Our Enduring Values: Librarianship in the 21st Century

Rating:
Summary: A good statement on librarianship today
Review: In the last century, we have seen a revolution in thinking, the move from virtues to values. The Victorians lived in a world where virtues such as honesty, modesty, faithfulness, kindness, patience, and self-control defined people. In the Victorian world, professions were not defined merely by professional knowledge, but also by common set of absolute virtues. For example bankers and stock brokers were expected to be honest as well as able to add. In our time, the majority of persons have adopted the view that people can have differing sets of relative values instead of a common set of virtues.

The "values revolution" rejected virtues and thus left the professions such as librarianship with the problem of what to substitute for them. The American Library Association is attempting to substitute values for virtues. The questions then comes: what values? How do we define and practice them? How do these values fit into the present context of libraries? Michael Gorman, one of the world's leading library thinkers, has attempted to address these and other important questions in Our Enduring Values.

He begins by defining values as beliefs that are enduring preferences relating to the means and ends of the profession (p.6). When he attempts to give criteria for whether values are good or bad, he fails (p.8). Mr. Gorman's method is to derive the values from writers on the philosophy of librarianship. He than discusses the importance of libraries as institutions and physical locations. The chapter titles list his important values as stewardship, service, intellectual freedom, rationalism, literacy and learning, equity of access, privacy and democracy.

How well does he accomplish his goals? The goal of putting values in the present historical and cultural context is masterfully done. Gorman understands libraries and their mission as few others do. He is thus able to fit developments such as the information technology revolution into the context of the library and show correctly (in my opinion) how libraries will deal with them. Mr. Gorman uses his abundant common sense and his sense of humor to develop this topic. His discussion of the trends in modern librarianship is worth the price of the book.

I was less impressed by his discussion of values. To his credit, he has correctly selected the main values of the ALA. His discussions of stewardship and service are excellent and his discussion of literacy is not far behind the other two. His discussion of intellectual freedom omitted a consideration of how easy it is for librarians to become censors by imposing their values on the selection process. (Are differing values the key difference between selection and censorship?) His discussion on privacy defines it as confidentiality concerning what a person reads and looks at in the library. He does not discuss how privacy used in our society to protect criminals. He does not discuss the problem of addictive behavior. People, especially children, can start on the road to addictive behavior in the library. Knowledge of a child's library use can help a parent know when to get help. I was disappointed that he did not have a greater emphasis on need for the impartiality of librarians in helping the public understand controversial issues, like abortion. Finally, I do not see how we can be good stewards and servants without deciding the virtues needed fulfill those roles, and making them part of library education. In conclusion, let me recommend Our Enduring Values too anyone wanting to better understand the current direction and thinking of our profession. It is worth reading twice.

Rating:
Summary: A good statement on librarianship today
Review: In the last century, we have seen a revolution in thinking, the move from virtues to values. The Victorians lived in a world where virtues such as honesty, modesty, faithfulness, kindness, patience, and self-control defined people. In the Victorian world, professions were not defined merely by professional knowledge, but also by common set of absolute virtues. For example bankers and stock brokers were expected to be honest as well as able to add. In our time, the majority of persons have adopted the view that people can have differing sets of relative values instead of a common set of virtues.

The "values revolution" rejected virtues and thus left the professions such as librarianship with the problem of what to substitute for them. The American Library Association is attempting to substitute values for virtues. The questions then comes: what values? How do we define and practice them? How do these values fit into the present context of libraries? Michael Gorman, one of the world's leading library thinkers, has attempted to address these and other important questions in Our Enduring Values.

He begins by defining values as beliefs that are enduring preferences relating to the means and ends of the profession (p.6). When he attempts to give criteria for whether values are good or bad, he fails (p.8). Mr. Gorman's method is to derive the values from writers on the philosophy of librarianship. He than discusses the importance of libraries as institutions and physical locations. The chapter titles list his important values as stewardship, service, intellectual freedom, rationalism, literacy and learning, equity of access, privacy and democracy.

How well does he accomplish his goals? The goal of putting values in the present historical and cultural context is masterfully done. Gorman understands libraries and their mission as few others do. He is thus able to fit developments such as the information technology revolution into the context of the library and show correctly (in my opinion) how libraries will deal with them. Mr. Gorman uses his abundant common sense and his sense of humor to develop this topic. His discussion of the trends in modern librarianship is worth the price of the book.

I was less impressed by his discussion of values. To his credit, he has correctly selected the main values of the ALA. His discussions of stewardship and service are excellent and his discussion of literacy is not far behind the other two. His discussion of intellectual freedom omitted a consideration of how easy it is for librarians to become censors by imposing their values on the selection process. (Are differing values the key difference between selection and censorship?) His discussion on privacy defines it as confidentiality concerning what a person reads and looks at in the library. He does not discuss how privacy used in our society to protect criminals. He does not discuss the problem of addictive behavior. People, especially children, can start on the road to addictive behavior in the library. Knowledge of a child's library use can help a parent know when to get help. I was disappointed that he did not have a greater emphasis on need for the impartiality of librarians in helping the public understand controversial issues, like abortion. Finally, I do not see how we can be good stewards and servants without deciding the virtues needed fulfill those roles, and making them part of library education. In conclusion, let me recommend Our Enduring Values too anyone wanting to better understand the current direction and thinking of our profession. It is worth reading twice.

Rating:
Summary: great book for critical thinkers
Review: This book is a must read for anyone who loves libraries and is concerned about reading in our digital age.

Rating:
Summary: Good eye opener for the mind map
Review: Those who are fed up with quantitative benchmarks, can now turn around and see why our quantification and stats dont matter much.

A reviewer of this book has already said what I think on this approach of our profession:
[John Allen Delivuk - In the last century, we have seen a revolution in thinking, the move from virtues to values. The Victorians lived in a world where virtues such as honesty, modesty, faithfulness, kindness, patience, and self-control defined people. In the Victorian world, professions were not defined merely by professional knowledge, but also by common set of absolute virtues.]

See my listmania for more content that adds values / ethics / morality as a component of the LIS education