifer Ilardi, who also worked in the Florissant Valley Branch of the Saint Louis County Public Library. Turns out that the Florissant Valley Branch serves the same school district that the Ferguson Public Library does in Ferguson, Missouri. After the class ended, Jennifer got on a plane and went home. And then a white policeman shot and killed an unarmed black teenager in Ferguson and the city exploded.
A militarized police force—clad in body armor, helmets, and camouflage uniforms—shot rubber bullets and tear gas at the protesters. Children huddled in their homes, unable to sleep as their parents took turns watching the front door for trouble, and their fathers sat next to a baseball bat “just in case.” The Missouri governor called up the State Police and National Guard, announced curfews, and closed governmental institutions.
Such were the disturbing reports out of Ferguson. Disturbing because this was not happening overseas, but in the suburbs of the U.S. heartland. Issues of justice, race, and economic disadvantage had jumped from the shadows to the forefront of America’s consciousness. Yet, in the images of tear-gassed protesters and armored police transports, another story emerged: with the closure of most public institutions in Ferguson, the children of the town were out of school.
This was not just a matter of a delayed school year, but, for many of the low-income families, this was a matter of not having enough to eat. A large percentage of Ferguson’s youths received food assistance through the schools. When the city’s schools were closed, these children went hungry—trapped in their homes with the sounds of gunfire and exploding tear gas canisters outside.
The Florissant Valley Branch of the Saint Louis County Library and the Ferguson Public Library, which share coverage of the Ferguson-Florissant School District, stepped up to help. In showing their bravery, the staffs of both libraries also showed that librarians could be agents for radical positive change.
Jennifer Ilardi came into her library on Tuesday, August 19, and decided to set up a variety of art supplies in the library’s auditorium so that parents could get out of the house, socialize, and create. She also decided to order pizza. During a TV interview, when prompted with “So you saw a need in the community. You saw a void,” she replied, “This is what libraries do. We supplement our educational system regularly with after-school programs and summer programs. We provided free lunches all summer long through a collaboration with Operation Food Search because we recognize that a large portion of our community qualifies for free or reduced-price lunches.”
With the help of Operation Food Search, the librarians continued to provide these lunches until the schools of Ferguson were reopened. The Magic House, a local children’s museum, offered free interactive educational activities for students. Local artists volunteered their services as well, putting on free magic shows. Scott Bonner, director of the Ferguson Public Library down the street from one of the closed schools, teamed up with its teachers to hold classes in the library. When they ran out of room, the librarians connected with local churches and youth centers to arrange a new, impromptu school. Part of this collaboration was the library reaching out, and part was others wanting to get involved. The important thing is that the library had established and maintained these relationships with the community in the past, so it was able to respond quickly.
When I tweeted some of this story, one librarian responded, “A library always makes the difference!” Though I love the activist spirit behind this response (that libraries make a difference), I have to disagree with the comment for two reasons. One, it’s not libraries but librarians—and, more broadly, library staff—that make a difference. It was a decision that Jennifer, Scott, and their colleagues made to do something. It was their choice to actually help. And, two, sadly, not all librarians do make a difference. Some librarians see adherence to policy or not taking sides as reasons to step back from issues and even from outright breakdowns in the social order. Still others limit their views by asking, “How can our library collection and reading address a problem of civil unrest?” Librarians can make a difference, but to do so, we must hold a proactive view of our profession and our communities.
Too many librarians see our profession as a passive occupation: they stay safely in the background, ready to serve, but only within their libraries. That is wrong. Good librarians, the kind our communities need, see our profession as a chance not just to promote reading or inform their communities, but also to make a positive difference there. They see their mission as the improvement of society. They see the role of librarians and their institutions as addressing the issues that have exploded in Ferguson, not with tear gas and rubber bullets, but with free lunches, magic shows, and, above all, with learning.
Some may see summer programs and free lunches as ineffectual tools in comparison to tear gas and body armor in dealing with violence, but they are wrong. An engaged community with librarians dedicated to learning and making a difference—the promise of opportunity and a better tomorrow, rather than the threat of force—is a powerful deterrent to violence.
