Supplementary memorandum submitted by
Shiraz Durrani
"Create a people-orientated public library
service"
The Government's policy on public libraries
needs to be informed by the following factors:
GLOBALISATION AND
EFFECTS ON
LIBRARIES
The key issue is to decide what the social role
of public libraries is. They should not take the social, economic
and political situation they find themselves in as "given",
but actively seek to understand why and how we arrived at this
situation—and also ensure the public understand it too.
It is their role to dig deeper into "facts" that are
given to them by their social environment.
British libraries are in danger of using a commercial
version of a "global library" much like McDonald restaurant
outlets which serve the same product in every part of the world.
While this approach may be a useful one in ensuring a standard
level of service, and a useful model for maximising profits for
the McDonald chain, it is disastrous for libraries if they want
to root themselves in their local communities. It is essential
that a new model of needs-based library service is developed at
policy level and implemented.
For this to happen there is an urgent need
for setting up a "public library innovations & development"
think tank with Government support. Further details of this proposal
can be submitted to the Committee in oral evidence if considered
appropriate.
Other important changes that need to be considered
include the rules developed at the World Trade Organisation, especially
in the context of TRIPS (trade-related aspects of intellectual
property rights). IFLA has expressed its concerns over TRIPS in
a number of areas such as "not for profit libraries",
intellectual property and cultural diversity. Specific threats
from these are mentioned by IFLA.[25]
These threats to public libraries need to
be considered by the Committee which needs to give a clear direction
in ensuring that public libraries remain public in theory and
practice and do not become a tool in the hands of a global corporate
world for making profits.
Faced with a situation where libraries are blind
walking into extinction, it is important that public libraries
stand up for a new role of libraries in society. In the world
ruled by corporate globalisation, it is too easy to drift along
with the tide of "neutral" librarianship and do nothing
to make libraries play a central role in liberating people, their
cultures, and their economies from the privatised future that
globalisation has planned for them.
A new approach in terms of vision and practice
of public librarianship is urgently needed. Real democracy and
transparency need to flourish if public libraries are to be at
the heart of social life. The Committee needs to give leadership
in bringing about these necessary changes.
DEMOCRACY DEFICIT
IN LIBRARIES
The myth of a "neutral" public library
service needs to be exploded. There is no way that libraries and
librarians are or can be neutral in the social struggles of their
societies. Every decision they make—how much to spend on
books, which books to buy, what staff to appoint, how to manage
the service—is a reflection of their class position and
their world outlook, however much they deny this. The power they
have been given in running their libraries is supposed to be used
to meet the needs of ALL local people. But there is a basic lack
of democracy in the world of libraries, which has created "dictator
library managers".
What librarians do—and don't do—is
not merely an academic question. It affects our understanding
of our natural and social environment, which, taken in its totality,
affects our world outlook, affects what we think and what we do.
It influences the minds of the young generation and becomes the
prevailing outlook of the adult world of tomorrow.
Manipulation of information, whether conscious
or unconscious, is an important matter, not only in local life,
but in international relations as well. Librarians can become
tools in the hands of those seeking to manipulate whole populations
to think along their lines—or stand firm to support the
democratic rights of the people manipulated. There is no third
way here.
Thus there is an urgent need to create a new
type of people-oriented, democratic libraries and librarians who
are directly answerable to the communities they serve.
LIBRARIES AND
SOCIETY IN
BRITAIN
There is usually a time gap between the emergence
of a new social reality and that reality being accepted in people's
consciousness. In the case of Britain, changes after the Second
World War resulted in the loss of the economic power of Britain,
a fact reflected in the loss of the British Empire. However, at
a larger social level, the British society has not fully absorbed
this fundamental loss of economic and thus political power. Lessons
and reality of history are shut out from social consciousness
by denying the reality of a new world where Britain is no longer
the superpower ruling the world, where China is flexing its muscles
to become the most powerful nation in the world.
