This contribution to Heterodoxy in the Stacks is exactly in the area I'm working on in my PhD dissertation, and it actually exposes some of the fallacies of the neutrality argument. First, it sets up a binary opposition between neutrality and commitment (or "soulcraft"), and second it is based on an unquestioned individualist social ontology. The two are connected: only if society is composed of individuals can those individuals act autonomously and without interference, in other words, only in a society composed of individuals can an institution like libraries be neutral. However, this fundamental individualism is not an unquestionable characteristic of the social world: there are theories of social construction of individual subjectivity which challenge it. If individuality is socially constructed, then no person is ever free from "interference" or acts autonomously. These theories are taken seriously in other disciplines in the humanities and social sciences, but tend to be ignored in librarianship, and so it follows that the (unspoken) commitment to an individualist social ontology is itself a non-neutral commitment (there are alternatives, and you are selecting one of them). The insistence on the autonomy and non-interference with patrons or library users is, therefore, not a neutral stance, but a commitment to an individualistic, atomistic, social ontology derived from a particular political philosophy (social contractarianism, utilitarianism, classical liberalism, etc). Once it is understood that even a commitment to individual autonomy and freedom from interference is a specific political commitment, then the illusion of neutrality falls away. It is only the assumption of individualism as a natural, unquestioned, (and yes, orthodox) characteristic of society that allows for the illusion of neutrality in the first place. This is what I mean when I say that the unspoken, unquestioned liberalism of the dominant ideology of librarianship appeals to neutrality when in fact is always has its own set of commitments. There is no neutral position, only commitments that are hidden or obscured.
I should add that it is precisely the unspoken commitment to individualism (and liberalism) that means that even the "neutral" position is a form of "soulcraft" - it is guiding users in their belief in individualism and everything that follows from it. It is also a good example of how it is not only us woke, social justice types who are "certain" about things; we are just explicit about the things we are certain about.
I am not interested in most books written from a "social justice" perspective, as it is currently conceived. If that is primarily what a library had on offer, I wouldn't use it. You can't force people to align with your worldview.
"You can't force people to align with your worldview." And yet, libraries have been doing precisely this since 1848. You only don't notice it when you agree with the worldview on offer.
I am only personally interested in a very small percentage of books in my library's collection, let's say 10%, but I provide the other 90% for the people who are interested in those topics. So your comment makes no sense.
Like I said, librarians are free to create displays or recommendations to promote the books they find valuable, but beyond that it's none of our business. I am running a library, not a Scientology center.
There are other institutions whose mission is to act as a bulwark against an atomized society, such as churches, and libraries perform that service in so far as they act as community gathering spaces. But that is not incompatible with libraries allowing the free and unfettered private exploration or public discussion of ideas.
If a librarian has a desire to nudge people in a certain direction, the librarian can create displays or write recommendations for books or create bibliographies. I personally have no desire beyond that to manage what people read as long as material selected meets collection standards. And honestly I would be creeped out if I felt a librarian was trying to steer me towards certain material based on their personal belief system.
I think you've missed my point. You can only subscribe to the idea of a "free and unfettered private exploration or public discussion of ideas" if you already subscribe to an individualist, atomistic social ontology. I.e. if you already adopt a particular commitment to a social theory.
That commitment means that by saying "I'm not managing what you read, you are making a free and autonomous reading choice" you are actually reinforcing the idea of individual freedom in the person you are speaking to. You are, therefore, influencing the way they approach reading material and everything else.
Even the idea of a "personal belief system" is a commitment based on a particular understanding of individual subjectivity and ideas. You adhere to one out of a number of different views, which means it is not a neutral orientation, but a value-laden one.
But really, I have no desire to manage what people read either, but I know that the institution of the library is always-already set up to do that. It's hard to see how creating book displays or writing recommendations is not "steering people towards certain material".
Fascinating. This point: "I think you've missed my point. You can only subscribe to the idea of a 'free and unfettered private exploration or public discussion of ideas' if you already subscribe to an individualist, atomistic social ontology. I.e. if you already adopt a particular commitment to a social theory."
