A Common Sense Librarianship Manifesto

How our profession can remain true to its values, principles, and democratic commitments.

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Dec 13, 2024

Image: “NYC Public Library Building”. François Proulx [flickr].

Introduction

The reaction to the recent U.S. Presidential election, and the accompanying polling data and commentary afterwards, suggests a significant rejection on the part of the voting public of various forms of identity politics, broadly considered “woke” or ultraprogressive, which draw on various forms of academic Critical Theories. Musa al-Gharbi’s recent book We Have Never Been Woke now resonates widely because it speaks to the growing understanding of how calcified thinking in an elite class about issues of inequality has, in fact, created a self-serving narrative in that class that perpetuates its own privilege, without necessarily advancing the cause of social justice, in the new progressive sense of that phrase. Since the election, numerous pundits have pointed out the extent to which this epistemic separatism leads to beliefs that become self-reinforcing and unempirical, and therefore illiberal and incapable of self-correction.

In this vein, American political journalist and blogger Matthew Yglesias posted on November 12th to his Substack Slow Boring a piece entitled, “A Common Sense Democrat Manifesto”, which, he wrote, was

not a column about why [Kamala] Harris lost; it’s a column about what should happen next. And I believe the answer is that the Democratic Party should embrace commonsense moral values and move away from academic fads and deliberate tent-shrinking, while redoubling their commitment to ideas that have been pillars of Democratic campaigns for decades.

Yglesias’ points are as follows, and each was intended to be supported in the following weeks by individual essays:

Economic self-interest for the working class includes both robust economic growth and a robust social safety net.
The government should prioritize maintaining functional public systems and spaces over tolerating anti-social behavior.
Climate change — and pollution more broadly — is a reality to manage, not a hard limit to obey.
We should, in fact, judge people by the content of their character rather than by the color of their skin, rejecting discrimination and racial profiling without embracing views that elevate anyone’s identity groups over their individuality.
Race is a social construct, but biological sex is not. Policy must acknowledge that reality and uphold people’s basic freedom to live as they choose.
Academic and nonprofit work does not occupy a unique position of virtue relative to private business or any other jobs.
Politeness is a virtue, but obsessive language policing alienates most people and degrades the quality of thinking.
Public services and institutions like schools deserve adequate funding, and they must prioritize the interests of their users, not their workforce or abstract ideological projects.
All people have equal moral worth, but democratic self-government requires the American government to prioritize the interests of American citizens.

Given that this Substack Heterodoxy in the Stacks has, for more than two years now, championed library neutrality in the context of liberal pluralism, we believe that—in the same spirit—libraries should also (in Yglesias’ words) “embrace commonsense moral values and move away from academic fads and deliberate tent-shrinking.” More specifically, librarians should not become stakeholders in particular political causes of the moment—or of any moment—as an activist political class in our field, nor in one that reacts against this activist class, but should instead remain rooted in the core principles of philosophical liberalism. In this sense, libraries must be institutionally neutral, and capable of serving the informational, scholarly, and recreational needs of a very pluralistic public.

As civic institutions founded to serve a wide public, libraries (and their leaders) must retain core values based in epistemic liberalism—the principles of free expression, freedom to read and discuss a wide range of perspectives, the core precept of disinterested scholarly inquiry, and the ability to continue viewpoint-diverse professional learning within the field itself in order to improve it. Both individually and collectively, librarians should be open-minded and capable of critical reflection, using evidence-based methods to elevate debates and the general discourse in the field. In addition, librarians should consider how they might best participate in networks of epistemic institutions that promote open inquiry and intellectual diversity, on their campuses and in their communities. The telos of libraries should be truth-seeking, not truth-determinative, as defined by particular causes, either cultural, educational, or political, beyond supporting a wide literacy and serious dedication to broadly-considered educational goals. This telos gives librarians an active role in sustaining epistemic liberalism—and democratic norms for citizenship—without attaching itself to the individual views and agendas of either individual librarians or staff members, or the views and agendas of particular constituents served by libraries.

With these considerations in mind, we offer the following “Common Sense Librarianship Manifesto”—modelled closely on Matt Yglesias’ own list described above—as guidance for all librarians regarding their professional roles and practices in institutional contexts, so as to be grounded in a liberalism that best serves the widest range of informational, scholarly, and recreational reading needs for the most diverse public possible. We propose that these principles can help place libraries and librarians above some of the distracting and polarized debates in our society that affect the information needs of the public, while encouraging members of the public, or students and scholars, to become more informed citizens.

