Abstract
This paper examines the basis for the commonly expressed sentiment that librarians have been late to adopt emerging technologies for use in library and information science practice. Using insights from science and technology studies, this sentiment is shown to be inadequately empirically warranted. The trope of the technophobic librarian is examined for clues to the importance of gendered emotional labor in effective library work, under the rubric of “customer service.” These clues lead to an examination of embodiment in the virtual world Second Life, and the emerging presence of librarians there. Using Second Life librarianship as a case study, this paper argues that embodiment is an important resource for library work, and that women’s technological labor is effaced through the trope of the technophobic librarian. Deconstructive analytical moves which collapse binary categories, yoked with methods from science and technology studies, are suggested for future fine-grained accounts of library technological practice.
Highlights
Gendered Bodies in Library Work The figure of the technophobic librarian has become a commonplace in library science literature, assumed without examination
Famous moments of technological naysaying notwithstanding, instances of librarians joyfully converting their card catalogues to scratch paper and using card catalogue drawers as OPAC stands after completing their retrospective conversions, and the work of librarians in early networking efforts, when technological infrastructures were undeveloped and unproven, seem to have faded in the short memories of the technophiles who are eager to separate themselves from the vision of technologically obsolete library science
In resonance with Donna Haraway, I trace “what gets to count as technology, for whom and when, and how much it costs to produce ‘technology’ at a particular moment in history for a particular group of people.”1 When we ask what is at stake in the definitions of technology that seem to be on offer, we see that the technophilic orientation favoured by the negative portrayal of the slowadopter librarian forecloses both the opportunities and the courage to develop an analysis of technology that is LIS-centric
Summary
Of the persistent images of librarians, one in particular caricatures them as stubbornly refusing to adopt new information technologies. The predictable response of LIS closes the door on multi-disciplinary, question-based approaches from the history of technology, the sociology of science, feminist theory, and science and technology studies. As I think the critics of the technophobic librarian will agree, librarianship involves multiple layers of technology for organizing, storing, and accessing knowledge and managing circulation, but for various reasons, the technological aspects of library work don’t register. These two assumptions are hardly contentious, even if the details that support these assumptions require further explanation. - 28 PhænEx trade” for doing ethnographies of infrastructure (Star 38) matters deeply to the future and status of LIS
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