I finally read Dismantling the Public Sphere by John Buschman. Not for lack of wanting, but rather since I’ve had a resolution over the last year to borrow books more than I buy, I had to wait until I was able to borrow it. This is somewhat relevant to the book itself – in a society where I quite easily have the funds and ability to go online and buy a copy for myself, express-posted by USPS to Australia, what motivates me to instead wait over a year to be able to borrow it and read it? In some small way, I hope that when I borrow rather than buy books such as Buschman’s, it enables the library to notice demand for that type of publication and hopefully, to buy more. I also get the advantage of being able to read many of the reviews that have been published about the book, many of which add to my understanding and knowledge about the issues it discusses. And perhaps somewhat selfishly, it allows me to save space and money at home.

Turning to the book itself, this is a timely and important discussion of the role and nature of libraries (particularly public libraries) in society today, and highly relevant given the rise of new concepts like the information commons, and the threat to close public libraries in Salinas, amongst others.

Buschman begins with an overview of the changes in public policy and economics that have given rise to an increasing emphasis on outcomes and bottom-line in the library sector. His description of Reaganomics is useful, particularly since in Australia we’ve really only seen the full impact of that way of thinking with the Howard Government since the mid-90s. It is interesting, and sobering, to see where our libraries may be headed in the future.

I applaud Buschman for noting that too often librarians turn to management literature yet are unaware of not-for-profit and arts management literature. I’ve said the same thing on several elists when people have discussed management, and been quickly dismissed each time. Ignoring museums, arts organisations, community centres, and other parts of our sector is to our detriment. I agree with Buschman that we should not be so quick to turn to the theories of the for-profit sector nor should we adopt those theories in a less than comprehensive way –

“The jargon of the business moment all appear in the library management literature, as if passing through a frictionless tube after a short delay” [p. 86]

If librarians are going to criticise the use of Weasel Words, they should also analyse the underlying assumptions about those words – the theories that such words embody.

Buschman also outlines problems with the use of the term information in the literature and the profession without adequate analysis –

“I count at least five different concepts […] information as system or technique, as economic “matter,” as “stuff” to be collected and organized, and as a basis of occupation” [88-89]

The same problem is starting to occur with the use of the term “knowledge” and the growth of “knowledge management” which Buschman discusses later in the chapter [p 92-93]. A paper presented at the ALIA 2004 conference challenged our assumptions about this growing field.

Like another reviewer, I agree that Bushman is perhaps a little too uncritically in favour of print resources. He criticises the lack of authority and authorship of documents on the Internet, yet books often suffer the same problems – for example, encyclopedias rarely tell you who wrote each entry. However, I do agree with the need to critically evaluate new technology and new information resources, in whatever form they may take. Jessamyn West’s call for libraries to have a technology plan is a good example of how to achieve this.

In his chapter on the ALA, Buschman discusses librarians’ lack of engagement with the issues surrounding publishing. Despite librarianship’s widespread endorsement of Open Access, I agree that such literature is often running parallel to the debate about scholarly publishing, rather than genuinly critiquing it.

Dismantling the Public Sphere is a timely and important book, especially for those who are adopting management theories without critical analysis and reflection (is Six Sigma next?). Highly recommended, borrow it from a library near you!

The latest issue of Progressive Librarian has an excellent article titled “Information Criticism: where is it?” by Jack Andersen [not yet online] –

“…we seldom hear librarians participate in the public sphere by means of writing or talking about issues that are concerned with or that threaten this supposedly free access to information.”

This article is very timely for me since I’ve been planning on updating my paper on the information commons and situating it in terms of advocating for access to information. Andersen’s article and Buschman’s book have given me a much better grounding to situate the paper in.

Andersen’s article also discusses issues in LIS as a discipline, highlighting flaws which prevent the development of researchers in the field which he ascribes to the technical and managerial nature of many LIS core texts –

“To ‘make a difference,’ to earn the status of being ‘indispensible’ one needs an argument, and to argue is to be engaged in discourse. But by invoking such unengaged, technical language, LIS communicates an attitude to students that says: you do not have anything at stake; you are not a shareholder in this discourse simply because there is no discourse.”