University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

"""The power of knowledge, objectified"": Immaterial labor, cognitive capitalism, and academic librarianship"

Popowich, Sam

Permalink

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/106086

Description

Title
"""The power of knowledge, objectified"": Immaterial labor, cognitive capitalism, and academic librarianship"
Author(s)
Popowich, Sam
Issue Date
2019
Keyword(s)
  • Immaterial labor
  • Cognitive capitalism
  • Academic librarianship
Abstract
"This article analyzes current trends in academic librarianship from the perspective of Italian autonomist Marxism. With the rise of new technologies and the advent of a period variously called the ""Fourth Industrial Revolution,"" ""Industry 4.0,"" and ""The Second Machine Age,"" academic librarianship is undergoing various changes in work-flow, technology, and service provision. The body of thought that developed out of the Italian Marxist tradition provides ways of thinking through and understanding these changes by placing them within a larger dynamic of capitalist development and the restructuring of labor processes. After looking at changes to academic librarianship from the perspective of immaterial labor and cognitive capitalism, the paper offers ways that academic librarianship can think about the possibility of resistance to these changes."
Publisher
Johns Hopkins University Press and the Illinois School of Information Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Series/Report Name or Number
Library Trends 68 (2). Fall 2019
Type of Resource
text
Language
en
Permalink
http://hdl.handle.net/2142/106086
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1353/lib.2019.0035
Copyright and License Information
Copyright 2019 Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Owning Collections

Library Trends 68 (2) Fall 2019: Labor in Academic Libraries PRIMARY
Library Trends 68 (2) Fall 2019: Labor in Academic Libraries. Edited by Emily Drabinski, Aliqae Geraci, and Roxanne Shirazi.