Excursus: From Mission to Missionary

In February 2015, some fifty librarians gathered at the ALA Mid-Winter Conference to talk about this very book. What should the follow-up to The Atlas of New Librarianship be? How could this book help librarians trying to bring about a change in the field?

The librarians wanted a volume that was more linear, a text that quickly got across the core of librarianship focused on community and participatory. They wanted more practical examples and tools to convince other librarians, community members, and even professionals in other fields of the value of the approach. It’s my hope that this guide gives them just what they wanted.

You now have the fundamentals of librarianship defined outside the context of a single institution and based on a unifying mission, learning, and values. And you have ample background to join the debate on how this proactive librarianship seeks to shape libraries and systems in general.

If you want to pursue these ideas further, I suggest you read The Atlas of New Librarianship and join us online to continue to explore, refine, and evolve these ideas. But if you’re interested in how to take these ideas to the next level and in how to help spread them, it’s time to move from me convincing you to you convincing others. That’s what these excursus are for (yes, “excursus” is both singular and plural, like “fish”).

The Oxford English Dictionary defines “excursus” as “a detailed discussion (usually in the form of an appendix at the end of a book …) of some point which it is desired to treat more fully than can be done in a note.” Why not simply call them “appendices”? Well, for one thing, it wouldn’t be nearly as much fun, but the real reasons are they’re meant to aid you in promoting a proactive librarianship and so are more important than the background material normally found in appendices, but they’re also here for quick reference, at the end of the guide, so as not to interrupt the linear flow of its first two parts.

The first excursus, “Facilitating New Librarianship Learning,” is a set of practical tips, derived from large-scale training projects, for those involved in designing curricula to promote a new view of librarianship among our colleagues. The second, “Observations from the Field,” provides teaching notes for those who are using this volume as a textbook in a classroom or in continuing education. And the last excursus, “FAQs (Frequently Argued Questions),” offers ready responses to typical questions I’ve been asked about New Librarianship.

These curriculum ideas, field notes, and FAQs are tools you can use to promote and implement a librarianship that seeks to actively and positively transform our communities as they pursue their dreams and aspirations. But these tools are only a starting point. We live in an era where no book is ever truly finished, and no discussion ever truly closed, where we can directly engage online and continue the millennia-long conversation about librarianship and how librarians can improve society. If you need a place to start:

http://www.NewLibrarianship.org