Thus the purpose of this guide is to prepare librarians to be agents for radical positive change and to directly engage their communities—be these scholars, students, lawyers, residents, or bureaucrats—to use knowledge to achieve their dreams and aspirations. Some may find the word “radical” problematic. To some, it implies civil disobedience and an adherence to a far-left ideology. Surely, by using the term “radical” some believe I am advocating transforming librarians into political leftists at odds with their roles in civic, academic, school, and business institutions. But this is a wrong interpretation of the word “radical” in this context.
Indeed, to some, a “radical” is a violent extremist, someone who seeks the outright destruction of governments and who is dedicated to using violence to achieve political or social aims, often associated with a given religion. This, too, is a wrong interpretation of “radical” for the context.
Both interpretations of “radical” (as leftist or violent extremist) are one-dimensional uses of the term. Both have a long history with complex associations: struggles for rights or domination or disruption across a broad political spectrum. “Radical” has been used to marginalize or target a segment of the population. Some wear “radical” as a badge of honor, whereas, to others, it’s a label of shame.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary the word radical has four distinct meanings:3
Merriam-Webster’s has these four definitions as well:4
In labor movements, “radical” is often compressed to “advocating for fundamental changes.” In geopolitics, it’s flattened to “extreme.” Yet “radical” is a word that means “extreme,” “fundamental,” “thorough,” and “cool”—all at the same time. To me, it’s the perfect description of the type of librarianship I seek to instill in my readers—professionals advocating and enabling far-reaching change based on deeply held principles in an exciting way. This is not a new concept of librarianship. Indeed, you could argue that the adoption of issues such as intellectual freedom, privacy, and a host of ethical stances has been a hallmark of librarianship from its very beginnings and that adopting such issues is “radical” in all senses of the word.
That said, the discourse of this approach to librarianship has given rise to confusion and downright animosity over the use of the term “radical.” Some have implied that the term, with its encompassing rhetoric of improving society, calls up visions of jackbooted librarians storming a community to enforce a special sense of social justice. Nothing could be further from the truth. Librarians engage communities in a discussion of just what “improving” entails; librarians are a part of that conversation, representing values and principles developed over millennia. It’s telling that, in many situations (broad indiscriminate surveillance of citizens, censorship, the erosion of privacy in the marketplace), it is librarians who have stood against the forces of oligarchy and the trampling of the rights of minorities and the disenfranchised. They’ve done so not out of an allegiance to some liberal agenda, but as a commitment to democratic principles and transparency. One thing that’s common across all these uses of “radical” is implied action: whether political or institutional, or simply how you behave and comport yourself. To be radical is to seek action and change.
In some ways, this entire book is about vocabulary and the use of words. Just as “radical” is more than a set of definitions, “librarian,” “library,” and “librarianship” are terms enmeshed in cultural discourse. For many, these words have seemingly clear definitions. Yet, as we’ll see, when these definitions and our beliefs are put to the test, they often come up wanting. So we’ll seek to decode these terms, link them to deeper understandings and, ultimately, to practice. Before getting too far into our discussion of librarians and librarianship, however, it’s important to put forth some clear definitions of key terms that will be used repeatedly.
There’s an old joke that goes, “Folks in tech support never say no; they simply throw acronyms at you until you go away: ‘Well, we could set up your blog, but we would have to install PHP on our NAS and make a special entry in the NAT and DHCP tables to allow for a …’”
I’ve found there is an equivalent joke in the librarian profession: “Librarians never say no; they simply tell you how great your ideas would be implemented in a different type of library: ‘What a great idea for a [public | academic | special | government | small | large | urban | rural] library.’” (Pick any one of these as long as it’s not your library.) I believe it’s why we use so many modifiers in the field: “digital” library, “virtual” reference, “patron-driven” acquisition, and so on. Yes, we often use them to find like minds, but many times we also use them to set ourselves apart. The same has been true of the phrase “New Librarianship.” What few of those librarians who follow my work realize is that I never intended New Librarianship to become a special type of librarianship. The whole point of The Atlas of New Librarianship (almost named The New Atlas of Librarianship) was not to create some special form of librarianship, but rather to build a foundation for change across the entire profession.
I want to reemphasize that decision here because there are many who talk about New Librarianship as if it’s a special type of librarianship, often as a way to dismiss it. Some have said, “New librarianship is all about communities, so it’s really just for public libraries.” All libraries, whether public or private, large or small, should be about communities, those they serve and are part of—that’s just librarianship.
