Equity and Excellence in the Public Library

Why Ignorance is Not our Heritage

Bob Usherwood

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9780754648062
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317141815
• Topic: Sprachen & Linguistik
• Subtopic: Bibliotheks- & Informationswissenschaft

This important volume by one of the leading scholars in the field examines and discusses how library professionals can meet the demands of policy makers to open up the public library system without destroying its values. Based on a critical literature review, a survey of library professionals and consultations with other stakeholders, the book discusses the challenges involved in providing a service that prioritizes equity and social inclusion while at the same time attempting to promote and maintain quality, excellence and ethical standards. In assessing how those responsible for public libraries around the world go about this task the author advocates a service that is sensitive to difference and seeks to provide access to the best.

Chapter 1

Equity and Excellence – The Librarian’s Dilemma?

Modern civilization is a mess and we all know it. Much of the deterioration of our culture and society impacts significantly on librarianship and makes the achievement of our ideals all the more difficult.

Finks (1989)

Recent years have seen a proliferation of intellectual arguments, political policies and management structures that emphasize the need for public library services that, in the language of the times, meet the needs of the many and not just the few. As part of a modernization agenda, public libraries are required to satisfy a range of ambitious objectives. Officially perceived as a service that is inclusive and based on the ideas of social equality, they are expected to contribute to reading and education, to enable digital citizenship, and promote social inclusion. Such worthy ideas, along with many others were rehearsed in Framework for the Future (DCMS, 2003) and subsequently reflected in a variety of upbeat reports and publications from the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (M.L.A), the Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) and a variety of other public and professional bodies.

According to many of those involved such policies are urgently needed if public libraries are to find a place at the heart of modern life. It is argued that if these ideas are to be successfully implemented then public libraries must identify and remove barriers to access and develop inclusive services and activities. It is a direction that receives substantial support in parts of the literature, where writers argue the case for public libraries respecting, ‘the various pop culture tastes and interests of adolescents’ (Rothbauer, 2006); and, to quote Fox (2006), ‘one of the most important government strategy papers [states that] “libraries must now include cafes, lounge areas with sofas and chill out zones where young people can watch MTV, read magazines, and listen to CDs on their listening posts”’.

However, despite the plethora of official pronouncements, and the activities of energetic Ministers, serious doubts are being expressed by some professionals, policy makers, and the public at large. These are not about improving access and inclusion but about the direction the service is being asked to take in order to achieve this. A wide array of publications and public statements demonstrate a state of unease and uncertainty. The nature of the problem was nicely illustrated by an exercise undertaken by participants on a recent course designed to develop public library leaders for the future. Those taking part were asked to, ‘consider the senior manager who is working to implement the vision outlined in Framework for the Future, while long-standing library users are lobbying local politicians for more of a traditional service, and staff feel their professional skills are being undervalued’ (Leading Modern Public Libraries, 2005). The different elements of that task reflect some of the tensions that exist in the public library world, notably the perceived neglect of established users and services, and the fashionable dislike of professional values and standards. Moreover, its inclusion on a leadership training programme is perhaps indicative of a profession that feels the need for a greater sense of direction.

From outside the immediate professional community critical friends and cultural commentators complain that, ‘The library service has lost its soul and desperately seeking some justification veers between pop marketing in imitation of the big chains – and trying to be a sub brand of information processing’ (Hoggart quoted in West, 1991). The recent rebranding of some service points as ‘Idea Stores’ or ‘Discovery Centres’ is seen by others as part of a fashion ‘to turn our great national museums and libraries into entertainment centres, ostensibly to justify their public expense’ (Kerevan, 2004). In so doing, public libraries, in the words of former ALA President Sarah Long (2001), have been ‘fitting in with a tide of stylish opinion that was sweeping the country, opinion that was both anti intellectual and anti authority’.

In other fora professionals and users have expressed various anxieties and concerns. Although the past decade has seen the emergence of some splendid new buildings, there are still serious worries about the deterioration of the public library infrastructure. A survey by the Museums Libraries and Archives Council (MLA, 2006a) found just under a third of public library premises to be inadequate. It identified crumbling buildings, maintenance backlogs, and a need for major investment to bring them in line with health and safety legislation. At the time of writing, and despite much evidence to the contrary, broadsheet and populist newspapers in the UK regularly carry headlines predicting the end of the public library. In 2004 Tim Coates, formerly a managing director of the Waterstones chain of bookshops famously suggested that public libraries in the UK would all be shut down by 2020 because of a lack of demand. He argued that they had ‘failed to meet the need for a broad range of books; [and] to be open at times when users are able to visit’.