Seems to imply that the core argument is whether individuals make up society or society creates individuals. The sorts of people who label the idea of neutrality as "rhetoric" seem to be firmly in the camp of "individual as creation of society," each of us being a living, breathing social amalgamation at the deepest level while those of us who would hold viewpoint neutrality in librarianship as a necessary and correct professional ethos would fall into the "society as collection of individual minds" whose similarities are merely structural. What would follow then is the next question: are librarians so clever and moral as to sociologically mentor (however subtly) the individual user so as to "improve" society? Those in the "social justice as highest good" camp seem to think so while those in the "wide berth for individual conscience" camp are more circumspect. The argument reminds me of a lecture I attended once about how Marxist sociology demands that we re-think historical figures. It was called something like "The 'Great Man' Theory and the Fuehrer Principle." It argued that believing in individual attitude formation was, somehow, a precursor to fascism. I wonder how that notion strikes you.
And how fascinating that you would pick 1848 as your touchstone year.
Thanks for this. 1848 is both the year of the triumph of the bourgeoisie and the founding of the Boston Public Library - in my book I connect the founding of state-funded public libraries with the victory of capitalism as a social order, so 1848 seemed an apt year to select for this.
I think there's a prior question to the one you posed ("are librarians so clever and moral as to sociologically mentor (however subtly) the individual user so as to "improve" society?") which is, if individuals are the creation of society, can *any* social institution *not* have an effect - detrimental or improving - on society? The non-neutrality argument is, I think, that this is impossible and so libraries are always already mentoring users so as to improve society (according to one particular set of values). It isn't a question being clever and moral enough to do it, so much as it's impossible *not* to do it, so we should be very clear about what our actual commitments are. Neutrality prevents us from being clear about that.
Certainly in Marxist terms, fascism is seen as precisely the result of the kind of individualism and atomism that capitalism created by dissolving any relationship between individuals other than financial ones, so liberal individualism does issue in particular forms of fascism. It's hard to see because both German and Italian fascism insisted on a particularly corporate ideology (the nation or people), but when you look at their actual social and economic policies, they were committed to a fundamentally individualist petty-bourgeois capitalism. The Fuhrer or Great Man principle also obscures the social reality of fascism by insisting on the power of a single charismatic leader.
I should add, too, that my argument has nothing to do, really, with whether social construction or individualism is *correct*. Since social construction theories exist, to adopt individualism as a social ontology is a non-neutral position (it could only be neutral if individualism were an unquestioned natural fact; even if you think individualism *is* a fact, the existence of social construction theories means adopting that viewpoint is a non-neutral selection).
It would seem to me that that thinking--the inescapable effect (detrimental or improving, as you put it) of institutions--underscores the exact kind of "crisis in faith in democracy" that Kolakowski spent so many years writing about.
If someone in the offices of an organization like the American library Association is having that crisis of faith, they should be boldly open about it and propose the re-writing of the foundational ethical documents to redact statements like: "Most attempts at suppression rest on a denial of the fundamental premise of democracy: that the ordinary individual, by exercising critical judgment, will select the good and reject the bad. We trust Americans to recognize propaganda and misinformation, and to make their own decisions about what they read and believe. We do not believe they are prepared to sacrifice their heritage of a free press in order to be "protected" against what others think may be bad for them. We believe they still favor free enterprise in ideas and expression."
If such ideas are based in "individualist petty-bourgeois capitalism," then the "ordinary individual" is just a chimera created by the boss class, malleable and destructible as he/she is creatable. Further, if that idea--the individual--is but the preliminary step to the fascist, isn't it our duty to fight fascism by doing our part to phase the very idea of the individual out?
Wouldn't we librarians make the perfect vanguard? 'Non ducor, duco' and all that.
I think those documents *are* in the process of being rethought and rewritten (the subject of the open letter on this substack). And yes, the library literature often expresses the position you mention (my own included), but it’s not necessary for the non-neutrality argument. Once faith in a position is lost, then it has to be defended and argued for - and defense of/argument for a position is by definition non-neutral, a commitment among others.
I don’t see how that follows at all. An anti-capitalist advocates the abolition of capitalism. A non-capitalist society will have a different kind of library, just as pre-capitalist society did.
Hi Sam. Thanks for contributing to the discussion. I wish you would consider doing a piece for this Substack! In any event, I was wondering: how do you conceive of the best way to advance your commitments, given that "there is no neutral position, only commitments that are hidden or obscured"?
Jul 22, 2022Liked by Sarah Hartman-Caverly, Amy Girard
Thanks Rob. I'll consider it!