“New librarianship,” it’s been said, “is fine for big libraries that can afford outreach staff and who aren’t busy organizing materials.” But engaging and improving communities are best done in tight partnership with those communities. Who better to foster such partnership than librarians in small communities with their greater knowledge of those who need their services? Some of the most innovative librarians on the planet serve communities from four to a thousand people. And librarians can engage larger communities in all services—from cataloging to checkout.
“New Librarianship is great for librarians in libraries, but I’m a consultant [embedded librarian | information specialist | vendor employee | freelancer | jobber].” Librarians fulfill their mission in all contexts and serve as the fundamental unit for the community approach to librarianship. Librarians might build and maintain libraries, but they ultimately build better communities with or without an actual or virtual place called a “library.”
Bottom line: this guide is about librarianship. Period. Full stop.
Although a new approach to librarians and libraries, the community approach is built on the foundation of librarianship built over millennia. It’s not the first time librarians have sought to reframe their work (Melvil Dewey and S. R. Ranganathan come immediately to mind), and it won’t be the last. Librarianship grows and adapts to the present because it adopts and adapts the social constructs of the communities it serves. As these communities (universities, schools, law firms) change, so, too, must librarianship.
I will not speak of “users” because our communities are part of what we do, and librarians are not tools to be sucked dry of value and discarded.5 Nor will I speak of “patrons” because we should be energized by our communities, not patronized by them. I will definitely not use the term “consumers” or “customers” because we are part of the communities we serve, not providers of services to be bought and sold. The value we bring is not immediately reducible to dollars and cents because it is so intertwined in the future well-being of our communities. Don’t get me wrong, there are times when, acting as individuals or on behalf of our institutions, each of us will need to calculate how well money is spent, but that’s not at all the same as defining our professional identity as a cost in someone’s spreadsheet.
I will use the term “member” and, more often than not, “community member.” Although it has a connotation of exclusion (if there are members, there must also be nonmembers), “member” is meant to emphasize belonging and shared ownership (and responsibility). Which is not to imply that the term will fit in all circumstances. Thus, in an academic context, it just makes sense to refer to faculty and students as, well, “faculty” and “students.” Some public libraries use the term “neighbor” (I love that). The term we use within the profession should in no way limit how we use terminology to interact with our communities. I, for one, prefer to be called “David” rather than “member” when I work with my fellow librarians.
Asking, “A member of what?” takes us to my last key term. The answer, of course, is “a community.” I use the word “community” a lot. In fact, community is central to librarianship. Many might mistake this as a focus on public libraries. A community, as will be further defined later, is not limited to a community of citizens in a given geographical location. Employees of a law firm constitute a community. A university is a community of students, scholars, staff, and administrators. Doctors are a professional community. Students, teachers, parents, and principals make up the community of a school. It comes down to the root of “community”—the Latin communitas: a group of people sharing possessions and responsibilities. This applies to all communities; be those possessions a building, a tax ID, a plot of land, or a set of values.
What you hold in your hands is the tip of a proverbial iceberg: an accessible portion of a much larger whole. Beneath the waves of summary and application is a much deeper well of theory and argument. Beneath the surface lies the work of scholars and reflective practitioners recreating librarianship around core values and the communities they serve.
That said, this guide was written both for readers new to the community approach to librarianship and for those who have read The Atlas of New Librarianship. In building on the basic concepts of librarianship discussed in greater depth in the Atlas, it offers specific tools to implement transformative change in your libraries and communities. It also offers deeper understandings to help you redefine what a library is, and what services it should provide.
The guide has three main parts:
Where possible, I’ve provided specific examples—meant to inspire not duplicate. I have also invited several contributors to add their experiences. Throughout I have kept notes and references to a minimum to ease readability. In the discussion points for most chapters at the end of the guide, I’ve invited you to add to the text through your own examples, arguments, and alternative views. And for most chapters, I’ve included additional reading there as well; these resources provide ample citations to related works for you to pursue and will, I hope, lead to deeper discussions of the concepts presented in the main text.
So with our task outlined, let us begin with a question, “What exactly is a librarian?”