Dismantling the Public Sphere Situating and Sustaining Librarianship in the Age of the New Public Philosophy

Subjects:

• Library & Information Science » Issues & Trends
• Library & Information Science » Issues & Trends

Awards:

• 2003 New Jersey Library Association Research Award

Reviews:

• Dismantling the Public Sphere is a call to action to protect information - an essential public good - from slipping out of the hands of ordinary citizens and a call to defend the traditional and vital role of librarianship in a democratic society. Its intellectual grounding is firm and in touch with the most important values of librarianship.
  —portal: Reviews January 2005
• John E. Buschman has written a thought-provoking meditation on the context and position of public libraries in a social environment that has changed greatly in the past few decades. This book examines the ways in which external social, economic, technological, and intellectual forces affect the role, status, function, and goals of the public library in the United States. Dismantling the Public Sphere is a provocation and an invitation to scholars and practitioners of library and information science to think more about positions, policies, and actions of public libraries within the context of a wider social perspective than library discourse usually considers....By making readers reflect on the nature of libraries as public entities and the social drivers that shape the place of libraries, this book does something that far too few texts in the field of library and information science do....[a]n important contribution to the library and information science discourse.
  —The Library Quarterly July 2005
• [S]timulating....Many readers will appreciate having such a well-developed and reasoned defense of the importance of libraries in a democratic society....This is a sustantial contribution that deserves and rewards careful study.
  —College & Research Libraries March 2005
• John E. Buschman throughly examines librarianship today....Buschman discusses how the library has moved from a model of contributing to the public good to one dictated by economics; he also analyzes how a focus on "customer-driven" librarianship is eroding the profession's historic role in supporting democracy.
  —American Libraries April 2004

Table of Contents:

• The Framework of Critical Analysis: The New Public Philosophy and the Public Sphere
• Introduction: Crisis Culture and the Need for a Defense of Librarianship in the Public Sphere
• The New Public Philosophy and Critical Educational Analysis: The Context of Public Cultural Institutions
• The Public Sphere: Rounding out the Context of Librarianship
• Studies in Librarianship and the Dismantling of the Public Sphere
• Follow the Money: Library Funding and Information Capitalism
• Co-opted or Rolling Over? Follow-the-Leader Library Management and the New Public Philosophy
• On Customer-Driven Librarianship
• Drifting Toward the Corporate Model: A Brief Look at ALA
• Notes on Postmodern Technology, Technocracy, and Libraries
• Conclusion: Toward a Sustainable Case for Librarianship: The Public Sphere and Democratic Possibility
• Selected Bibliography

PDF Catalogs:

LU Textbook Catalog Fall 2007.pdf