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Title: Libraries and Liberation Author: Anarchist Federation Date: 1995 Language: en Topics: libraries, education, Organise! Source: Retrieved on May 13, 2013 from https://web.archive.org/web/20130513071718/http://www.afed.org.uk/org/issue40/libraries_and_liberation.html Notes: Published in Organise! Issue 40 — Autumn 1995.
PUBLIC LIBRARIES MAY not sound like a site of class struggle, nor a
model of anarchist communism. But in the conflict of values which they
embody, and with the changing shape of the world (and more especially
Western) economy, they are certainly significant.
They began in Britain in the mid-nineteenth century, paid for by a penny
on the local rates and gradually spreading throughout the country.
Though the educational side of libraries was one reason for their
promotion by the middle class, another was their role in providing a
literally sobering influence on the working class, by way of being an
alternative to the gin palace and through their provision of “improving”
literature.
Yet through the years a certain outlook, albeit liberal, has developed
among librarians and users. Implicitly it subverts both the belief of
those who thought libraries would merely promote social peace and the
basic idea of capitalism. Firstly, there is the view of the library as a
place to enable anyone to pursue self-education in whatever subject.
This in turn has meant that libraries, as local national and
international systems- which incidentally demonstrate the federalism
anarchists support- have an ideal which opposes censorship and
encourages the collection of mainstream and non-mainstream ideas and
information. There are many examples of people turning to the library
for answers and intellectual ammunition when dissatisfaction with the
established society has been felt.
Secondly, as the Anarchist thinker Kropotkin was already observing in
the 19^(th) century, in The Conquest of Bread : “ When you go into a
public library...the librarian does not ask what services you have
rendered to society before giving you the book...which you require;
he(sic) even comes to your assistance if you do not know how to manage
the catalogue”. As well as an affirmation of equality, this kind of
non-cash transaction is a suggestion of anarchist communism : the
individual decides on his/her need, and the only restriction is a common
limit as a guarantee of general access to the product. Thus libraries
have limits as to how many items a person may borrow, and for how long.
But there is another side to this picture. Precisely because they are a
public service funded by taxes, the Tories have indirectly made cuts in
them by rate-capping and their consistent reductions in grant to local
councils. (Labour did the same back in the mid-1970s). Their
uncontroversial image has made them publicly respected and yet, when
cuts have come, often easy victims. And in a climate where performance
figures are sacrosanct (as for hospitals and schools) so the issue
figures for books, regardless of their quality or range, are
increasingly focussed upon. This necessarily promotes the mainstream
over the radical. But since issue figures have gradually been decreasing
in most places (though this is but one crude measure of how a library is
used) this fact has been seized upon by the Right (in particular the
Adam Smith Institute, the “intellectual” vanguard of the market economy)
as an argument against freely lending public libraries and for making
money out of their stock wherever possible (e.g. from reference
enquiries).
For parallel to the development of electric information forms in the
1980s and 90s (online databases and CD-ROMs) has come the concept of
information as a commodity. It’s no accident that many electronic
sources are chiefly marketed to business. They are said to be a way of
getting ahead of competitors, because of their speed of use as compared
to printed sources. Yet these electronic sources are usually based on
those self-same printed sources. So the form of use has changed, and a
new way of making money has developed for capitalist publishers, but the
overall control and filtering of information remains concentrated in
familiar hands. For example, Financial Times Information publishes not
only the FT on CD-ROM but also the Independent and Daily Telegraph as
well.
Then there is the Internet, which started as a network of American
defence computers (to be used in the event of a nuclear war!). This has
to an extent been wrested away from that purpose by the impulse of some
users to spread alternative news and ideas in an unregulated way. Some
public libraries are starting to give access to it. But from a non-,
even anti-, commercial start, it is increasingly being touted now as a
global marketplace, while governments discuss how it might be policed
(under the guise of concern over such issues as child pornography).
In this climate, librarians have succumbed to varying degrees. Because
of the stress on issue figures and the decrease in budgets, there is
increased conservatism in what is bought. Naturally this makes it still
harder for minority publishers and viewpoints to achieve exposure to the
public. For some years various library authorities have run commercial
business information services, with a further trend being such areas
such as Brent in London positively relishing the prospect of being
entrepreneurs or contracting out libraries to the private sector. And
those who enter libraries nowadays are most often referred to as
“customers” rather than the more active “users” or “readers”, with the
commercial aura which that implies. Will the reality be far behind?
Within a capitalist society like Britain, it is ultimately tradition and
the lack of a method to privatise it that keeps the public library
alive. For if even information can be given a price, why should people
be better informed or educated beyond what they can afford or is useful
to the ruling class? But it is the putting of a price on information
which already denies it to many, not just in this country but as a
reflection of the global North-South divide as well, since the South has
far less in the way of libraries and telecommunications. This denial has
far more than financial consequences. It denies people a full sense of
their history, of their potential and of what might be possible if the
world was organised to serve the needs of all. But in the public library
the seed of this possibility can still be seen.