Authentic Discourse as a Means of Connection between Public Library Service Responses and Community-Building Initiatives. (Community Building)

Abstract

community-building movement in the United States is extensive and has the power to coalesce people from all occupations and ages to unite around shared goals. This column is intended to explore examples of librarians working to build community and to provide resources for those interested in doing more. Discussions about community building may be generated in think tanks, public-policy centers, universities, government entities, foundations, associations, and local town-hall meetings. Often these entities publish papers, books, reports, or local resolutions. How the ideas discussed are implemented is a complex process that has been the concern of policy science and public administration scholars. In their book, Postmodern Public Administration: Toward Discourse, Fox and Miller argue for the creation of an authentic discourse within society to determine future action. (1) Their ideas are based in part on the work of Jurgen Habermas who has noted, The communication structures of the public sphere are linked with the private life spheres in a way that gives the civil-social periphery, in contrast to the political center, the advantage of greater sensitivity in detecting and identifying new problem situations. (2) Librarians working in the community represent contact with the public served in ways that administrators and government officials seldom experience. Through informal conversations, participation in community activities, and attention to collection and information demands, librarians have an opportunity to link the daily reality and discourse of the residents of the library's community with future policies regarding its services and use of resources. Public Library as Catalysts for Authentic Discourse Public librarianship has used a planning model since 1987 that is intended to define excellence locally. In its latest manifestation, New Planning for Results: A Streamlined Approach, this model offers thirteen Services Responses that are distinct ways a library meets a set of well-defined community needs. (3) These needs, as identified through the planning process, will reflect the planning environment. degree to which this environment mirrors the actual needs of a community will vary depending upon the level of effort made by the planning team. Have sessions been held for a long period of time with a true cross-section of the community? Were conversations allowed to flourish until consensus emerged? Because of the streamlined nature of the planning process, full discussion of community needs may not be possible using New Planning for Results. (4) If discourse becomes democratic through consensus building, it is partly because authentic discourse enables people to move from personal opinions to informed ideas that help to establish a rationale for service. (5) Librarians should bring to the process a broad and informed knowledge about the larger context of these Services Responses. goals of these services generally reflect mission statements based on ideals of equity and justice. broader context in which these responses may be characterized includes a constantly evolving set of issues and problems that require attention and study. As participants in the process of fostering authentic dialogue, librarians can work to ground the discussion of the public library's service in justice. Returning to the framework provided by Habermas and action theory, this has been characterized by Thomas McCarthy to demonstrate that basic moral intuitions are rooted in something deeper and more universal than particularities of our tradition. task of moral theory, in his view, is reflectively to articulate, refine, and elaborate--that is, to `reconstruct'--the intuitive grasp of the normative presuppositions of social interaction that belongs to the repertoire of competent social actors in any society. (6) Simply put, the task of defining community needs requires an understanding that goes beyond the manifestation of needs as defined mainly within the language and toolkits of librarianship. …

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