As shall be seen below, Yglesias’ “Manifesto” is readily adaptable to the library context with very little adjustment. Some points require only minimal word changes, although a couple will be entirely replaced while retaining the spirit of the originals: Yglesias’ first point is about the accounting for citizens’ economic self-interest, while ours concerns the user’s self-interest in the “marketplace of ideas”; his third point addresses the crisis of climate change, while ours focuses on that of socio-economic inequality; and we switch his final point from a focus on people to one on issues, while adhering to his focus on ethical scope. Other adjustments in wording for the library context will be readily apparent.

A Common Sense Librarian Manifesto

Library users have the right to seek and access both library contents and spaces to meet their personal informational and recreational objectives. While they have no right not to be personally offended by collections or legal speech in the library, as community stakeholders they do have the right—which should be regarded as legitimate—to provide input and feedback.
The institution of the library plays an outsized role in the “marketplace of ideas,” which requires making available a wide diversity of viewpoints about which users may inform themselves to determine their own purposes and decision-making (for a thorough discussion on this point, see the previous HiTS post, “Librarianship and Political Philosophy: Seven Arguments for Neutrality and Intellectual Freedom”). While some of these viewpoints are certain to offend some users, the public must understand that this is an inherent part of the social contract necessary for the existence of public libraries, and cannot be grounds for censoring or removing such viewpoints. However, such considerations regarding that “marketplace” do not, as such, extend to young children, whose intellectual freedom matures as they grow into adolescence and beyond, necessitating parental selection and influence.

All that being said—and in the interests of institutional accountability—library users do have the right to offer their input and feedback regarding collection decisions through conventional “request for reconsideration” forms—the good faith submission and consideration of which should not be hyperbolically characterized as a “book ban”. We can't simultaneously both afford members of the public the right to express their objections, and pathologize the exercising of that right.
The library should prioritize maintaining functional public systems and spaces over tolerating anti-social behavior.
In Yglesias’ subsequent post, “Liberalism and Public Order”, his second point was elaborated upon by focusing on the growing problem of disorder and misconduct in public spaces (including libraries), arguing “[i]t’s not progressive to allow public spaces to become chaotic and unusable”. Troublingly, violent incidents are becoming a growing problem in public libraries in both the United States and Canada, with assaults, inappropriate conduct, and threats being leveled against library staff and members of the public. According to Public Libraries Online,
[Incidents] include verbal abuse, physical assaults, threats of violence, overdoses, and other alarming occurrences. The statistics are stark: in Ontario, a survey of 500 librarians revealed that almost all had witnessed or experienced workplace violence, while in Oregon’s Multnomah County Library (MCL) system, over 1100 security incidents were reported in a single year and almost 75% of the public-facing library staff in the system indicated they felt unsafe at work. Additionally, 5% of library respondents in the 2022 Urban Library Trauma Study “experienced violent or aggressive behavior at their libraries from patrons” (and 22% from their coworkers).
Given these conditions—exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and growing rates of substance abuse and addictions—it would seem of paramount importance to ensure that sufficient security is available to make libraries as public spaces safer. Yet, there is at the same time a progressive campaign within the profession aimed at distancing libraries from the police and removing officers from library property. Referred to as the “anti-carceral” or “abolitionist” movement, its “ultimate goal [is] the complete abolition of law enforcement and surveillance from library spaces, campuses, communities — in short, everywhere.” These activists would have libraries rely instead on specially-trained library workers themselves to de-escalate with difficult patrons or defuse potentially violent situations.
This is obviously a complex and fraught issue, and there are concerns that a regular police presence may make some community stakeholders feel uncomfortable. However, Dr. Steve Albrecht writing at the "Service, Safety, and Security" section of Library 2.0 argues that there are some grave circumstances of actual or threatened violence where calling police is, in fact, the only option (e.g., a person armed with a deadly weapon; threats of violence or robbery; a fight between two armed patrons; incidents of sexual assault; attempted or actual kidnapping of a child or an adult, etc.). He summarizes his position this way: “We will always need the police, but not always.”