To try to answer your question, I need to take a step back. I get the sense from this substack that (some? most?) contributors feel that their perspectives are "heterodox" with respect to a dominant, social-justice perspective in librarianship. I tend to see things the other way around, that many of the positions taken in this substack are in fact the same as the ones that dominate the profession, and indeed dominate Western society at large. That perspective (what I've called the democratic discourse of librarianship and which I associate with liberal-capitalism) is so hegemonic that it does not even see its commitments as commitments, but as neutral or common-sense. So from my perspective we are *very far* from advancing my or anyone else's alternative commitments; we are still only at the stage of trying to expose the hegemonic position *as* a commitment (i.e. as non-neutral). Most of my contributions to the discussions of intellectual freedom try to do this. I think getting those who think they aren't taking a committed position, but are in fact being "neutral", to see that they *are* in fact committed to a particular social theory, idea of the good, etc, etc, has to the be first step. What comes after that, I'm not entirely sure.
I should say though that personally this change has to be bottom-up. I don't tend to worry overly about ALA policies and decisions, because they are very remote from the on-the-ground practice of library workers in communities. So I think that the resistance of library workers to (ostensibly neutral, but in fact committed) library policies is key. It's an enduring and painful irony of the profession that the intellectual freedom we claim to espouse almost never applies to library workers themselves. I know all the arguments (some on this very substack) about the mantle of professionalism, etc, but that doesn't in fact dispense with the irony.
I agree with your last paragraph in this comment. The real impact is if library workers are or are not embracing the polices. A policy is only effective if it is embraced, not forced. Is your comment about intellectual freedom applying to library workers regarding practices like library workers not buying books based on their own censorship? I also wanted to bring up how I don't believe holding intellectual freedom as a value is a hegemonic position because even though there has been these types of policies that support IF since the 1960's, in practice they have never been practiced and embraced to a full extent. I am suggesting that most library workers likely don't act to support IF fully. And I wonder how many even do?
Greatly appreciate both Sarah's article and the substantive comments (on all sides) developing from it.
However, I sometimes wonder if all (or most) parties to this recurring debate don't share an exaggerated sense of the power of libraries to influence patrons in consequential ways.
The nudging literature, for instance, warrants, to say the least, skepticism:
Recalls Hugo Mercier's point that "indeed, it is difficult to find an idea that so well unites radically different thinkers" -- preachers, atheists, conspiracy theorists, conservative thinkers, old-school leftists -- as the concept of widespread credulity: https://tinyurl.com/573rrmuh
Good article. Soulcraft is a good term for what is motivating the critique of library neutrality. I think that it is also to a "therapeutic" impulse. Alternatives to library neutrality that have been proposed -- "radical empathy" or "trauma-informed ..." -- suggest that the relationship between librarians and their patrons should be like relationship between doctors and their patients.
According to this view, injustice and oppression are so deeply embedded in our society that those of us who have been forced to live in it for all of our lives are morally defective in some way. Those who suffer from oppression are traumatized by it. Those who benefit from oppression are fragile and morally corrupted. Racism is so deeply buried in their souls that their moral intuitions cannot be trusted. For librarians to treat these sick souls who walk into the library as autonomous moral and intellectual agents is to abandon our duty. Our damaged patrons shouldn't be left alone to fend for themselves in a world of misinformation. We need to care for them and try to fix them.
The soulcraft/therapeutic vision of librarianship is not new. It is actually pretty old (although the current theories of social justice are new). In the late 19th and early 20th century, many educated middle class librarians believed that it was their mission to improve the morals of working class immigrants flooding into American cities. Since 2016, we seem to be headed back in that direction (Lawrence's vision of reader's advisor services essentially revives the old "taste elevation" hopes) b/c many librarians no longer trust rural, working class Americans to think for themselves.
