Tunnel Vision and Blind Spots: What the past Tells Us about the Present; Reflections on the Twentieth-Century History of American Librarianship

Abstract

The twentieth-century American library is one of this nation's most understudied yet ubiquitous institutions, possessing a rich history of service to millions of users who over the generations have variably appropriated library collections and services for multiple purposes. For the most part, however, the library and information science (LIS) research community has failed to analyze the deeper meanings of these appropriations or to evaluate their significance for library users, in large part because it has yet to harness the ideas of many critical theorists whose thinking now dominates so much of the discourse occurring in other professions and academic disciplines. This article constitutes a reexamination of the twentieth-century history of American librarianship that is grounded on this thinking. It argues that contemporary LIS discourse is plagued with tunnel vision and blind spots that greatly limit the profession's ability to understand the role of the American library in the present accurately, and thus seriously affect the profession's efforts to plan the library's future.