Reinvention of the Public Library for the 21st Century.
Edited by William L. Whitesides, Sr.
Englewood, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 1998.
ISBN: 1–56308–628–x 302 pages. US$40.
This work was “planned and written by graduate students and edited by their instructor” (page xv). Specifically, it came out of a 1996 class on “The Public Library” offered by Catholic University’s School of Library and Information Science through the University of Richmond (Virginia). It displays many of the virtues — and a few of the faults — of a collaborative effort. This review will begin by considering the more positive aspects.
In the foreword, Elizabeth S. Aversa, then dean of the School of Library and Information Science, asserts that the work is “not a traditional textbook”, but that it “identifies twelve important platforms from which discussions of public library priorities, policy, and practice can be launched.” As if to underscore this approach, the editor, in his preface, informs us that “we did not undertake the soft management issues such as library conflict resolution, supervisory skills, or personnel management that may be learned on the job or in staff development opportunities.”
The actual chapters address such “platforms” (in Dean Aversa’s terminology) as the history of public librarianship; past values; political, economic, cultural, and other environments; people and libraries; perservation; technology in a numbers of contexts; and sources of funding. All of the chapters include discussion questions, and many suggest supplementary readings.
An additional benefit of the work is a ninety–page appendix with student reviews of libraries which were (a) winners or runners–up for designation as Gale Research Library Journal Public Library of the Year or (b) deemed notable for other reasons. Among the libraries profiles are the Chicago Public Library, “Enoch Pratt Free Library and Cybrary”, the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County, and the Appleton Public Library. As you might expect, given a classroom of authors, the information given on these libraries comes from varying levels of research and is of uneven quality.
The limitations of Reinvention of the Public Library for the 21st Century reflect its origins. It may be that every library and information science instructor who has taught a course on public libraries — this reviewer included — has regretted that valuable student insights often have an audience limited to fellow students and the instructor. Sometimes, with enough encouragement and revision, such student papers may appear in the journal literature of the field. More often, even first-rate papers are simply filed away.
The papers appearing in this book may be viewed as bibliographic essays, ranging from good to excellent, dealing with aspects of the public library. As Jaroslav Pelikan has noted in The Idea of the University: A Reexamination, such essays can be of immense assistance to scholars and, in this instance, to practitioners. They do not, however, constitute a textbook — as Dean Aversa admitted in her foreword. And this failure is compounded by the editorial decision (see above) to avoid “soft management issues such as library conflict resolution, supervisory skills, or personnel management”.
It can still happen in American public libraries that a new degree-holder can graduate from his or her LIS program and immediately become the director of a small public library. This present reviewer, as a long-time practitioner turned educator, has observed several instances in which a lack of knowledge about how to contain conflict, or address various personnel issues, has hurt a career.
This book is recommended for general collections dealing with public libraries. It would not, however, be the text of choice for educating new public library practitioners.
Bill Crowley is an Associate Professor, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, Dominican University.
E–mail: crowbill [at] email [dot] dom [dot] edu
© 1999 Bill Crowley.