In our view—and in light of the increasing rate of incidents of violence and disorder occurring in public libraries—the abolitionist approach imposes an overarching and ideologically-motivated solution on a complex matter, and one that places undue burdens (to say nothing of risks) on staff. Rather, we advocate taking a more pragmatic approach that accounts for local circumstances, and which, in response, may comprise a mix of trained staff, embedded social workers, security guards—and in the case of especially threatening situations—the intervention of the police.
Socio-economic inequality represents a reality to which libraries must respond through public service measures, not a system of oppression which library workers must dismantle.
ALA’s professional codes and pronouncements have, in recent years, directed library workers to adopt radical stances aimed at “confronting and dismantling” systems of oppression. Yet, as John Wright and I [MD] noted in our HiTS post, “Multidimensional Library Neutrality: A Primer”, such radicalism is far beyond our mandate and abilities, yet we can still seek to address socioeconomic inequities which may be experienced by users by removing barriers to library services where necessary (e.g., eliminating fines) in an effort to create equal opportunities.
We should, in fact, judge people by the content of their character rather than by the color of their skin, and consider library users as individuals rather than as representatives of identity groups.
Libraries have always been oriented to meeting the needs of the individuals who walk through their doors, and gained an understanding of community characteristics by reference to demographic data and needs assessments. Assuming that such individuals hold the views that accord to some demographic category is a mistake, and renders any attempt to “take sides” with particular community stakeholders extremely problematic. Our service goals can be met without reference to monolithic regimes of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion which, as argued elsewhere on this Substack, are producing increasingly polarizing and illiberal results, have been shown under controlled conditions to produce animosity and conflict, and, as a consequence, are being rejected or abandoned by many institutions.
Race is a social construct, but biological sex is not. Collection development and library room speaker policies must uphold people’s basic right to declare that reality in print and in public meeting rooms, and the rights of library users to access, read and hear these arguments; and collections aimed at children should provide a balance of perspectives on the issue.
Yglesias was not the only commentator to remark on the disastrous role the Left’s embrace of gender identity ideology1 played in the Democrats’ defeat. Helen Lewis, writing in The Atlantic, argued that “The Democrats Need an Honest Conversation on Gender Identity”, noting that “the party went into an election with policies it couldn’t defend—or even explain,” while Sam Harris, in a piece entitled “The Reckoning”, chastised the Democrats’ obliviousness in failing to recognize that “for millions of Americans, [the trans issue] might as well have been the only issue in this election.” The recently-formed organization Democrats for an Informed Approach to Gender argues that the Party must correct its course on this issue, stating that “[i]t came as no surprise to us that a Trump campaign ad swayed voters with the tagline ‘Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you’…Democrats handed Republicans this talking point.” Finally, journalist Madeleine Kearns at The Free Press called out the Left for leaving it to Donald Trump to defend the sex-based rights of women to female-only spaces and sports. In short, the unquestioning embrace of this postmodern, metaphysical ideology appeared to a number of observers to have been a political loser for the Democrats.
In a very similar way, we argue that librarianship’s enthusiasm for gender identity ideology has also proved politically costly for our profession. While previous posts on this Substack have dealt with this issue as it relates to self-censorship, free speech in meeting rooms, and the neglect of the needs of a pluralist society, we wish to focus here on the loss of public goodwill as a result of public and school libraries stocking, promoting, and defending against all opposition the dozens of titles promoting gender identity ideology to young readers. Librarians have condemned as “hateful” and “bigoted” the many parents and parents’ groups who have objected to these contents, when, as Sam Harris argues of Americans who voted against Harris, they are so motivated
[n]ot because they are transphobic assholes, but because they simply do not accept the new metaphysics, and even new biology, mandated by trans activists and the institutions that they have successfully bullied and captured. And it's important to say that not all trans people agree with what these activists say and do.
While adults of course have the right to identify and live however they choose and are owed every human right afforded anyone else, in light of the collapsing international consensus on medical gender transitions for minors, as well as the growing mainstream rejection of males competing in female-only sports, it seems clear that—as Helen Lewis argues of the Democrats—the library profession also needs to have an honest conversation about gender identity ideology, especially as it concerns young readers.
Library work does not occupy a unique position of virtue relative to private business or any other jobs.
As I [MD] argued in my article, “Wicked Problems and Comprehensive Doctrines: Interventionism and Social License in Librarianship,” our profession plays a unique and significant role in any society, but positioning librarians as radical change agents to solve complex social problems is an extremely risky project for which we have been granted no social license by society: Library workers do not have the social license to “improve society” or to be the vanguards of revolution.
Politeness is a virtue, but excessive language conformity alienates the public and degrades the quality of thinking.
Librarianship and its institutions have fully imbibed the lexicon of Critical Social Justice (i.e., “Wokeness”), which is replete with terms laden with hidden ideological meanings. We speak of “diversity” while discouraging diverse viewpoints; promote “equity” of outcomes—which are impossible to achieve under democratic conditions—rather than working to create equality of opportunities; embrace “inclusion” that necessitates the exclusion of people, books, or ideas to which particular groups take offence; discuss only “gender”—which can mean almost anything—when what we really need to understand is the role that sex plays in the ways in which men and women experience the world and its institutions and professions (especially librarianship, which has traditionally been female-dominated); and champion the ubiquitous imperative of “decolonization” which (while it may be well-intended) is poorly-defined and apparently open-ended, i.e., when will be able to say our libraries have been sufficiently “decolonized”? As I [CG} add in a recent HiTS post,
These [terms] include the meta-constructs of the oppressor-oppression dichotomy; the sacralization of minority identities; the concept creep of “harm” into language and the resulting language-policing; the metastasizing of the original theory of intersectionality into over-ingenious combinations of racial, gender, sexual, occupational, and geographical identities as a way of accounting for uniqueness of individuals; and the convenient falsifications of history regarding “settler-colonialism” across the world in hugely different contexts.
This postmodern lexicon is repeated in our literature as if we all agreed upon and possessed a shared understanding of it. Yet, their very opacity renders these terms confusing to members of the general public, and conflicts with our profession’s ability to remain focused on its democratic commitments.
Public services and institutions like libraries must prioritize the interests of their users, not their workforce or abstract ideological projects.
This point is articulated in much more detail in the previous HiTS post, Multidimensional Library Neutrality: A Primer, but the gist is this: the autonomy and intellectual freedom afforded our library users precludes the imposition of any political or ideological project on the part of the library worker or the institution.
There will always be many important and worthy social issues (or “wicked problems”) needing attention, but libraries do not have the capacity or mandate to address them.
ALA’s Code of Ethic #9 introduced in 2021 charged library workers with the task of “dismantl[ing] systemic and individual biases [and] confront[ing inequity and oppression”—missions without any defined limits. Are we to confront oppression everywhere? For the rest of our careers? Are we to dismantle systemic biases in society generally? Are we to somehow intervene in the minds of our patrons to dismantle their biases? Not only is none of this reasonable or fair, it presumes that all librarians share an understanding of the nature of oppression, the identity of oppressors, and the remedies necessary to bring about social justice—knowledge and authority which no librarian can claim. We must instead prioritize the educational, informational, and recreational needs of our community of library users.