Daniel Clarkson Fisher, recent LIS grad at Western University in London, Ontario, won PLG's Braverman Prize for his essay dealing with neutrality. Now posted to the PLG website:
A PROMISED (BUT ULTIMATELY UNREACHABLE) LAND:
THE FALLACY OF “POLITICAL NEUTRALITY” EXEMPLIFIED BY
This contribution to Heterodoxy in the Stacks is exactly in the area I'm working on in my PhD dissertation, and it actually exposes some of the fallacies of the neutrality argument. First, it sets up a binary opposition between neutrality and commitment (or "soulcraft"), and second it is based on an unquestioned individualist social ontology. The two are connected: only if society is composed of individuals can those individuals act autonomously and without interference, in other words, only in a society composed of individuals can an institution like libraries be neutral. However, this fundamental individualism is not an unquestionable characteristic of the social world: there are theories of social construction of individual subjectivity which challenge it. If individuality is socially constructed, then no person is ever free from "interference" or acts autonomously. These theories are taken seriously in other disciplines in the humanities and social sciences, but tend to be ignored in librarianship, and so it follows that the (unspoken) commitment to an individualist social ontology is itself a non-neutral commitment (there are alternatives, and you are selecting one of them). The insistence on the autonomy and non-interference with patrons or library users is, therefore, not a neutral stance, but a commitment to an individualistic, atomistic, social ontology derived from a particular political philosophy (social contractarianism, utilitarianism, classical liberalism, etc). Once it is understood that even a commitment to individual autonomy and freedom from interference is a specific political commitment, then the illusion of neutrality falls away. It is only the assumption of individualism as a natural, unquestioned, (and yes, orthodox) characteristic of society that allows for the illusion of neutrality in the first place. This is what I mean when I say that the unspoken, unquestioned liberalism of the dominant ideology of librarianship appeals to neutrality when in fact is always has its own set of commitments. There is no neutral position, only commitments that are hidden or obscured.
I should add that it is precisely the unspoken commitment to individualism (and liberalism) that means that even the "neutral" position is a form of "soulcraft" - it is guiding users in their belief in individualism and everything that follows from it. It is also a good example of how it is not only us woke, social justice types who are "certain" about things; we are just explicit about the things we are certain about.
I am not interested in most books written from a "social justice" perspective, as it is currently conceived. If that is primarily what a library had on offer, I wouldn't use it. You can't force people to align with your worldview.
"You can't force people to align with your worldview." And yet, libraries have been doing precisely this since 1848. You only don't notice it when you agree with the worldview on offer.
I am only personally interested in a very small percentage of books in my library's collection, let's say 10%, but I provide the other 90% for the people who are interested in those topics. So your comment makes no sense.
Like I said, librarians are free to create displays or recommendations to promote the books they find valuable, but beyond that it's none of our business. I am running a library, not a Scientology center.
Clearly my attempts to communicate a heterodox view are failing. That's fine.
I find your arguments to be in bad faith.
There are other institutions whose mission is to act as a bulwark against an atomized society, such as churches, and libraries perform that service in so far as they act as community gathering spaces. But that is not incompatible with libraries allowing the free and unfettered private exploration or public discussion of ideas.
If a librarian has a desire to nudge people in a certain direction, the librarian can create displays or write recommendations for books or create bibliographies. I personally have no desire beyond that to manage what people read as long as material selected meets collection standards. And honestly I would be creeped out if I felt a librarian was trying to steer me towards certain material based on their personal belief system.
I think you've missed my point. You can only subscribe to the idea of a "free and unfettered private exploration or public discussion of ideas" if you already subscribe to an individualist, atomistic social ontology. I.e. if you already adopt a particular commitment to a social theory.
That commitment means that by saying "I'm not managing what you read, you are making a free and autonomous reading choice" you are actually reinforcing the idea of individual freedom in the person you are speaking to. You are, therefore, influencing the way they approach reading material and everything else.
Even the idea of a "personal belief system" is a commitment based on a particular understanding of individual subjectivity and ideas. You adhere to one out of a number of different views, which means it is not a neutral orientation, but a value-laden one.
But really, I have no desire to manage what people read either, but I know that the institution of the library is always-already set up to do that. It's hard to see how creating book displays or writing recommendations is not "steering people towards certain material".
Fascinating. This point: "I think you've missed my point. You can only subscribe to the idea of a 'free and unfettered private exploration or public discussion of ideas' if you already subscribe to an individualist, atomistic social ontology. I.e. if you already adopt a particular commitment to a social theory."
Seems to imply that the core argument is whether individuals make up society or society creates individuals. The sorts of people who label the idea of neutrality as "rhetoric" seem to be firmly in the camp of "individual as creation of society," each of us being a living, breathing social amalgamation at the deepest level while those of us who would hold viewpoint neutrality in librarianship as a necessary and correct professional ethos would fall into the "society as collection of individual minds" whose similarities are merely structural. What would follow then is the next question: are librarians so clever and moral as to sociologically mentor (however subtly) the individual user so as to "improve" society? Those in the "social justice as highest good" camp seem to think so while those in the "wide berth for individual conscience" camp are more circumspect. The argument reminds me of a lecture I attended once about how Marxist sociology demands that we re-think historical figures. It was called something like "The 'Great Man' Theory and the Fuehrer Principle." It argued that believing in individual attitude formation was, somehow, a precursor to fascism. I wonder how that notion strikes you.
