Libraries And Democracy

From Librarian of Congress, James Billington, to founding director of the Center for the Book, John Cole, the leading-edge information specialists of the day share their insights on the role libraries play in advancing democracy.

Libraries and the Global Retreat of Democracy focuses on how libraries coordinate their work in political and information literacy and how these efforts can be improved, the recommendations and examples within which will serve as inspiration and motivation to its readers.

Libraries, archives and museums have traditionally been a part of the public sphere's infrastructure. They have been so by providing public access to culture and knowledge, by being agents for enlightenment and by being public meeting places in their communities. Digitization and globalization poses new challenges in relation to upholding a sustainable public sphere. Can libraries, archives and museums contribute in meeting these challenges?

Taking a broadly Marxist approach, Confronting the Democratic Discourse of Librarianship traces the connections between library history and the larger history of capitalist development.

Barbarians at the Gates of the Public Library is a philosophical and historical analysis of how the rise of consumerism has led to the decline of the original mission of public libraries to sustain and promote democracy through civic education. Through a reading of historical figures such as Plato, Helvetius, Rousseau, and John Stuart Mill, the book shows how democracy and even capitalism were originally believed to depend upon the moral and political education that public libraries (and other institutions of rational public discourse) could provide. But as capitalism developed in the 20th century it evolved into a postmodern consumerism that replaced democracy with consumerism and education with entertainment. Public libraries have mistakenly tried to remain relevant by shadowing the rise of consumerism, but have instead contributed to the rise of a new barbarism and the decline of democracy.

During World War II when the future of democracy was uncertain, Franklin D. Roosevelt described libraries as ''the great symbols of the freedom of the mind, '' ''essential to the functioning of a democratic society.'' Kranich begins this new collection of essays with Roosevelt's sentiment in mind. From Librarian of Congress, James Billington, to founding director of the Center for the Book, John Cole, the leading-edge information specialists of the day share their insights on the role libraries play in advancing democracy. One of the few institutions in the world where people have free access t.

Libraries and the Global Retreat of Democracy focuses on how libraries coordinate their work in political and information literacy and how these efforts can be improved, the recommendations and examples within which will serve as inspiration and motivation to its readers.