Publications and Research
Document Type
Book Chapter or Section
Publication Date
4-2024
Abstract
Librarianship has long been regarded as a service-oriented profession, compared with fields such as social work, teaching, nursing, and others with a high degree of emotional labor. The roots of this run deep, perhaps as far as Dewey, who spoke of a “library spirit,” which represented an extreme commitment to patron service. Dewey, who was obsessed with efficiency, both in his personal and professional life, created and popularized the American Library Association’s motto of “the best reading, for the largest number, at the least cost.” This motto, passed on as professional wisdom and taught in library schools for decades, was reinstated by the American Library Association (ALA) Council in 1988. During the over 100 since it was initially adopted, the library motto contributed to indoctrinating thousands of library workers into a field that expected austerity and overwork, with cost minimization as a core value. Later, extreme pursuit of efficiency led libraries to continuously strive to try to do more with less, especially when budgets were cut. For example, libraries were frequent adopters of Taylorism, the system of “scientific management” that sought to break down jobs into specific work processes and study and refine them in order to increase efficiency and maximize productivity, even before other movements to increase productivity in the public sector arose.
Comments
Chapter originally published in R. Michalak, T. Dawes, & J. E. Cawthorne (Eds.), Toxic dynamics: Disrupting, dismantling, and transforming academic library culture (pp. 273–302). Association of College and Research Libraries.