And how fascinating that you would pick 1848 as your touchstone year.
Thanks for this. 1848 is both the year of the triumph of the bourgeoisie and the founding of the Boston Public Library - in my book I connect the founding of state-funded public libraries with the victory of capitalism as a social order, so 1848 seemed an apt year to select for this.
I think there's a prior question to the one you posed ("are librarians so clever and moral as to sociologically mentor (however subtly) the individual user so as to "improve" society?") which is, if individuals are the creation of society, can *any* social institution *not* have an effect - detrimental or improving - on society? The non-neutrality argument is, I think, that this is impossible and so libraries are always already mentoring users so as to improve society (according to one particular set of values). It isn't a question being clever and moral enough to do it, so much as it's impossible *not* to do it, so we should be very clear about what our actual commitments are. Neutrality prevents us from being clear about that.
Certainly in Marxist terms, fascism is seen as precisely the result of the kind of individualism and atomism that capitalism created by dissolving any relationship between individuals other than financial ones, so liberal individualism does issue in particular forms of fascism. It's hard to see because both German and Italian fascism insisted on a particularly corporate ideology (the nation or people), but when you look at their actual social and economic policies, they were committed to a fundamentally individualist petty-bourgeois capitalism. The Fuhrer or Great Man principle also obscures the social reality of fascism by insisting on the power of a single charismatic leader.
I should add, too, that my argument has nothing to do, really, with whether social construction or individualism is *correct*. Since social construction theories exist, to adopt individualism as a social ontology is a non-neutral position (it could only be neutral if individualism were an unquestioned natural fact; even if you think individualism *is* a fact, the existence of social construction theories means adopting that viewpoint is a non-neutral selection).
It would seem to me that that thinking--the inescapable effect (detrimental or improving, as you put it) of institutions--underscores the exact kind of "crisis in faith in democracy" that Kolakowski spent so many years writing about.
If someone in the offices of an organization like the American library Association is having that crisis of faith, they should be boldly open about it and propose the re-writing of the foundational ethical documents to redact statements like: "Most attempts at suppression rest on a denial of the fundamental premise of democracy: that the ordinary individual, by exercising critical judgment, will select the good and reject the bad. We trust Americans to recognize propaganda and misinformation, and to make their own decisions about what they read and believe. We do not believe they are prepared to sacrifice their heritage of a free press in order to be "protected" against what others think may be bad for them. We believe they still favor free enterprise in ideas and expression."
If such ideas are based in "individualist petty-bourgeois capitalism," then the "ordinary individual" is just a chimera created by the boss class, malleable and destructible as he/she is creatable. Further, if that idea--the individual--is but the preliminary step to the fascist, isn't it our duty to fight fascism by doing our part to phase the very idea of the individual out?
Wouldn't we librarians make the perfect vanguard? 'Non ducor, duco' and all that.
I think those documents *are* in the process of being rethought and rewritten (the subject of the open letter on this substack). And yes, the library literature often expresses the position you mention (my own included), but it’s not necessary for the non-neutrality argument. Once faith in a position is lost, then it has to be defended and argued for - and defense of/argument for a position is by definition non-neutral, a commitment among others.
So according to your formulation it seems that if you are an anti-capitalist you would advocate for the abolition of libraries.
I don’t see how that follows at all. An anti-capitalist advocates the abolition of capitalism. A non-capitalist society will have a different kind of library, just as pre-capitalist society did.
Hi Sam. Thanks for contributing to the discussion. I wish you would consider doing a piece for this Substack! In any event, I was wondering: how do you conceive of the best way to advance your commitments, given that "there is no neutral position, only commitments that are hidden or obscured"?
Thanks Rob. I'll consider it!
To try to answer your question, I need to take a step back. I get the sense from this substack that (some? most?) contributors feel that their perspectives are "heterodox" with respect to a dominant, social-justice perspective in librarianship. I tend to see things the other way around, that many of the positions taken in this substack are in fact the same as the ones that dominate the profession, and indeed dominate Western society at large. That perspective (what I've called the democratic discourse of librarianship and which I associate with liberal-capitalism) is so hegemonic that it does not even see its commitments as commitments, but as neutral or common-sense. So from my perspective we are *very far* from advancing my or anyone else's alternative commitments; we are still only at the stage of trying to expose the hegemonic position *as* a commitment (i.e. as non-neutral). Most of my contributions to the discussions of intellectual freedom try to do this. I think getting those who think they aren't taking a committed position, but are in fact being "neutral", to see that they *are* in fact committed to a particular social theory, idea of the good, etc, etc, has to the be first step. What comes after that, I'm not entirely sure.
