Viewpoint: How critical can librarians be?

Abstract

Critical librarianship has become embedded into the epistemological structure of the LIS profession. Those working in art libraries and the Art Libraries Journal have played no small role in this, fostering progressive discussions around issues of social injustice that orbit the library and its functions. Nevertheless, the kernel of critical theory that developed out of the Frankfurt School centred upon class and economics. Librarianship, especially art librarianship, continues to be a middle-class career requiring an expensive higher qualification to enter. This requirement indicates the contradictions operating within and around the sector. As the commodification of education continues to creep in, class and economics are urgent topics that demand to be addressed by the critical librarianship movement. Yet those who practice critical librarianship remain employees of this very system and as such, the question posed is, what, if anything, can librarians do about their role within the education system to disrupt the commodification of education? The proposal is offered that librarians and artworks have more in common than seems possible. This idea is explained by briefly introducing artwork as a monad, concluding that art and perhaps librarians reflect the society that created them but cannot change it. Nevertheless, the very existence of art reflects the possibilities of such change, and maybe this is its role.