The physical and psychological state of the public library service can be seen as symbolic of the condition of cultural institutions in general. In a post-modern age where little is taken seriously and professionals, be they broadcasters or bibliographers, are urged to implement increasingly philistine agendas many will share the concerns of the fictional Professor Stewart who, when he listens ‘to the talk about cultural institutions and how they need to be renewed, and the importance of visitor figures... wonder [s] if we are forgetting their ultimate purpose’ (Waterfield, 2003).

In the United Kingdom the discussion about the library service reflects, in many respects the current debate about the future of another cultural institution, the BBC. In the words of one Head of service, ‘The Library Service has great synergy with BBC programme aspirations. These include reaching into different and more diverse communities, being accessible and opening and widening the base of media literacy skills’ (Cordwell quoted in Slane, 2006). At the same time, Aspden (2004) has written about how the BBC is, in ‘a tricky position hovering between several expectations: as a guardian of the cultural cannon [and] as a mass broadcaster that has to win the approval of several different elite groups...’. Like the BBC, public libraries also face competition from new technologies, commercial imperatives and, some would suggest, changing public attitudes.

A letter to the Daily Telegraph arguing that, ‘the vast majority of British adults no longer need the traditional library service’, and advising that local authorities, ‘sell them off and give the council taxpayers a break’ (Keene, 2005), almost certainly expresses an extreme view, but it does reflect a contemporary argument that questions the public provision of cultural and educational institutions be they libraries, museums, galleries or public service broadcasters. It is argued by some that such organizations are out of touch with the values, aspirations, and beliefs of a population that no longer seeks enlightenment or self-improvement.

Indeed, in some sections of the British population education is now held in such low regard that bright children deliberately under perform so as not to be bullied by fellow pupils. This rejection of education has been examined by the sociologist, Michael Collins, who has defended the materialism of white working class ‘chavs’ who, in his opinion, ‘have been branded because they have made it into the lower–middle class via money instead of education’ (2004). Others seem to imply that ordinary people, especially those from the working class, have a low attention span and little interest in the world around them. Richard Littlejohn provides the archetypal view of the tabloid journalist when he claims: ‘does anyone give a monkeys about what happens in Rwanda... If the Mbongo tribe wants to wipe out the Mbingo tribe then as far as I am concerned that is a matter for them’ (quoted in Sweeney, 1994).

This is part of a broader, and what many might regard as patronizing, argument that suggests that only the upper or middle class are interested in the world around them and can appreciate high art or aesthetic values, and that the poor and disadvantaged crave escapism of the easiest kind, or material that provides an instrumental outcome. Howard Jacobson (2004) examined this populist scenario in a lecture at The University of Sheffield. He gave the example of a barmaid in a television soap opera who says of a visit to see Hamlet, ‘it bored the life out of me... it was about this king who had the ghost of his father hanging over him. It really did ’is ’ead in.’ Jacobson asks, ‘why does she speak about it so cretinously? Would it be a sin against class solidarity to have a barmaid know a play by Shakespeare and admit to liking it?’ Some professionals, who currently work in public libraries, appear to view the average library user in a similar way to the writers of soap operas. A librarian interviewed by Goulding (2006) observed that, ‘People get upset that the library is not a quiet, studious temple of culture. But in this day and age, if you provided that then nobody would come through the door.’

At the very least this indicates that there are some worrying attitudes around in contemporary library services. Indeed, the existence of these kinds of opinions amongst colleagues appears to suggest that some public librarians are content with a professional world that has little regard for intellectual content, prefers style over substance, and promotes choice over quality. They appear to be happy to be part of what John Tusa has called ‘the flight from intelligence’ (in Gibson, 2005). Because of such views we have, librarians ‘gutting the book collections (both adult and juvenile) of classical literature... with the rationale that such things were “too sophisticated for today’s readers”. In other words, we’re directly contributing to the dumbing down of society’ (Burnell, 2005). It is a situation that justifies the prediction of a leading British librarian Thomas Callendar who over three decades ago stated, ‘We have corrupted the taste of one generation and are well on the way to corrupting that of a second’ (quoted in White, 1971).

Ironically, it is currently library users who complain that their ‘local library... is now like an amusement arcade’ (Hockin, 2004) or, that ‘our library is full of old books – mostly, soppy romances and the like’, and ask the professionals and policy makers to, ‘Please take care of this great asset’ (McDonald, 2006). Where a public library might once have been regarded as a place for study and reflection it is now primarily seen by some as a place for entertainment. Those in the profession who dare to argue against this current orthodoxy are attacked as traditionalists, and accused of ignoring social exclusion.