I should say though that personally this change has to be bottom-up. I don't tend to worry overly about ALA policies and decisions, because they are very remote from the on-the-ground practice of library workers in communities. So I think that the resistance of library workers to (ostensibly neutral, but in fact committed) library policies is key. It's an enduring and painful irony of the profession that the intellectual freedom we claim to espouse almost never applies to library workers themselves. I know all the arguments (some on this very substack) about the mantle of professionalism, etc, but that doesn't in fact dispense with the irony.
I agree with your last paragraph in this comment. The real impact is if library workers are or are not embracing the polices. A policy is only effective if it is embraced, not forced. Is your comment about intellectual freedom applying to library workers regarding practices like library workers not buying books based on their own censorship? I also wanted to bring up how I don't believe holding intellectual freedom as a value is a hegemonic position because even though there has been these types of policies that support IF since the 1960's, in practice they have never been practiced and embraced to a full extent. I am suggesting that most library workers likely don't act to support IF fully. And I wonder how many even do?
Greatly appreciate both Sarah's article and the substantive comments (on all sides) developing from it.
However, I sometimes wonder if all (or most) parties to this recurring debate don't share an exaggerated sense of the power of libraries to influence patrons in consequential ways.
The nudging literature, for instance, warrants, to say the least, skepticism:
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2200300119
And there's tons of evidence across psychology, marketing, political science, anthropology, economics
and history that people generally aren't gullible or passive victims of persuasion or manipulation:
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/royal-institute-of-philosophy-supplements/article/abs/how-good-are-we-at-evaluating-communicated-information/764615626B4E131262AE472799DDAB3A
https://press.princeton.edu/ideas/what-do-you-really-know-about-gullibility
https://tinyurl.com/2p88ydyj
apoliticallibrarian.wordpress.com/2022/04/26/the-paranoid-psychology-of-the-censorious/
Thanks for sharing, very interesting...
Recalls Hugo Mercier's point that "indeed, it is difficult to find an idea that so well unites radically different thinkers" -- preachers, atheists, conspiracy theorists, conservative thinkers, old-school leftists -- as the concept of widespread credulity: https://tinyurl.com/573rrmuh
Good article. Soulcraft is a good term for what is motivating the critique of library neutrality. I think that it is also to a "therapeutic" impulse. Alternatives to library neutrality that have been proposed -- "radical empathy" or "trauma-informed ..." -- suggest that the relationship between librarians and their patrons should be like relationship between doctors and their patients.
According to this view, injustice and oppression are so deeply embedded in our society that those of us who have been forced to live in it for all of our lives are morally defective in some way. Those who suffer from oppression are traumatized by it. Those who benefit from oppression are fragile and morally corrupted. Racism is so deeply buried in their souls that their moral intuitions cannot be trusted. For librarians to treat these sick souls who walk into the library as autonomous moral and intellectual agents is to abandon our duty. Our damaged patrons shouldn't be left alone to fend for themselves in a world of misinformation. We need to care for them and try to fix them.
The soulcraft/therapeutic vision of librarianship is not new. It is actually pretty old (although the current theories of social justice are new). In the late 19th and early 20th century, many educated middle class librarians believed that it was their mission to improve the morals of working class immigrants flooding into American cities. Since 2016, we seem to be headed back in that direction (Lawrence's vision of reader's advisor services essentially revives the old "taste elevation" hopes) b/c many librarians no longer trust rural, working class Americans to think for themselves.
Daniel Clarkson Fisher, recent LIS grad at Western University in London, Ontario, won PLG's Braverman Prize for his essay dealing with neutrality. Now posted to the PLG website:
A PROMISED (BUT ULTIMATELY UNREACHABLE) LAND:
THE FALLACY OF “POLITICAL NEUTRALITY” EXEMPLIFIED BY
FMR. U.S. PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA’S APPEARANCE
AT THE 2021 ALAANNUAL CONFERENCE & EXHIBITION.
http://www.progressivelibrariansguild.org/Braverman/braverman2022fisher.pdf
Sharing an interesting blog article about neutrality and librarianship that the blog author wrote after engaging with the above HxL post: https://www.spopowich.ca/blog/a-neutral-defense