University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Compliant trust: The public good and democracy in the ALA’s “Core Values of Librarianship”

Seale, Maura

Permalink

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/89858

Description

Title
Compliant trust: The public good and democracy in the ALA’s “Core Values of Librarianship”
Author(s)
Seale, Maura
Issue Date
2016
Keyword(s)
  • Librarianship--Core Values
  • Librarianship--Theory and Practice
  • Library Profession
Abstract
This paper will consider the Core Values of The Public Good and Democracy as articulated in the American Library Association’s “Core Values of Librarianship” (2004) and its affiliated documents in conjunction with the ways in which these two Core Values are deployed in library discourse around the Ferguson (Missouri) Public Library, particularly during the last four months of 2014. Both the ALA’s Core Values document and library discourse around Ferguson heavily rely upon liberalism in regard to power and conflict, subjectivity and equality, and capitalism. This reliance results in a vision of librarianship and an understanding of the Ferguson Public Library that are completely decoupled from political, economic, social, and historical contexts. This decontextualized discourse fits seamlessly within neoliberal ideology and is ultimately antidemocratic.
Publisher
Johns Hopkins University Press and the Graduate School of Library and Information Science. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
ISSN
0024-2594
Type of Resource
text
Language
en
Permalink
http://hdl.handle.net/2142/89858
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1353/lib.2016.0003
Copyright and License Information
Copyright (2016) Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Owning Collections

Library Trends 64 (3) Winter 2016: Valuing Librarianship: Core Values in Theory and Practice PRIMARY
Library Trends 64 (3) Winter 2016: Valuing Librarianship: Core Values in Theory and Practice edited by Selinda A. Berg and Heidi LM Jacobs, University of Windsor.