I
was intrigued by Alyssa bringing up the concept of a “post-truth” society as it
relates to libraries in our last class. Being assigned as Oxford Dictionary’s
word of the year, post-truth refers to “circumstances in which objective facts
are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and
personal belief,” [1] particularly in the context of the current political
climate in the United States and the United Kingdom. I struggled at first to
articulate my thoughts on what a post-truth society means for a library, especially
public libraries, since I certainly believe that libraries are impacted by this
current sociopolitical state of being. In fact, the public library, as a hub of
collective knowledge, is currently adapting to post-truth politics and
worldviews as we speak.
I
think prominent Brexiter and wannabe Lannister [2] UK politician Michael Gove
best captured the sentiment of post-truth politics and the Leave campaign in
general, when he stated in an interview that “the British people have had
enough of experts.” [3] Specifically referring to economists and policy analysts
that advocate for free trade and neoliberalism, the anti-expert ethos also
applies to the societal elites that support and bankroll such policies. In an
essay for his publication The Intercept,
Glenn Greenwald argues that many devastating choices made by world leaders and
elites have caused this populist, post-truth backlash, citing journalist Chris
Hayes in the process:
These are not random, isolated mistakes. They are the byproduct of fundamental cultural pathologies within Western elite circles — a deep rot. Why should institutions that have repeatedly authored such travesties, and spread such misery, continue to command respect and credibility? They shouldn’t, and they’re not. As Chris Hayes warned in his 2012 book Twilight of the Elites, “Given both the scope and depth of this distrust [in elite institutions], it’s clear that we’re in the midst of something far grander and more perilous than just a crisis of government or a crisis of capitalism. We are in the midst of a broad and devastating crisis of authority.” [4]
This
modern crisis of authority extends beyond circles of leadership towards all
authoritative knowledge and forms of knowing that require expertise. This has a
disproportionate impact on organizations like the ALA, which just recently
outlined a policy initiative for the new presidential administration and
session of Congress that highlighted the role and value of librarians as the “expert
of the library.” [5] How can librarians be expected to leverage this expertise
in an age where expertise is invalidated by personal and emotional knowledges?
I
personally believe that libraries are already shifting to accommodate this
post-truth era, which helps explain the rise in popularity of DIY programming
and makerspaces in the library. Rather than relying on the expertise of a
reference librarian to direct them to sacrosanct knowledge, users are making
themselves the experts and creating their own knowledge with the tools provided
in makerspaces and their related counterparts. But what of the expertise of the
maker who is teaching these skills of self-creation? Because of the somewhat vocational
and informal nature of the maker’s work, it can be presumed that a maker would
be seen as more authoritative than the expert librarian with an “elite” master’s
degree. Imagining the post-truth library as a place where knowledge is created
and not sought out opens the possibility for librarians to consider new ways to
engage their patrons with a sense of authenticity and meaning, all the while
avoiding the cold, elitist stereotypes that have plagued the profession since
its inception.
--
[1] Oxford
Dictionary. Oxford University Press, 2016.“Word
of the year 2016 is... | Oxford Dictionaries.” https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/word-of-the-year/word-of-the-year-2016.
[2] Taylor,
Adam. “Brits Turn to ‘Game of Thrones’ to Try to Make Sense of Their Politics.”
Washington Post (Washington
Post), July 1, 2016. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/07/01/in-a-britain-divided-by-brexit-fatalistic-game-of-thrones-references-are-everywhere/.
[3] “Gove:
Britons ‘have had enough of experts.’” YouTube.
June 21, 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGgiGtJk7MA&t=205s.
[4] Greenwald,
Glenn. “Brexit Is Only the Latest Proof of the Insularity and Failure of
Western Establishment Institutions.” The
Intercept. June 25, 2016. https://theintercept.com/2016/06/25/brexit-is-only-the-latest-proof-of-the-insularity-and-failure-of-western-establishment-institutions/.
[5] American Library Association. "45-115
ALA Federal Initiative." Advocacy, Legislation & Issues. October 04, 2016.
http://www.ala.org/advocacy/advleg/federallegislation/45-115-ala-federal-initiative
You ask the million dollar question here: "How can librarians be expected to leverage this expertise in an age where expertise is invalidated by personal and emotional knowledges?" Experts of all stripes must be asking themselves versions of this question more and more in the cultural moment of post-truth. I think librarians have an advantage in that they have rarely been seen as repositories of information, more often interlocutors or gatekeepers (less palatable as an idea, perhaps, as 'gatekeeper' implies restriction as much as access). This might excuse them of some of the nastier suspicions and aspersions that the post-truthers are ready to hurl.
ReplyDeleteThe key in your post here seems to be that users want to direct their own learning. They do not want to be told the best way to do things, despite the fact it has been proven to be the best way of doing something. People want to discover what their own personal best way is and I entirely agree that maker-spaces and DIY are places that embrace this concept. That being said I do believe are open to guidance, whether it is overtly given with precise basic directions or sneakily hidden in the design of a space. Everyone needs a starting point. No matter where they want to start, the libraries job is to determine what where that is and help them from there. I agree that our job is not to wave our degrees and say we know the only an best way.
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