Pawley Article

I loved reading this article. It’s so exciting to find out about a local radical/ feminist who did so much in a field that I’m interested in. To borrow a term from class: it’s a good narrative.

What I liked about this article (which I also liked about the last Fain article) was that Pawley brought the discussion of the conflicting ideas the library into a very specific context. We talked in class about Biographies and the possibility that telling one person’s story may not do justice to larger themes but here Pawley really just frames the story of Wisconsin libraries with the efforts of Lutie Stearns.

I found the "Political Pluralism" section very interesting. I sympathize with Stearns’ wish that she, and the libraries, could stay out of partisan politics but politics aren’t staying out of the library and therefore one has to know how to work within the system. It was impressive that Stearns used advertising to such a great extent. It sounds simplistic but people won’t use a library if they don’t know its there or don’t know what it has to offer. This would especially be useful to advertise new collections, such as foreign language books, that were being bought at this time. The conversation that Hutchinson had with the rural storekeeper shows that even laypeople had overly idealistic beliefs about the reading “good books.”

In "Libraries for “the People” Pawley bring up the issue of whether collections should be built based on patron demand or a librarian’s discretion. This issue is seen in a new light when one considers the tax supported library versus the philanthropic gift library. With the tax supported library it is easy to argue that the tax payers should have a say in what they have access to because they own part of the collection. As far as the gift library is concerned the philanthropist who donates the money will have more control over what goes in to the library. If the philanthropist’s attitude is one of superiority it would be easy to see how that could translate into the mission and book collection of the library.