The independent benevolence of government

So far, one of my better classes at the Information School has been one taught by Deborah Jacobs, City Librarian at the Seattle Public Library. The class is called “Public Libraries and Advocacy,” but as she said on the first day, it really should be called “Public Libraries and Politics.” The class has been a great introduction to the political and managerial side of public library work, and, unlike most of my classes so far (sadly), has been really focused on using theory as a basis for creating practical solutions to real-life problems.

A couple weeks ago, we had the opportunity to meet some really interesting international visitors from the library profession–Martín Gómez, director of the Urban Libraries Council, and Jens Ingemann, director of the Royal Library of Copenhagen. They were visiting Seattle for the IFLA Metropolitan Libraries Section Conference, which the Seattle Public Library was hosting, and stopped in to visit our class. Each gave a fascinating presentation of the work they’re doing, and gave us all some food for thought about the challenges and possibilities of librarianship.

What was most interesting to me about their visit, though, was not what either of them brought up in their presentations, but what came up during a discussion based on the reading we had done for that class. In anticipation of their visit, we had read the chapter in Kathleen de la Peña McCook’s Introduction to Public Librarianship on international libraries. This chapter brought to our attention the fact that government-funded public libraries are not something that all countries (or even all regions of the U.S.) can take for granted. What our discussion centered around is whether this is really as bad as it sounds. How thankful should we be for government support, and what would we do if we didn’t have it?As one would probably expect, since this is a class of future public librarians, the majority felt that government support and funding are almost unquestionably good things. I agree with this, to a point, but I wonder if it is really unquestionable. I think it depends on the degree of the support and on what kinds of mandates come along with it. Jens, in his presentation, talked about the Danish Library Act of 2000, which mandates a basic level of library service to all Danish citizens. This, I think, is an example of a good governmental library mandate. Martin asked if it would be a good idea to have similar national legislation in the U.S. I can’t say that it necessarily would be. Governmental mandates come with strings attached. If the government mandates or funds library service, it gains quite a bit of control over what that service should look like, wich isn’t always in line with the values public libraries stand for.

For example, the U.S. E-Rate funding for libraries provides money, but mandates that Internet access be filtered. If we have a government whose politics are inimical to the values of intellectual freedom, as our current administration’s seem to be, do we want it directing library policy?

When government regulates library policy, libraries have a couple of choices for response. They can respond, as the Seattle Public Library has done with E-Rate funding, and refuse to take the money in order to uphold their values. But not only do some smaller libraries not have this luxury, but this can be a risky political move. When your library asks voters for money, but has turned down federal money so people can look at porn on the Internet, you better be able to articulate the reasons for this pretty darn clearly. Nevertheless, even some smaller libraries, such as the Haines Borough Public Library in Haines, AK, (Library Journal’s Best Small Library of 2005), have successfully refused E-Rate funds in order to provide unfiltered Internet access to patrons.

During our class discussion, I brought up the Prelinger Library (which was recently featured in Harper’s), which is a small, privately-run library in San Francisco that is in many ways doing a better job serving the public than many public libraries do. For example, it is focused on preserving local information (rather than becoming part of a giant world database); its organization is focused on browsing and accessibility (rather than sticking with tradition); and it houses a collection of books (rather than “information artifacts”). In fact, the Prelinger Library is inspired by the Warburg Institue Library of London, a library organized around the idea that “the books together–each containing its larger or smaller bit of information and being supplemented by its neighbors–should by their titles guide the student to perceive the essential forces of the human mind and its history.” And Warburg sought private support for this endeavor, because “he knew that no government or public institution would fund such a project.”

However, as one of my classmates pointed out, an institution like the Prelinger Library wouldn’t have the value it does if it wasn’t supplemented by being in a community with a large, mainstream public library. The Prelinger Library collects materials that aren’t part of the mainstream, but how good is it if there isn’t also a supplier of the mainstream?

Another problem with the Prelinger Library as a model is that it only exists because a couple philanthropists decided that it should exist. Is this really the library economy we want, one that depends on the independent benevolence of individuals? But, then again, is a system that depends on the independent benevolence of governments really all that different?