The holders of such opinions are routinely identified by the weasel word ‘elitist’. A Radio Times trailer for a BBC radio discussion described the situation as one where: ‘Anti-elitism is the new Spanish Inquisition.’ In its holy name, public libraries are turned into ‘ideas shops’ (Lebrecht live 2005). Indeed, it is now routinely argued that ‘public libraries... are run by elites and attended by a disproportionately large number of upper and middle class patrons’ (Harris, 1973). As Holden (2004) writes: ‘The use of the word “culture” itself now begs the immediate response “whose culture”?’ In the same way Pachter and Landry (2001) observe, ‘Judging quality in terms of culture is out of fashion, yet strangely when we buy a commercial product or service from the mundane to the special we focus on characteristics of quality as a matter of course.’ Cultural judgements have become relative, suspect and tainted. Almost everything is to be regarded as relative and, in such a world, the professional judgement of the librarian is suspect. Moreover, it is apparently only members of the middle and upper class who are able to appreciate excellence. This is the true elitism of the age, ‘when you hold people’s capacities in contempt’ (Bob 1982).

More recently, Lynne Truss made a similar point when she observed, ‘a lot of people are being held back from learning in the name of egalitarianism’ (quoted in Byrnes, 2005). Egalitarianism is of course different from equity. ‘A strictly egalitarian society would be unjust... if it meant unfair equalities prevailed.’ The focus of our concern are what A.C. Grayling (2006a) has called the ‘crucial equalities – such as equality of opportunity, equal rights and equality of citizenship status irrespective of age, ethnicity and sex [these are] the foundation of the just society and therefore non-negotiable’.

Political Dimensions

Such matters have a political dimension, but these are often over – simplified in debates about literature and the arts. The Left is portrayed as saying that providing material of high intellectual quality is culturally exclusive, and the Right as complaining about the closing of the American, or for that matter, the British mind (Bloom, 1987). In reality the situation is far more complex. Writers from quite different political persuasions often make the same arguments and make them in startlingly similar ways. Ideas and practices that used to be criticized by the political right are now also attacked by some on the left. Thus, a contributor to a predominately right wing Adam Smith blog complains that, ‘a book that has not been taken out in six months has to be put in storage’ (Oli, 2005) while, from a completely different political perspective, the long time leftist librarian Sanford Berman is unhappy about, ‘an ongoing epidemic of wanton mindless weeding [ ... ] for the past 4 or 5 months’ (Berman, 2001). Also from the left of the political spectrum, a New Statesman writer complains that, ‘Some libraries appear to have settled for becoming community information points with coffee shops attached’, and suggests that ‘a statement that literacy is at the heart of what libraries are for would be welcome’ (Clee, 2005).

Similar political confusion can be seen in the way that the market driven commercialism of the right, which seeks to justify everything in economic terms, can be seen to equate with the views of those on the left who reject as ‘elitist’ attacks on popular often populist culture. Thus, some left leaning librarians defend a populist culture, which more often than not is produced by an organized, and often manipulative, media industry. What some, but by no means all, on the left regard as the empowerment of the user can also be seen as an acceptance of the market forces beloved by the right. An Ideas Store Manager, quoted in a broadsheet newspaper, illustrates this perfectly by arguing that, ‘our residents want us to talk the language of retail’ (quoted in Dyckhoff, 2004). The worry for many is that such retail-led, access-driven policies may degrade the library experience and have a debilitating effect on the educational aspects of the public library.

At some time in the recent past the Right’s obsession with choice, and the Left’s suspicions of authority, became merged in an unhelpful co-alliance. This is seen in the poverty of much of what we now recognize as post modernist thought, with its dated sense of irony and shallow criticisms of experts and professionals. On parts of the left there has been a form of counter-cultural thinking. This is sometimes based on the ideas of French philosophers like Foucault, who believed that there is no such thing as empirical truth but only a series of equally valid opinions. The political picture is further confused by Habermas’ (1991) critique of postmodernism as neo-conservative, irrational and potentially fascist.

Parkin (1972) argued that, ‘the musical, literary and artistic tastes of the dominant class are accorded positive evaluation, while the typical cultural tastes and pursuits of the subordinated class are negatively evaluated’. However, matters were never quite as simple as that. The present author recalls quoting the passage to a class of library school students in the early nineteen seventies, but a marginal comment in the lecture notes suggests that students were invited to debate Parkin’s point of view. There are alternative perspectives, Rose (2001) for example observes, ‘If the dominant class defines high culture, then how do we explain the passionate pursuit of knowledge by proletarian autodidacts, not to mention the pervasive philistinism of the British aristocracy?’ More recently, Eagleton (2000) suggested that, ‘The traditional class structure and the traditional cultural pecking order, has never been simply correlated.’

