Confronting the Democratic Discourse of Librarianship: A Marxist Approach (2019) by Sam Popowich
Confronting the Democratic Discourse of Librarianship: A Marxist Approach by Sam Popowich. Sacramento, CA: Library Juice Press, 2019. 322 p. “So long as we are a democracy we need intelligence; so long as we need intelligence in the community we need librarians; so we shall need librarians to the end of Time.” — George H. Locke speaking to university students in Toronto, October 1932. George Locke’s assessment neatly encapsulated the thoughts of the “library community” in Canada, the United States, and Britain in the first part of the 20th century. Today, many people continue to support the belief that public libraries provide beneficial free and equal access to resources for everyone in the community that the library serves. Library historians have also followed this line of reasoning, using the themes of “temples of democracy,” “cornerstones of liberty,” or “arsenals of democracy.” But are foundational themes in history really so simple? Readers of two classic Marxist histori...