In a society that has sought to shut out the
reality of a new globalised world, it is not surprising that its
libraries have shut themselves in a dream world of presumed superiority
and "professional" might. The fact that the library
world has not come to grips with changes in British society is
a reflection of the British society as a whole not coming to grips
its new reality.
The Committee needs to give urgent attention
to having a reality check of what the current social role of public
libraries is and what it ought to be. A greater awareness of the
real international and national forces at play in modern society
needs to inform public library policy and practice.
CREATING A
PEOPLE-ORIENTATED
LIBRARY SERVICE
There is thus an urgent need to develop a library
service that helps to create a new consciousness among people
about their real role in society and also about the position of
their country in the context of the wider world. Only on such
wider awareness can a people-orientated library service be built.
If there is going to be a true people-orientated
library service, it is necessary that there is a clear understanding
of social forces within which a particular library service operates.
Libraries and librarians face a number of challenges today. The
first need is for all librarians to investigate their society
and communities. Mao's recommendation at a political level—"no
investigation, no right to speak"—is equally valid
in the information field. It is important to understand working
people's lives and struggles, be one of them, and then seek ways
of creating a relevant library service.
In all societies with class divisions and class
struggles, library services tend to be a service for elite by
elite, providing a service to the dominating classes and their
allies only. In situations like these, the process of liberating
the library service for those previously excluded is the key role
of library workers and professionals.
The challenge is to develop a service that
is open to all irrespective of class, race, gender, ability, age,
sexual orientation, political beliefs, etc. The service needs
to be an inclusive one which reaches out to all who are currently
excluded. Yet this task is not easy and needs careful thought
and planning.
As is the case in all social movements, there
are no specific guide books on how to create a liberated, "open"
library service. It is only the actual practice of learning from
people that will provide a solution that is relevant to our particular
social situation and will help us build libraries without walls.
But just learning from people is not enough.
The next, and perhaps the more difficult, step is to turn our
ideas into action. This is best done by empowering the excluded
so that is they who decide how our library resources should be
used and how our energies are spent. People themselves will then
be the best judges of our success or failure. It is in putting
these ideas into practice that a people-orientated, "open
to all" service can be built.
Libraries can be at the centre of this vastly
changing world. Effective leadership in the information field
can make libraries places where different social, political and
economic forces in conflict can deposit their various views, experiences,
knowledge and world outlooks and help create a society at peace
with itself. By ensuring that these contradictory forces have
an equal chance to be acquired, stored, heard and understood,
librarians and libraries can create a new social role for themselves.
They will then have played a meaningful social role in creating
more just and "equal" societies.
Abdul Kalam, the President of India, has pinpointed
the root cause of social and political conflicts in the world
today:
. . . [the] world over, poverty, illiteracy
and un-employment are driving forward the forces of anger and
violence . . . But, societies, which includes you and me, have
to address themselves to the root causes of such phenomena which
are poverty, illiteracy and unemployment.[26]
Librarians everywhere have a role to play in
eliminating the root causes of poverty, illiteracy, unemployment
and inequality. It is no longer acceptable for libraries and librarians
to refuse to take this social responsibility seriously. The choice
is simple: if the information profession does not take its social
responsibility seriously, it will no longer have a social role.
People will then develop alternative models of information and
knowledge communication which do meet their needs. There will
then be no libraries as we know them today.
The Committee has an important role in ensuring
that public libraries emerge from the deep social sleep into which
they have sunk—generally isolated from the people and communities
they are expected to serve. There is a further danger of decision
makers and managers living in a dream world where regular assurances
are given by interested parties that all is well and that libraries
are at the centre of social life. The Committee needs to give
a clear guidance about the future role of public libraries and
help create a totally new mindset needed if we are to save the
library for a new generation.
19 November 2004
25 The IFLA Position on The World Trade Organization
(2001). Available at: http://www.ifla.org/III/clm/p1/wto-ifla.htm#3. Back
26
Kalam, Abdul (2004): "Dynamics of terrorism and violence".
Philosophy and social action. Vol. 30 (2) April-June, 2004. Back
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