A related debate is also taking place amongst some of those responsible for public library policy. In the UK the government’s policy, at one level, still invokes the ideas of Ruskin. In its strategy for cultural policy, arts, and the creative economy The Labour Party (1997) expounds his belief that a ‘person who everyday looks upon a beautiful picture, reads a page from some great book, and hears a beautiful piece of music will soon become a transformed person’. Ministers from the DCMS maintain that, ‘it is the content delivered that matters to people’ (Jowell, 2004), while at the same time insisting that libraries promote social inclusion (Department for Culture Media and Sport, 1998). Members of library user groups also argue that, ‘libraries are a major force in combating social inclusion’ but are equally concerned, ‘at the preponderance of cheap and “popular” fiction and non-fiction on the shelves [and] the dumbing down of the service’ (LLL, accessed 2006). In similar fashion, the Deputy Editor of The Big Issue, a magazine for the homeless, fears that libraries will be subject to ‘an explosion of populism, with 10 copies of the latest blockbuster novel made available at the expense of one useful but expensive reference book’ (MacKenzie, 2002).

Professionals and policy makers, facing this confusing situation confront complicated questions that are not always adequately reflected in the populist debate. They face a subtle and complex set of issues which often cross the political and or professional divides. There are numerous areas of concern. Will members of the library profession be able to meet the demands of policy makers to open up the service without destroying it? Should libraries, at least in part, be evaluated by their contribution to the population’s understanding of the arts and enjoyment of literature and music? Have egalitarian aspirations hindered attempts to create public libraries as centres of excellence? Indeed, should public libraries be centres of excellence? Is it the role of the public library to select, stock, communicate and promote material that is not entirely dependent on the whims of the market place? Should it be a place where every one can access minority tastes, a place for the unpopular and the experimental? Should it contain works that are untried and untested, and promote ideas that will disturb, question, and on occasions offend?

The literature and agendas for professional meetings indicate that librarians are keen to attract more users to their service and want to make it more accessible. Fewer people appear willing to question if this can be accomplished without changing the service beyond recognition. There are of course people who feel that such radical change is required. However, the experiences of professionals in other closely related areas demonstrate the dangers of simply sleepwalking into the future. Even those who want change need to ask if our public libraries are in danger of being downgraded and their values eroded by a combination of commercialism, cultural relativism, and mistaken egalitarianism? The way the profession decides to deal with these issues will have significant implications for the future identity of public libraries. In essence such questions are about, what the fictional professor quoted above called, the ultimate purpose of the service.

In the current climate, simply raising such matters can put an author at risk of being mistaken for some kind of right wing apologist. Some feel that these questions should not even be asked. One person responding to the survey undertaken as part of the author’s research wrote: ‘I really disagree with the tone of some of these questions – it has never been the role of libraries to dictate a highly cultural/educational model on its customers’ (HoS 31+). That is a conclusion that library historians may wish to debate, but it is true that the present writer is concerned at his possible association with what are apparently now regarded as reactionary ideas. However, he takes some comfort from Bob’s (1982) observation that, ‘as librarians we show our contempt for people’s capacities by over-emphasizing the lowest common denominator’. Moreover, as Eagleton (2000) comments: ‘Those radicals for whom high culture is ipsofacto reactionary forget that much of it is well to the left of the World Bank.’ A.C. Grayling (2002) too has argued that people of left-liberal political sympathies can ‘believe that high culture has special and superior value which justifies state support...’. It is also worth recalling that it was at a low point of Thatcherism that Norman Tebbit declared it was impossible to tell the difference between a page three girl and a Titian nude.

The present author’s own point of view has been shaped by the experience of growing up as part of a working class community in London’s East End. That experience included weekly visits to the local public library and regular access to the BBC, which, at that time, radiated public service values. It is now fashionable to regard such values as paternalistic but those two organizations and later the Open University, provided gateways to a richer and more rewarding world. It would be a tragedy if the kinds of opportunities that they provided were not available to, and used by, present and future generations. Of course those future generations will inhabit a different landscape and the public library will need to respond to that, but it should do so in a way that reflects what Gorman (2000) called its ‘enduring values’.

This book sets out to explore and analyse some of the issues set out above by examining the views of library professionals, and the observations of writers and commentators from outside, but related to, the library world. Many of these matters have been the subject of Masters Dissertations undertaken by the author’s Sheffield students, and some of their work is also drawn on in the text that follows. In the somewhat limited debate that the British profession has had so far there has been a degree of over generalization. The argument is often simply portrayed in terms of, left and right, relativism, elitism, equality and that e...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Dedication
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Author’s Notes
• 1 Equity and Excellence – The Librarian’s Dilemma?
• 2 Equity and Excellence Around the World
• 3 Value versus Demand
• 4 Self-Improvement, Complex Culture, and the Public Good
• 5 Commercial Imperative?
• 6 Developing Critical Capacity and Creativity
• 7 Providing Access to the Best
• 8 Information Is Not Enough
• 9 Education, Education, Education
• 10 Through Excellence to Inclusion
• 11 Professionals, Practice and Policy
• 12 Equity and Excellence – A Value Judgement
• Postscript
• Appendix 1 Questionnaire: Equity and Excellence in the Public Library
• Appendix 2 Summary of Responses to Survey
• Bibliography
• Index