Readings for Week the 8th

Redmond Kathleen Molz and Phyllis Dain, Introduction and The Mission: Consensus and Contradiction

A long but very readable article about the history (and current state) of public libraries. I was especially struck both by the comment that the mission of libraries has been ambivalent and dichotomous (11) and, similarly, that an organization is most effective when it concentrates on one task (37). I think we’re scrambling, trying out many different things to stay in business and to stay exciting and recognizable and desirable to a population of busy, distracted people. Our mission is all over the place; we try to do a great many things. Part of the problem is solved by librarians taking on different roles (so we have librarians who do only cataloging, and librarians who only work with children), but with new roles being created constantly, it’s hard to stay on top of things and focused. If we can’t decide what our ultimate goal is, how can we aim towards it? For the most part, I don’t have a problem with the library getting more involved with providing community entertainment. I do worry that it could eventually undermine the educational goals of libraries. If we’re too focused on patrons who want a free Borders Books, we lose sight of those looking for a quiet and scholarly place to study, and those looking for help finding their tax forms. I liked the quote from poet Karl Shapiro: “The availability of books of all levels, not simply the best or the greatest books, I see as a stimulus to the creative mind.” Agreed.

Michael Gorman, Human Values in a Technological Age: A Librarian Looks 100 Years Forward and Backward

I saved this article for last because I thought it might be boring (I’m easily prejudiced by tiny type), but I actually really enjoyed it. The telephone IS still the greatest network we’ve created; crazy. Though its impact is primarily on communication, and I’d argue that the Internet tackles both communication and information, a much taller order. Maybe they can both win the prize. And hey, I was born in 1980, not far off from Groman’s 1984 example (7), and despite being bombarded with distractions (both visual and auditory), I managed to have a serious love for the quiet, the introspective, and the academic. Perhaps fewer people manage it now than in past generations, but I’m not so sure about that, either—I’m inclined to say that some people are and always have been attracted to the flashy and the busy, and others prefer things a little slower. I agree that as a profession we’re over-focused on technology. We haven’t gotten our old systems right yet, but we’ve in some cases abandoned them to pursue new tracks. How do we achieve balance?

Steven R. Harris, Discourse and Censorship: Librarians and the Ideology of Freedom

It took me a long time to catch his drift, but by the end, it couldn’t have been clearer. I was glad to read a critique of the Library Bill of Rights, and think some of his criticisms are very valid. We do need to stand up and take authorship and responsibility for the points in the Bill, both in how they’re worded and how we carry them out. I agree that librarians need to be more active about partnering with alternative presses and in national intellectual freedom issues (such as the bandwidth distribution), but what’s lacking here is an acknowledgement of time. I assume that most librarians are busy people, usually with more on their plate than they can accomplish in a day. Finding reviews of books from alternative presses, or scanning over the books themselves when no reviews can be found, is far more time consuming than trusting a mainstream source. Similarly, crusading for intellectual rights comes at a cost to other aspects of library work. I agree that these things should be done, but putting them into practice may be more difficult than it seems.

Siva Vaidhyanathan, Why Thomas Jefferson Would Love Napster

I find copyright law a bit depressing. The ever-increasing length of copyright protection benefits established institutions at the expense of newer artists or inventors, and leads to an overall decline in creativity. Vaidhyanathan describes the problem as undemocratic and makes a strong case for it. Jefferson wrote that the reader of an idea “cannot dispose himself of it,” and of course that’s very true. Copyright would be a sticky issue anyway, but in thinking of it as property, and saying that ideas can be copyrighted, leaves us in an even stickier mess. I’m not sure I understand its implications fully, but what impact has the DMCA had on libraries?