National Library Workers Day
Yesterday was National Library Workers Day, and to be honest, it felt pretty bleak. In recent weeks, we've seen the devastating dismantling of IMLS (which has, thankfully, led to a lawsuit against the Trump Administration), another librarian has been arrested (albeit with very few details, and not for censorship-related reasons), and a library worker has gone missing after an FBI raid. These events represent wider trends we are seeing as the United States continues its fascistic march toward authoritarianism.
On Monday, the ALA published its State of America's Libraries report for 2024, which addresses the continued onslaught of book banning and censorship efforts, as well as the continued legislative efforts to criminalize librarianship. The report takes an optimistic tone by also pointing out how libraries matter to their communities and society generally, a soothing balm nevertheless rooted in vocational awe (which I plan to address through an anticapitalist lens in a later post).
The report focuses mostly on public and school libraries; this is fine, especially since the aforementioned attacks on libraries most obviously impact public and school libraries. But is this a canary in the coal mine for academic libraries at public universities? I'd argue the canary is already dead and has been for some time.
I live in a red state and work at a public university. Our board of regents is highly conservative, and our right-wing legislature has passed bills that target intellectual freedom. Our library has already seen the effects of these new laws. Although I've seen my library make moves to protect staff, I've also seen what I consider capitulation and instances of compliance in advance. Although I can't know for sure what the inner workings of our library administration are and do not claim to, I believe these actions to be motivated by a fear of reduced funding in some capacity, if not specifically for the library, then for the university as a whole.
The thing is: this administration WANTS funding cuts to (and/or the elimination of) libraries. They WANT funding cuts to research. DOGE has been gleefully defunding academic freedom across the board since its inception. So why should academic institutions capitulate for funding that will be threatened regardless? Why are public universities complying instead of fighting?
The corporatization of higher education has accelerated over the past five decades to the point where universities are so entrenched in neoliberal capitalism that we may end up being our own undoing. By not standing against the forces that seek to dismantle it during this critical time, the public university positions itself to lose much more than just federal and state funding. If any of what I have written here rings true to you, I implore you to use National Library Week to ask your university library administration the hard questions. Empower them to ask the university administration those same questions. When we become afraid to ask questions, we have already lost. Fear literally is the mind killer.
I've touched on a few things I could delve deeper into in this short post. Leave a comment if you have anything you wish for me to cover more deeply. Take care of each other.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed are the author's personal opinions. The facts and opinions presented do not necessarily reflect the views of the author's employer.