Public Libraries and Social Justice

Citation

McMenemy, D. (2012), "Public Libraries and Social Justice", Library Review, Vol. 61 No. 2, pp. 163-165. https://doi.org/10.1108/00242531211220780

This book was commissioned as a counter to Usherwood's (2007) work; I will admit that I am a great admirer of that work, as it asked serious questions of what a public library service should be and railed against the wider culture of dumbing down that has infected popular culture in the UK since the 1980s and the role of the public library in sustaining it. Nevertheless, it is good to see other scholars write in opposition to it, as it stimulates the kind of debate we no longer seem to want to have in UK librarianship. For that contribution alone I applaud the authors in their work.

Pateman and Vincent take Usherwood's thesis head on when they suggest that in his arguments against a base culture he “aligns himself with those who denigrate so‐called ‘Chav culture’ at every opportunity.” They suggest he is at best a cultural elitist and at worst a classist; such rhetoric may seem effective to some, but for this reviewer it is at best unfortunate, and at worst risks losing any reader who believes in well‐informed debate. To see authors who are fully aware of the extent of the man's works and his input into public library research over the past 30 years use such a poor tactic against him is very disappointing. In this reviewer's opinion the thesis of Usherwood that the authors seek to take on is not actually one that he makes. They argue that the excellence Usherwood argues for is related to “outdated professional practices” – I disagree. The excellence Usherwood argues for relates to the content provided to library users, a call for balanced collections that challenges users rather than conspires in keeping them ill‐informed.

The book follows a structure that sees the authors define the history of public librarianship in the UK, then go on to discuss the policy and professional implications of social exclusion. In both cases they take on some of the myths of public libraries being conceived as entirely altruistic, and highlight the belief among many commentators that they were (and are?) a form of social control, espousing middle class values that the working class are expected to conform to. Indeed Pateman and Vincent argue early on in their work that “At some point, public libraries were hijacked by the middle classes.” This is obviously a common critique of public library provision, made by both the extremes of the left and right, and it is not only this issue that sees the arguments of left wing commentators such as Pateman and Vincent echo those of right‐wing neoliberal thinkers. For instance it may be my own misunderstanding of their arguments, but their definition of need comes across to this reviewer much more as want, and in this it is hard not to see the authors as allying themselves with those of a consumerist mind‐set.

The next chapters deal with the strategic context of social exclusion, considering a number of government and other reports on the issue, and then a chapter discussing how social exclusion can be tackled. The final chapters deal with how to develop a needs‐based library service, and it is these two chapters that would be of most practical benefit to library professionals in considering how they can adapt their practice.

The polemical style of the work aside, which some readers may be more favourable towards than this reviewer, another grating aspect of style relates to the extensive use of quotations from other sources. Quotes are liberally spread throughout, taking up significant amounts of the word length of the book. After a short time of reading I found this wearying, as it is jarring to switch voices to such a great extent. There is little evidence of the quotes being interspersed to support summaries and arguments made by the authors; they invariably are high chunks of text that alter the narrative throughout. Clearly this is perfectly acceptable in terms of style, however in a polemical piece such as this it would have been more favourable to see quotes used more sparingly and the ideas of others integrated more into the discussion rather than placed in full.

Another unfortunate feature of the book is the limited set of reading that has been used to inform it. This is not to say the bibliography is not extensive – but it is selectively so. For instance the book takes on Usherwood, but cites only the one book by him it seeks to denigrate, completely ignoring the wider catalogue of work he has written on the subject of public libraries. To imagine none of this is relevant to the points Pateman and Vincent wish to make stretches credulity. For instance, Usherwood's work on evaluating social value in public libraries alone is directly relevant. On the other hand I counted at least 11 references for Vincent's previous work. There is also no reference at all to Anne Goulding's (2006) work, and given her Public Libraries in the 21st Century: Defining Services and Debating the Future is perhaps the most detailed work on public libraries in the UK in the past 20 years, it is a glaring omission that is very difficult to justify.

In summation, there is much in the book that is worthy of consideration – the overview of the strategic context of social exclusion is informative, and the discussion of what makes a needs‐based library service is a genuine contribution to public library policy development should policymakers which to take the points on. Overall, however, in its approach to its argument, its extensive over‐use of quotes, and its selective use of background reading it makes a useful, if imbalanced, contribution to the professional literature.