Conclusion

On one level, we find it validating that Yglesias’ road map for the future of a centrist, liberal political party would align with so many of the arguments we have been making on this Substack, confirming our assertion that the program we are advocating is rooted in classical liberalism. More generally, we intend this Manifesto to restore reasonable boundaries around and limits to librarianship, to restrain the impulse (so prevalent in the Critical and Radical literatures) for librarians to engage in social engineering—or worse—radically illiberal projects aimed at “dismantling” the profession or the structures of society more generally. We also hope that these considerations can lower the rhetorical heat on some of the more contentious culture war battles into which our profession has been drawn. Finally, this Manifesto can serve to remind ourselves of the important orientation towards “common sense”—being the reasonably presumptive baseline democratic worldview of most of our user communities—which means rejecting radical views on identitarian politics, and instead returning to core liberal principles of preserving the individual freedoms of thought, conscience, speech, and expression.

The authors would like to thank Sarah Johnson and Howard Marks for their valuable suggestions in the preparation of this essay.

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The traditionally liberal-feminist view on gender stereotypes is that boys should be free to have traditionally “feminine” interests (e.g., playing with dolls), and girls “masculine” ones (playing with trucks), and both to grow up to be attracted to their own sex. Gender identity ideology however, would instead insist that these “gender non-conforming” boys and girls may be “born in the wrong body” and should medically and socially transition to be consistent with those gender stereotypes. Gender-critical feminism counters that this view is extremely regressive in reifying these stereotypes, and is, indeed, fundamentally homophobic.