Carol Liu [LAMA President, 1993-1994; retired from QBPL] has sent an insightful essay to library lists expanding on themes from John N. Berry’s “The Vanishing Librarians.” With her permission, it appears below:
If you’re fed up with the poor-quality of service and materials
you encounter in your public library, read this and weep. It’s
not a new phenomenon, rather one that has been infiltrating
the field (from library schools to library boards to the libraries
charged with delivering the “product” to the “customer”*)
over many years. I’ve witnessed and experienced all that
Berry describes, along with the slow decimation of the
system in which I worked – one of the largest in the U.S. The
consequences are a catastrophic corporate-driven dumbing
down of a vitally important institution. Perhaps those mute
“library leaders” Berry refers to are the business-friendly
hacks who have been hired by business-friendly trustees to
accomplish the job. I’ve known plenty of them, too.
(*Even earlier, some of us saw this train coming down the
tracks when library users were suddenly transformed into
“customers” and personnel departments were renamed
“human resources.”)
Compare this to similar developments in the arts:
“Privatising Culture: Corporate Art Intervention since the 1980s,” by Chin-tao Wu. 2002. Verso.
and in education:
“Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling. ” (New Society Publishers, 2002)
and “The Underground History of American Education,” (Oxford Village Press, Oxford, NY 2000/2001) by John Taylor Gatto.
And on the subject of self-service, listen to this interview
broadcast on KPFA’s Against the Grain (at least Gimenez’
segment): Mon 1.28.08 Onward Corporate Servants: Neoliberalism’s Soul; Corporate “Self-Sourcing”
Neoliberal capitalism immiserates millions of people, so you
might envision its practitioners as soulless profiteers. But
Bethany Moreton argues that neoliberalism has a robust
emotional dimension rooted in Protestant evangelism. And
Martha Gimenez calls attention to what she calls “self-sourcing”: corporations getting consumers to do unpaid work.
–Carol
=============================================
The Vanishing Librarians
The library becomes a dehumanized supermarket or a
chaotic bookstore
By John N. Berry III, Editor-at-Large,
jberry@reedbusiness.com — Library Journal, 2/15/2008
It looks like the “transformation” we seek for libraries and
librarianship may turn out to be more of a “deskilling” of
library jobs than an enhancement of the profession. More
and more working librarians are “managed” by a new breed
of library leader. Their model for the new public library is that
dehumanized supermarket or the chaotic disorganization of
the largest Barnes & Noble. [see entire article here]…..
The most surprising part is that so few library leaders have
raised their voices in alarm or outrage at this erosion of the
standards to which libraries once aspired. It is frightening to
think that we will stand quietly by and watch as professional
librarians disappear from libraries and with them the quality of
the services and collections in which we once took such
professional pride. see [entire article here].
=========================
See also
“Librarians demoted: Move dictated by budget, customers’
needs, director says”
Posted February 22, 2008
By Brian Reisinger
Wausau Daily Herald
http://www.wausaudailyherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/
20080222/WDH0101/802220558/1981
http://www.lisnews.org/node/29261
“WI Librarians Demoted: ‘Librarians today do less complex work.”
Posted February 22nd, 2008 by Blake