An excerpt from "Postmodern Consumer Capitalism and the Public
Library," which is Section 12 of "Barbarians at the Gates of the
Public Library" by Ed A'Angelo.
As the role of the gatekeeper disappears from public libraries, popular
culture overwhelms high culture, entertainment replaces education, and
images replace print. Libraries now include large collections of videos
as well as bestselling books written for movies. We are told that there
is no difference between image and print because both contain
information, and since the business of the library is to supply the
public with information, we must provide both. But there is a
difference between information and knowledge. Words are better able to
convey abstract ideas and the knowledge they contain than images.
Images may be more entertaining than words, but entertainment is
merely the consumption of information for the purpose of obtaining
pleasure, not knowledge. Insofar as the library becomes a purveyor of
images it becomes part of the consumer economy.
The retail model is being applied to reference work as well. If you
visit a Barnes & Noble’s bookstore and ask a general reference question
-- say, “What is the population of China?” -- they will either look at
you with a blank stare or make an uninformed guess as to what kind of
book would have the answer to your question. That’s because Barnes &
Noble’s doesn’t hire reference librarians. They hire poorly paid clerks
who are trained to answer directional questions -- in other words, to
locate specific titles or subject areas on the shelves. If you ask a
reader’s advisory question -- say, “Can you recommend a good work of
historical fiction set in colonial New England?” -- you will get a
similar response. Retail clerks aren’t expected to know anything about
books or how to find information in them. They are there only to fetch
books for you and to do it in a personable, friendly manner -- service
with a smile. Their job is really no different than waiting tables in
a restaurant. They receive training in customer service, but not
reference or reader’s advisory service.
Chelton (2003) is right that the quality of reader’s advisory services
in most public libraries is poor, but she fails to explain why. The
tenor of her article places the blame on librarians, and excludes
their perspective. The reason reader’s advisory service in most public
libraries is poor is that like clerks in a corporate chain bookstore,
librarians are receiving more training in customer service and less
training in reference or reader’s advisory service. Partly that’s
because that’s what the public expects. “Customers” are much more
likely to complain if they receive poor customer service from
librarians than if they fail to get an answer to their reference or
reader’s advisory question. Indeed, customers ask far more directional
questions than reference questions and ask even fewer reader’s advisory
questions. “Customers” have probably had more experience as shoppers
than they have in libraries and tend to bring their expectations from
their shopping experiences with them to the public library.
Consequently, library administrators emphasize customer service over
reference or reader’s advisory service. Some have even hired marketing
research firms to evaluate customer service in their libraries. One
such firm, Service Evaluation Concepts, hires “mystery shoppers” to
visit local establishments such as restaurants, hotels, gas stations,
as well as libraries, as a consumer of goods and services, to evaluate
customer service.
Once material selection, reference and reader’s advisory are taken
away from librarians, nothing remains of their traditional work duties
but library management and customer service. Since these two remaining
duties are different, and require different levels of education and
training, they can be split into two separate roles.
Martin Gomez (2000), the director of the Brooklyn Public Library and
candidate for president of the ALA during the New Economy era, proposed
that the library profession establish an undergraduate degree program
in library science to train paraprofessionals. This new class of
library employee would have “increased responsibility for most of what
we call ‘traditional’ librarian responsibilities.” Another class of
library employee with graduate degrees in library science “would no
longer do collection development, cataloging or reference work but
instead direct this work as performed by others with undergraduate
degrees in library theory and practice. Librarians with MLS degrees
would operate on a higher plane, developing and evaluating programs
and institutional policies designed to meet community needs.”
But since material selection, reference and reader’s advisory are
being phased out of the postmodern library of the 21st century, in
practice Mr. Gomez’s paraprofessionals would spend most of their day
at the “information desk” delivering “customer service.” Since they
will not be performing many “traditional librarian responsibilities”
it will surely occur to some future leader of the profession to
dispense with undergraduate training in library science and hire any
literate person they can find with adequate customer service
experience. According to Mr. Gomez’s vision librarians with graduate
degrees will serve as managers of the library. But surely some future
leader of the profession will see that individuals with degrees in
business management or public planning are better qualified to be
managers than librarians. This is the route by which librarians will
be removed from libraries.
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