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From Librarian of Congress, James Billington, to founding director of the Center for the Book, John Cole, the leading-edge information specialists of the day share their insights on the role libraries play in advancing democracy.
Libraries and the Global Retreat of Democracy focuses on how libraries coordinate their work in political and information literacy and how these efforts can be improved, the recommendations and examples within which will serve as inspiration and motivation to its readers.
Taking a broadly Marxist approach, Confronting the Democratic Discourse of Librarianship traces the connections between library history and the larger history of capitalist development.
Libraries, archives and museums have traditionally been a part of the public sphere's infrastructure. They have been so by providing public access to culture and knowledge, by being agents for enlightenment and by being public meeting places in their communities. Digitization and globalization poses new challenges in relation to upholding a sustainable public sphere. Can libraries, archives and museums contribute in meeting these challenges?
Barbarians at the Gates of the Public Library is a philosophical and historical analysis of how the rise of consumerism has led to the decline of the original mission of public libraries to sustain and promote democracy through civic education. Through a reading of historical figures such as Plato, Helvetius, Rousseau, and John Stuart Mill, the book shows how democracy and even capitalism were originally believed to depend upon the moral and political education that public libraries (and other institutions of rational public discourse) could provide. But as capitalism developed in the 20th century it evolved into a postmodern consumerism that replaced democracy with consumerism and education with entertainment. Public libraries have mistakenly tried to remain relevant by shadowing the rise of consumerism, but have instead contributed to the rise of a new barbarism and the decline of democracy.
LFL history, quirky and poignant firsthand stories, a resource guide, and some of the most creative and inspired LFLs around.
"One of the chosen few: an enduring contribution to democratic thought."—Bruce Ackerman, Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science, Yale University
Challenges conventional thinking and top-down definitions, instead drawing on the library user's perspective to argue that the public library's most important function is providing commonplace reading materials and public space. Challenges a professional ethos about public libraries and their responsibilities to fight censorship and defend intellectual freedom. Demonstrates that the American public library has been (with some notable exceptions) a place that welcomed newcomers, accepted diversity, and constructed community since the end of the 19th century. Shows how stories that cultural authorities have traditionally disparaged- i.e. books that are not "serious"- have often been transformative for public library users.