Oleg Kagan’s comments to my July 7 post and another librarian’s comment on the Lead Pipe blog suggest the idea of public libraries becoming hubs of civic discourse is worth exploring.
Do citizens really want it?
Oleg described an unsuccessful civic program at the Will & Arial Durant Branch library in Los Angeles: “we invited the League of Woman Voters to do a program explaining ballot initiatives etc., pushed it in the community, and still got 0 people.” Does poor attendance at programs like these suggest citizens don’t want library services around civic engagement? I don’t think so. My hunch is that poor attendance is partly because informational programs don’t address what the public perceives it needs.
Generally speaking, the public has plenty of civic information and communication. We have access to regional, national and international news & opinion sources and websites for departments at every level of government. We also get frequent outreach from elected officials and non-profits via TV ads, emails and robocalls. Citizens also circulate information and commentary via mobile devices, website forms & comments, Facebook, Twitter and blogs. Yet despite all this info and communication, many of us report we’re not up on the issues and our voices are not being heard. What’s missing are personal connections around civic matters, dialogue and the messy process of sorting it all out.
I believe millions of citizens hunger for richer, more rewarding public discourse. What we need are better ways to filter, validate and contextualize information. Public libraries can play a big role in the development of new models for knowledge generation and civic engagement — if they step up to it.
Sorting things out @ your library
My sense is that citizen disengagement is a partial response to being caught in multiple informational crosshairs; being the target of commercial and political messages, pitches & pleas from non-profit organizations and the unfortunate recipients of buckshot from distant hoaxes and scandals. I’m willing to bet citizen engagement would be stronger in discourse we helped generate.
Imagine a few engaged citizens partnering with their public library to host chats in their community’s living room. Simplicity and informality would work well here, so I’d start with a basic structure of impartial facilitation (preferably by a member of the library staff) and a few agreements to help guide the conversation. The agreements might be to ask of whatever emerges as a topic of interest: 1) are we interested enough to talk about the subject again 2) what information would we need to enrich the conversation and 3) do we know anyone else who might want to join the next one?
Folks drawn to a forum like this would likely do a good job at self-moderation and be pretty resourceful about acquiring and distributing information. Their library facilitator could also provide assistance, or course. Participants would also spread the word if they felt the forum was valuable.
If the conversation series didn’t catch on, I’d encourage the library facilitator to actively find out why through participant outreach. And then I’d try another one with new citizen collaborators and new topics. As this would be new for libraries and users, it might take a few tries before the thing took hold.
I’m continually amazed at how easily non-users summarize their information needs and share ideas for how libraries could offer helpful services for them. Having people in the library for loosely structured discussions about civic topics could be incredibly fruitful for libraries as well as citizens.
One reason (of many) why this a good idea for public libraries
Librarian Emily Ford recently confessed to losing some professional mojo in a recent ItLwtLP essay and it prompted this comment:
I work in a public library. I think we should be fostering social discourse, serving as a community space, showing the community how the library can be a hub of discourse and learning, where issues of relevance to the community (e.g. economic and political) can be discussed and debated, etc. We do make some efforts in that direction, but I’d love to see those efforts amped up a hell of a lot more. I mean, honestly, the onus is on us to convince all taxpayers of our value to the community and society at-large. If we fail to provide something for everyone beyond access to free popular DVDs (and books) and services to the small portion of the population with children, then we’ve failed and have little grounds to complain when taxpayers at-large vote to cut our funding.
This hits a big nail squarely on the head: public libraries need new service offerings to attract more of the citizens who actually fund them. Let’s face it, library users are not well represented by young people entering the workforce or by 30 – 60 year old property owners who are employed full-time. Continued public library contractions seem inevitable unless more taxpaying citizens become users.
Nurturing informed, respectful civic discourse might draw us in … and it wouldn’t take a whole lot of new resources either.
What might get in the way?
I’d guess institutional culture would be the biggest barrier. Services like these would require and foster experimentation, change and new blood coming into the library. In practice, all three are fiercely resisted by public library staff, trustees and friends.
