"But Is It a Library?" The Contested Meanings and ChangingCulture of the Academic Library Open Access
Milewicz, Elizabeth Jean (2009)
Published
Abstract
What does it mean, when academic libraries are noisy? After centuries of silence, bound up in architecture, building use policies, and scholarly habits, the American academic library is experiencing abrupt changes in its soundscape as shifts in technology and pedagogy prompt its re-situation in the academic community. Librarians, facing a future in which the role and relevancy of the library is uncertain, argue for its continued validity by linking changes in the library to its educational mission and to the needs and preferences of students born in the Digital Age. Lifelong library users, though acquiescing to these changes, question their appropriateness to the library's essential role. Conflicts over the meaning of the academic library bespeak broader challenges in American higher education over balancing support for the life of the mind with the demands of a consumer-driven academic culture.
Focused on American academic libraries in general and Emory University's Woodruff Library in particular, this phenomenological and ethnographic case study explores the meaning of the library to members of the academic community as a way of assessing the legitimacy of new library spaces. Using theories of discourse and sociological theories of legitimacy, methods of cultural and linguistic anthropology, and a historical and experiential focus on the soundscape of the library, this interdisciplinary research gauges the divergence between users' beliefs about and use of the library and the types of spaces and activities promoted by librarians. In discourse about and observations within libraries, differing expectations of the role of the library emerge, along with a process of legitimating new library spaces by connecting them to broader cultural frameworks and extant beliefs regarding the role of the library. Beyond evidencing the library's expanding technological and pedagogical roles, the soundscape of the academic library signals a deeper shift in the nature of academic life - from the culture of isolated reflection that has long typified the life of the mind, to a new academic culture of productivity, in which a focus on efficiency, outcomes, and consumer demands drive the experience of higher education.Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1 THE SOUND OF CHANGE IN ACADEMIC LIBRARIES 1 STATEMENT OF PURPOSE AND PROJECT SUMMARY 3 THEORETICAL AND HISTORICAL CONTEXT 7 A culture of quiet 8 Justifying the noisy library 12 Valuing quiet 17 CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE STUDY AND PREVIEW OF CHAPTERS 21 REFLECTIONS ON INSIDER ETHNOGRAPHY 28 Library positions 30 Constructing insider status 32
CHAPTER 2 THEORETICAL AND HISTORICAL REVIEW 35 THE SANCTUARY AND THE SILENT READER 37 From communities of mumblers to silent communion 39 The functional aesthetics of reading rooms 41 Making space for quiet, books, and reading 45 SHIFTING EXPECTATIONS OF SCHOLARLY WORK AND THE LIBRARY 48 Leveling pedagogy and building the Commons 50 A library by another name 56 Contesting the meaning of the academic library 59 The meaning of quiet 66 DISCOURSE, AUTHORITY, AND CULTURAL CHANGE 73 Legitimacy and innovation in organizational fields 73 The dispersion of authority 77 Structured and structuring discourse 80 Discourse, legitimacy, and cultural change 83 CONCLUSION 85
CHAPTER 3 DEFINING AND DEFENDING THE SOUND OF THE LIBRARY 88 DEFINING LIBRARIES 91 Quiet place of books and study 95 Refuge from other distractions 99 Transcendence and communion 104 Computers, librarians, and people 109 SOUNDS AND SPACES 113 Machine City 115 Disturbing Quiet 119 Open Walls 122 ORDER OF THE LIBRARY 124 A Lively Library 125 Something for Everyone 129 Someone Else's Library 133 CONCLUSION 139
CHAPTER 4 SOUNDING THE LIBRARY 143 A BRIEF HISTORY OF WOODRUFF LIBRARY 145 THE COMMONS 148 Level 2: The Business Library 151 Level 2: Reference 156 Level 3: The Quiet Study Area 162 Level 3: Mezzanine and Bridge 171 MATHESON READING ROOM 174 JAZZMAN'S 184 CONCLUSION 194
CHAPTER 5 STRADDLING CONCEPTUAL WORLDS 197 DISTINGUISHING SOUND 201 Noisy life 202 Gilded silence 207 Preserving quiet 210 SECURING QUIET IN PUBLIC SPACE 213 Enclosures and environments 213 Avoiding confrontations 219 THE BUSINESS OF LIBRARIES 222 Measuring productivity and value 223 Serving customers 225 CONCLUSION 229
CHAPTER 6 CONCLUSIONS 231 SOUNDING THE LEGITIMACY OF THE NOISY LIBRARY 232 Ordering discourse about (and in) the library 235 Balancing quiet, noise, and the needs of others 238 THE CULTURE(S) OF PRODUCTIVITY 242 Privatizing Public 243 Talking Shop: Business approaches to public goods 244 Outsourcing relevance 246 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY 247 Recruiting library users 247 Recording sound 249 DIRECTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH 251 Siting new studies 251 Crystallization versus triangulation 253 Library 'utterances' and finalization 254
APPENDIX 1: INTERVIEWING 256 INTERVIEWEES AND RECRUITMENT 257 ANALYSIS OF INTERVIEWS 258 EXPLICATION OF INTERVIEWS 259 INTERVIEWEE DEMOGRAPHICS 260 INTERVIEW PROTOCOL 263
APPENDIX 2: PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION 273 FIELD SITE AND OBSERVATION LOCATIONS 273 OBSERVATION PROCEDURES 275 Measuring sound levels 275 Recording the scene 277 Role switching in the scene 278
APPENDIX 3: DISCOURSE ANALYSIS 280 DOCUMENT COLLECTION 281 Coding and Analysis 286 Everyday discourse and ideological commonsense 289 Article types 291
BIBLIOGRAPHY 294
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