"The American Public Library: Construction of a Community Reading Institution"

                In “The American Public Library: Construction of a Community Reading Institution,” Wayne A. Weigand gives a brief history of the beginning of American public library as we know it today. From the beginnings of the American Library Association in 1876 to the role that libraries played in the first World War, Wiegand gives a descriptive view of the landscape of libraries in the United States, including major players such as Melvil Dewey and Andrew Carnegie. A critical theme that runs throughout this piece is the debate on whether to include popular works of fiction as well as the mission of libraries to provide “The best reading for the greatest number at the least cost. In the early stages of the development of the modern public library, organizations such as the American Library Association as well as those determined to be a kind of “cultural authority” attempted to control the inventory of libraries by publishing official recommendations for what libraries should store on their shelves. They mainly worked to stop the flow of popular fiction through American public libraries due to the fact that they considered these works of fiction to hold no sort of intellectual value. This idea led to the most troubling part of this history: the fact that officials of public libraries attempted to, in a way, censor the materials they made available to the very public they served.

                Throughout the development of the modern structure of the American public library, officials looked down upon many works of fiction and instead tried to coerce a resistant public into reading more “intellectual” works such as those of a historical or biographical nature. Later, after the beginning of World War I, this trend continued when the libraries circulated war propaganda to the public. The very institutions that the American public were supposed to be able to visit to find works of literature that gave the information or entertainment that they desired were controlling the information available to them. Thankfully, however, during the war libraries loosened restrictions against fiction as they began to collect books to send to soldiers, and after the floodgates of fiction opened, they couldn’t be shut as people continued to check those works out with high frequency. However, this doesn’t dispose of the fact that the libraries failed to accomplish their task of serving the public through providing information by selectively filtering what information was available to them. By preventing the public from reading certain works of fiction, libraries may have even deprived it of the intellectual growth they sought to foster because, as we know today, works of fiction can be very mentally stimulating and serve as great teachers to the public (such as Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment or even F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, to name two that have affected me personally).

                In this brief history, Wiegand provides a brilliant and descriptive look at the challenges faced by public libraries in the United States as they developed into the institutions they are today. This article could also be connected to issues we face in our own society today as debates erupt over the censorship of content on the internet and in the digital sphere that, in a particular sense, serves as a new kind of library. We should look at this history and be wary of information that is presented to us today over the internet and look to find different points of view and be critical of what we see instead of taking it as absolute fact. This way, we can avoid having our own view skewed by the censorship that may or may not be taking place by various online editors or posters looking to gain support for their respective opinions.