What has happened to the time-honoured scholarly side of librarianship? Even in the 1980s, at the UBC School of Librarianship there was still an assumption that librarianship had something to do with books, reading, literacy and scholarship. There was recognition of the historic role of public libraries in extending knowledge free of charge to the populace. Libraries were agents of democracy, free speech, and equal access to information.
And now, in the 2020s? Judging from the Agenda of the Burnaby Public Library’s Board, libraries are no longer distributors of diverse information but arbiters of “misinformation”. They appoint themselves judge and gatekeeper of what the public should be allowed to read, in print and on-line.
Some libraries have or intend to have Social Workers on staff, as well as extra security staff prepared for “trauma-informed incidents” in the branches. They used to provide research material about drugs and addiction, now they provide the drugs – onsite. They provide “safety”: safe spaces for the racialized, indigenous, those in need of “equity, diversity and inclusion”, those feeling “harmed” by other people’s ideas, and those needing a whole alphabet to define them (2SLGBTQIA … etc…) but not necessarily the alphabet used by the literate reader.
The public library is now much concerned with mental illness, but in its early days it was a zone of mental health, being a quiet peaceful place where patrons could wander among book shelves, calmly peruse a newspaper, borrow a book from the magical trove of novels, verse, and sundry non-fiction. Every citizen had access to the haven of literature in peaceful civil surroundings – a blessed retreat for those living in crowded quarters or blighted urban ghettos.
Now the space for books has shrunk, while libraries find space (and budgets) for “non-traditional resources” such as video games, juggling kits, blood pressure cuffs, bike repair kits, radon detectors, vehicle diagnostic scanners, and ukuleles. Seriously. And this despite the fact that fully 48% of Canadians have inadequate literacy skills (according to the Conference Board of Canada). Instead of fretting about non-traditional resources and “non-binary” culture, why don’t libraries concern themselves once more with the literacy/illiteracy duality, and resources for bridging it?
As for novels, librarians now approach them with fear and suspicion in case they harbour non-correct thought or ideas that make others feel “triggered”. To trigger readers is the reason a writer goes to the effort of writing a book in the first place: to trigger imagination, new ideas, open-mindedness. Maybe, instead of appointing themselves the judges and censors of books, librarians should simply stock them all and let readers make up their own minds about them. Never mind "non-traditional resources" – diverse reading is what their taxpayer-based budget is for in the first place.
It’s time for public libraries to return to their core role as protectors of free speech and to be run by librarians, not social workers, not climate action leaders, not thought-police and anti-misinformation crusaders. The public are smart enough to figure out the information wars for themselves – if they can read. According to Statistics Canada, 49% of adult Canadians read below high-school literacy levels – immigrants, indigenous and low-income being the lowest. These are the very groups the library "social work" and mental health mission is particularly targeting. So both schools and public libraries are failing to deliver on their core responsibility: supplying books and advancing literacy.
