One of my favorite literary theories to teach is New Historian, whose premise is that, essentially, stories are a product of their time and place and that the historical narrative is controlled by the “winners.” It does not imply that the “winners” are liars, but it does suggest that the version of the story the “winners” tell will be very different from the “losers.” To illustrate, consider how American history textbooks would differ if told by American Indians. As Rubin and Rubin put it: “historical interpretation varies by the position of the storyteller” (Rubin and Rubin, 2004, p. 70). As stated in our blog prompt, it would be impossible to cover ALL of library history in the limited space of a textbook, but I did find that the textbook was not immune from a Western viewpoint and lacked some voices that would help understand contemporary issues.
After crediting ancient Greek and Roman culture for the idea of the library, I appreciated the acknowledgement of the importance of the Middle East in developing libraries and even preserving Western thought and texts ( Rubin and Rubin, 2004, p.52). I felt that the authors treated the Christian influence fairly, and highlighting that “archival and scholarly missions of libraries were sustained by Byzantine and Islamic libraries in the East” was an important balance (Rubin and Rubin, 2004, p. 50).
The U.S. adopted a Eurocentric view early in its founding, and it is evident in U.S. printing practices from 1789-1800 during which 350 titles written by Europeans were published and on 35 written by American authors (Rubin, p. 61). However, if we are going to strive to be more inclusive and more critical of the library profession, then it is imperative that we do not only and always presume an Anglo focus. After reading about the “widespread” literacy in the Middle East, and that there were more than 300 bookshops in Baghdad (Rubin and Rubin, 2004, p. 52) while Europe was wading through the Dark Ages, it was unsurprising to learn that Fez was home to one of the oldest and most significant libraries in the world, and by a woman (Odyssey Traveller, 2019).
The evidence that the American Library Association (ALA) operated as an “Anglo-institution” (Rubin and Rubin, 2004, p. 75) is rather condemning. The text includes Black Americans in library history, but primarily through the Civil Rights Era, and therefore, largely without the “what”. That only 11% of Black Americans had access to library services in 1932 is a critical piece of the historical injustice, but even worse was that in the 1960s most librarians were “ambivalent” about desegregation (Rubin and Rubin, 2004, p. 79), and Rubin and Rubin judiciously credit Black activism, not librarians for the desegregation of public libraries (Rubin and Rubin, 2004, p. 79), but make no mention of the existing issues. Unfortunately, today those accusations may still bear relevance. Although the ALA formed the Social Responsibilities Round Table (SRRT) in 1970, it continued to ignore pressing social injustices despite the grand ideals in library missions. Because of the ALA’s general ambivalence, the Black Caucus of the American Library Association formed in 1970, but it was not recognized by the ALA until the 1990’s ( Rubin and Rubin, 2004, p. 81). Today, critics of the ALA claim that it still disproportionately values serving traditional Anglo-Christians. April Hathcock details her experiences of feeling silenced, ignored, and undervalued in her blog, At the Intersection. She writes that she was happy to end her tenure in the ALA because “Having gotten a glimpse into the inner workings of the organization, I’m more convinced than ever that ALA has always been and will always be centered on promoting the “neutrality” of white supremacy and capitalism” (Hathcock, 2020 ), and she asserts that the ALA is an organization whose code of conduct is focused on “tone-policing the personal social media of those frustrated with the org, most of us BIPOC, rather than engaging in meaningful action to address the micro- and macroaggressions that occur regularly in ALA physical and virtual spaces” (Hathcock, 2020). While Rubin and Rubin do include some history of Black Americans in libraries, they tend to present Black Americans’ struggle to be included in libraries as an issue of the past that the organization is actively trying to solve, but if that were so, how do we explain the over-representation of whites and white issues in libraries still? In this case, there is not a “who” missing, but a “what”, and that “what” would be the library’s general attempt to remain in the status quo. Through this lens, we may begin to see libraries as Harris did: that they are run by and mostly for the elite and primarily serve to uphold existing class structures (Rubin and Rubin, 2004, p. 70). The absence of contemporary Black voices allow us to believe that equality is achieved, lingering problems have no effect on today, and thus, we may continue to uphold a racist, classist, harmful system that only serves select communities.
The slandering of LGBTI community also demonstrates the historical preference of exclusion and “othering” in library spaces. Sullivan acknowledges that “many have noted the inherent cultural bias including a Christian concentration, racism, sexism and homophobia. After all, systems are affected by the time and place in which they are developed” (2015, para. 6). As recently as 1989, the Dewey Decimal System classified “homosexual” information under “Social Problems” (Sullivan, 2015, para. 10), and such charged classifications and biases continued until 2000. If libraries are truly to serve as unbiased sources of information, resources, and community connections, then the slandering of certain groups must be openly acknowledged and corrected.
American Indians were also completely absent from Rubin and Rubin’s history, and this reflects a continued belief in the falsehood that American Indians are extinct and therefore have made limited contributions to modern American history and culture–precisely why American Indian voices are so important. There remain over 7 million American Indians alive today (Nagle, 2021), and the misperception that their eradication was complete allows their voices to continually be silenced. It is interesting that the textbook authors credit ancient Greek and Roman societies with a precursor of libraries through oral traditions, and oral tradition is also important in American Indian culture and was also a precursor to tribal libraries.
Admittedly, it is difficult to include American Indians in library history because “Accurate data on the number of tribal libraries is equally difficult to obtain. Since no agency-state or federal-consistently gathers statistics or other reporting data on tribal libraries, there is no permanent reliable source of information that can be consulted for information about them” (Patterson, 2000, p7 ). However, this is a group that can reap tremendous gains through access to libraries, and it is not without history and precedent. The first efforts were in 1958, when the Colorado River Tribal Council in Arizona established a library (Patterson, 2000, p.7). This continued more formally in the late 1960s when the “Mohawks in New York and the Shoshone-Bannock on the Fort Hall Idaho reservation” created libraries (Patterson, 2000, p. 7). In 1978, the American Indian Library Association was founded, and today there are over 300 members (Patterson, 2000, p. 9).
Although American Indians are an anomalous group considering the tribal autonomy and interdependency within the U.S., it is still important to include them in American library systems. Failing to include them in our narrative perpetuates the cultural myths that value Anglo-Christian values more greatly, and honestly, allow us to believe a selected history instead of a holistic one. Doing this allows us to continue to exclude, undervalue, underserve, and thus fail to redress any injustices, which is unethical and contradictory to the mission of libraries.
References
Hathcock, A. (2020, June 29). Goodbye, ALA. https://aprilhathcock.wordpress.com/
Nagle, R. (Host). (2021, September 27). Before the court [Audio podcast episode]. In This land. Crooked Media. https://crooked.com/podcast/7-before-the-court/
Odyssey Traveller. (2019, October 22). A fascinating history of the world’s oldest library: Al-Qarawiyyin Library and University, Fez. Odyssey Traveller. https://www.odysseytraveller.com/articles/the-fascinating-history-of-the-worlds-oldest-library/
Patterson, L. (2000). History and status of Native Americans in librarianship. Library Trends, Summer 200. https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/bitstream/handle/2142/8329/librarytrendsv49i1h_opt.pdf
Rubin, Rachel and Rubin, Richard. (2004, June 6). Foundations of Library and Information Science (5th ed.). American Library Association. https://overland.org.au/2015/07/a-brief-history-of-homophobia-in-dewey-decimal-classification/
Sullivan, D. (2015, July 23). A brief history of homophobia in the Dewey decimal classification system. Overland. https://overland.org.au/2015/07/a-brief-history-of-homophobia-in-dewey-decimal-classification/