Friday, August 22, 2008

More on Neoliberalism

For information on the topic, here's a brief, slightly annotated bibliography:

D'Angelo, Ed. Barbarians at the gates of the public library. Duluth: Library Juice Press. 2006
(Interesting, even philosophical discussion of the influence of modern capitalism on the public sphere and libraries.)

Giroux, Henry A. Terror of neoliberalism. Boulder: Paradigm Publishers. 2004
(Good discussion of post-911 actions of Bush administration. Radical approach, with adulatory chapter on Edward Said.)

Harvey, David. A brief history of neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2005

Kranich, Nancy C. Libraries & democracy : the cornerstones of liberty. Chicago : American Library Association. 2001
(In particular, see section on Civil librarianship, p-67+ (“Civic librarianship honors the historic mission of education for a democratic society.”)

Lee, Earl. Libraries in the age of mediocrity. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Company. 1998.
(Not specifically about neoliberalism, but describes the effects of neoliberalism on libraries, e.g.: centralized collection development, user fees, replacing librarians with cheaper paraprofessionals.)

Monday, August 18, 2008

The library and "customers" (Part One)

In the past months, my library system has been merged into a larger entity. The move was inevitable: due to the recession/sub-prime crisis, the influence of a Republican governor in the pocket of the no-tax crowd and a not-so friendly Democratic mayor, my system had gone into life-support mode. Without the merger many libraries would have closed, with a lot of staff having to go bye-bye. So, we were sucked up by the big kids. And for the most part, that's ok.

But the new system is far more corporate than we're used to, with the library just a single entity in their big picture. And as a smaller fish having to learn to swim with the big one, an aspect of assimilating is figuring out the new library's culture.

In this case, the culture has a large customer-service base. In fact, the term "customer" is front and center, used in all discussions and communications. I have to admit this bothers me. I know the word is predominant in current library literature, spouted in LJ and blogs and library websites galore. But to me, customer implies a financial exchange between the library and the library user, a deal which goes way beyond the formerly accepted concept of a library patron merely paying taxes and getting various library services in return. Instead it smacks of the infamous public library-as-bookstore model, first presented years ago by Steve Coffman in American Libraries:

Coffman, Steve. "What If You Ran Your Library Like a Bookstore?" American Libraries (March 1998): 40-46.

As we've been merged for eight months now, and I've heard the term coming out of my colleagues' mouths on an ever-increasing basis, I've been doing some thinking. Why does this use of the word customer in a library context nag at me so much? Why can't I just join the crowd and parrot the word in meetings like everybody else? Of course, being a librarian, once I putting my brain to work on something, I needed to find out more. So I starting investigating the bookstore model more deeply: in articles in library literature, books, online. And I discovered an interesting thread popping up in some of the more-radical lit. A thread that reveals the whole basis of the bookstore model, and one that got me to the root of why I dislike the library-as-bookstore model--a concept known as neoliberalism.

More soon.





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Thursday, August 14, 2008

Finally, a new post

Well, it's been a while since the last post. A busy spring and summer is a good excuse--here in Minnesota you need to cram an entire year's worth of outdoor life into 3 months. Fun stuff: my bro's getting hitched, going to the Kingfield neighborbood farmer's market; National Night Out, attending my very first St. Paul Saints game, concerts, outdoor wine bars, walks by the lake, bike rides. You gotta do it, 'cause the middle of August means time's a-wastin' here in the Great White North.

Another reason for not posting is my search for content, after finishing up 'Stick. There's so many blogs in the world, and most of them are self indulgent or have uninteresting subjects or are just plain boring. So I thought: why post if I'm going to just be one of the crowd?

But then, after a while, I thought some more...I've got interests that I'd enjoy blogging about--and I know quite a bit about 'em. And somebody might actually get something out of what I have to say, or I might pick up something from someone else.

So, I've decided Chilly's going to focus on 3 main areas: libraries and librarians ('cause that what I do professionally), guitars ('cause that's what I like to do on my time off) and politics ('cause at heart I'm a West-Wing watching, Obama-supporting political wonk).

Those will be the new themes. I may stray off them from time to time, but bear with me: when and if that happens, I'll try to keep away from talking about me, myself and I and, most of all, I'll try to keep it interesting.
 
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