Michael Harris, "The Purpose of the American Public Library: A Revisionist Interpretation of History"

Michael Harris writes that his intent at publishing this work was to “emancipat[e] the library profession, at least for a moment, from its dependence on an idealized history” (2514), and to question the “public library myth.” Certainly he has accomplished this goal in that all of the articles that we have read for this class (that were written after 1973) have made reference to Harris’ work. Wayne Weigand writes in “American Library History Literature...” that Harris “set on edge the world of American library history, until then so used to celebrating itself,” (4) and that until the publication of Harris’ article in 1973, the library profession didn’t take itself very seriously (6).

Intentionally representing library history in a less than glorious light, Harris presents four stages of history within the public library. The first, that of the founders, which happened around the establishment of the Boston Public Library in the 1850’s. The main goal of the founders was to open a library that would be free to all people, and Harris argues that the founders were aristocrats whose role in this process was one that would assimilate library users into the founders’ own image and ideals. The second phase of the public library was that of the technicians, who “civilized” the profession, holding out the carrot of fiction in order to attract patrons who could then read “better” works that had been chosen by librarians (who had no qualms about censorship), and who made libraries inflexible through bureaucracy and abandoned the more theoretical goals of the founders. Third was the phase of rampant immigration in the 1890’s in which Harris cites that financial woes made librarians cut popular programming to fund services for scholars, and at this time librarians increased their role as elitists via these decisions and also through the philanthropy of wealthy and controlling Americans such as Andrew Carnegie, despite the fact that they still held onto a smokescreen of egalitarianism. The final phase of librarianship came after World War II when Harris asserts that librarians further abandoned their theoretical background and stressed services over library philosophy. In light of the propaganda and suppression of thought in WWII, librarians became advocates of a “right to know” and abandoned their mission to attempt to tell patrons what information was valuable and what was not. Harris argues that this mission was one that backed the status quo of librarians as passive persons and placed the responsibility of use on library patrons, and that this self-selecting group of middle-class citizens is one that agrees with the librarians sensibility of a constructive user, and thus they do not challenge the librarian to become actual advocates of a “right to know” on a large scale of demographics, but still back a elitist and small group of patrons who self-determine their library use.

Thus far in our readings there has been a great deal of discussion of the revisionists, and as a library student, I have responded more fondly to the criticisms of Weigand and Harris due to their willingness to see fault in libraries, and I think I am willing to agree with their perspective in order to attempt to make libraries better, or to avoid what they describe. I see a clear difference, but how do all of you see the works of the revisionists in comparison to those written by librarians in support of a celebratory history of librarianship? Do you feel that there is a different relationship between a historian telling the history of librarianship vs. a library professional, and does this difference, if there is any, play into your reading of texts like Harris’ or Garrison’s? Are Weigand or Harris right that librarians have created merely a congratulatory history to date and that the revisionists offer a more realistic perspective?

Do you think that library founders and philanthropists were attempting to control lower, immigrant or common classes through libraries? If so, why? What threat exists within these groups that would require control via the channels of the library (information, reading, etc.)? Is the library capable of this type of social control (especially in light of the fact that Harris asserts that patrons are self-selecting)?

At the end of his article, Harris feels that there “the very existence of the public library is in jeopardy.” Do you believe that this was true in 1973? Do you think that this is still the case, or what other reasons or context do you see for Harris to make this assertion?

What is your reaction to the way that Harris treats librarians’ devotion to intellectual freedom and neutrality?

Has there been a “public library myth” where ideals have differed far from practice?