Staff education and training might also be a barrier. Think about what it would take to facilitate discussions among engaged citizens. It would require a deep and active engagement with users and information that David Lankes has termed participatory librarianship.1 Information needs arising from these discussions might involve synthesis, curation and perhaps even the creation & dissemination of high quality civic information. How many public libraries are staffed to meet these needs today and how well are library schools preparing new librarians to meet them?
1See A strong & sustainable vision for librarians and Lankes on librarians and leadership for excerpts from David’s recent presentations.
I agree with all of what you said in your post except what you perceive might get in the way. At my branch, management does not get in the way very often; their answer to much of what I want to do is yes. Similarly, I think I could moderate a discussion fairly effectively. The difficulty would be in getting people to show up. You wrote that “I believe millions of citizens hunger for richer, more rewarding public discourse.” This may be true but people sure aren’t letting us know about it. They aren’t asking outright for it (though one can’t except that they will), and they aren’t showing up for related programs. Perhaps it is a question of pitch? What do we write on the flyer/press release/other marketing materials to hit the spot for our patrons?
“Have Your Say! Discuss the issues!”
“The Ins and Outs of Immigration Policy”
“Are Gays Okay to Marry?” or the more controversial “Are Gays Okay?”
“Healthcare: Healthy for the United States?”
Joking, of course, though “Have Your Say” would work as the name of the series. The other qualm I have about running a program on the issues is that some of them (like healthcare) are very very complex. I don’t think anyone, even experts, know everything there is to know about it. So in cases like that I worry about a lot of discussion not rooted in fact which, in my opinion, would defeat the whole purpose.
The other, perhaps irrational, fear is that the conversation will end up very one-sided so if I decide to have a forum on gays in the military for example, the make-up of the audience will be largely conservative. A way to counteract that might be to consider an issue that has multiple viewpoints within a community — hard to say for sure though.
Hi Oleg – we may have different conceptions of the service.
What I’m imagining is a blend of conversations that used to happen at the local barbershop or lunch counter with those from a 300 level undergraduate college course. They’d be loosley structured and go where participants and critical thinking take them. A discussion on immigration, for example, might emerge by someone saying “Let’s talk about immigration”. The facilitator or another participant might say “sure, what would you like to talk about” “say more” or “what sparks your interest in this”. This would help identify a manageable slice that people would find interesting enough to talk about. A conversation might last 20 minutes or carry over multiple meetings, depending on the interest level of the participants. Or, a discussion might start by someone bringing in a municipal document on a new local ordinance. The meeting might be spent with people helping each other understand the ordinance, it’s orgin and application. This type of dialogue wouldn’t be attractive to everyone of course, though I believe plenty of people would find it interesting.
The role of the facilitator would be to foster critical thinking, discussion and inquiry by asking open questions throughout the conversation like “how do we know that” and “was it always this way” and “is it this way in other places”. The facilitator could also help with strategies for deeper engagement such as bringing related materials or people to the next meeting, and perform information surveillance and broadcast pertinent news & materials to participants to help keep the dialogue going.
“One-sided” conversations would be fine with me as long as the forum is safe and open for all. I mean, if the people coming out are like minded, why bog things down with a forced attempt at balance? Critical thinking is a form of intellectual counter-weight and asking questions like “how do we know what we know” and “what else do we need to know to pursue this topic” would introduce information that doesn’t fit neatly into an established viewpoint. Also, thoughtful participants would help guard against lazy or narrow-minded thinking.
I see partnering with a few engaged citizens as key to success. Great things can happen when 3-4 people are invested in creating and nurturing something. I’d try seeding initial discussions with people who can help set a tone for safe, respectful dialogue and intellectual inquiry. It would also be important for the founding partners to review discussion dynamics with one another afterward – where did the traction occur and where did the wheels spin? Breaking down barriers to fruitful info exchange would also be key. If a participant keeps coming in to rant, for example, it would need to be addressed. If the library website and communication tools are insufficient, alternatives that work better would need to be identified quickly. And at every turn it would be important to ask “do we know anyone else who might want to join the next conversation” and personally reach out to them.
Like any new thing, it would take a few tries to get the hang of it … but after awhile, I’d be willing to bet attendance would be steady and users would start asking about existing forums or to start new ones.
Whaddya think? Is this a facilitation role you’d find challenging and enjoyable? Are there users at your library you can imagine partnering with?