Meditations on civility in the library
Reflection #1: Meditations on civility in the library
While exploring Module 5 this week, I was drawn to Dixon’s (2017) article on facilitating community dialogues in the library. It percolated in my mind alongside Ashley West’s Assignment X on radical trust and some ongoing thoughts I have about community, civility, and conviviality. Now, bear in mind that I have just been diving into some Wendell Berry (if the nod to conviviality did not give it away), but also that I am taking this course alongside one on critical librarianship. So, I am currently preoccupied with notions of affection, obligation, ethics, and values.
On the one hand, I am inspired by the idea that the library—as both a building and a concept—can function as the space in which dialogue and real communication can thrive. That we would be able to regularly and enthusastically engage in civic conversation speaks to some of my deepest personal hopes about humanity.
But there were phrases throughout Dixon’s article over which I hesitated. I paused when I saw that “engaging your community is not inherently political” or that moderated conversation “makes it easy for staff to avoid asserting personal opinions and present an air of neutrality” (Dixon, 2017, pp. 42, 44). I read these words and wondered: isn’t the act of co-creation and conversation between a government agency and its citizens political by nature? Is an air of neutrality one that we truly desire?
The library is certainly a building with the physical space we would need to conduct these types of dialogues. We have community rooms, sometimes theaters or auditoriums, quad spaces and patios on which we can gather. Libraries also hold the stories and histories that can lend context to these civic conversations. We are well-situated in these ways to serve, at least, as the frame/housing for these dialogues. But, I question whether we are ready in other ways.
After reading this article, I want to know more about the training these librarian-facilitators undertake to prepare them for these programs. While I am excited by the idea of hosting community conversations, I do not feel anywhere near ready to do so. Are we, as librarians, ready to be facilitators? Are we able to give our patrons the “attention and space” needed to grow authentic trust (brown, 2017)? Can we foster civil conversations when incivility is rampant in our own workplaces (Henry et al., 2023)? Can we teach that which we do not consistently practice?
References
brown, a. m. (2017). Emergent strategy : shaping change, changing worlds. AK Press.
Dixon, J. A. (2017). Convening community conversations. Library Journal, 142(17), 41-44. https://www.libraryjournal.com/story/convening-community-conversations-programming
Henry, J., Croxton, R., & Moniz, R. (2023). Incivility and disfunction in the library workplace: A five-year comparison. Journal of Library Administration, 63(1), 42-68. https://doi.org/10.1080/01930826.2022.2146440
Libraries Taskforce. (2018). Community room in Ambleside library [Photograph]. Wikimedia Commons. Retrieved June 22, 2024 from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Community_room_in_Ambleside_library_(41694110161).jpg
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3 Comments
Alexis L. Johnson
Hi Rachel,
Ooo this is a fantastic pondering. As a conflict-averse person by nature, I, too, do not feel ready to do such a thing; I would want ample training. But it is such an important topic. And my hope would be that I and our communities can get there.
While doing my Assignment X (about oral stories), I ran into a creative interview collection that created conversations that centered humanity and relatedness between community members with different political views. The conversation series is by StoryCorps and is called “One Small Step.” They describe it as “strangers with different political views together to record a 50-minute conversation—not to debate politics, but to learn who we are as people.” https://storycorps.org/discover/onesmallstep/conversations/
Just as it is called, it is “one small step” in the direction of civil conversation despite differences; programs like this are in-the-direction-of those harder conversations for those of us that have a harder time jumping into the deep end.
And side note, I live in Nashville — I should check out the conversations referenced in Dixon’s article if they’re still going on!
Rachel Syme
@alexisljohnson Thanks for sharing the “one small step” resource! I love StoryCorps and its always fun to listen to their stories. It reminds me of the “Human Library” program (https://humanlibrary.org/) that aims to engender understanding and empathy.
Michael Stephens
@rcsyme You ask some ood questions in this post. I am leaning toward the idea that we are not completetly neutral. We can surely offer collections with diverse viewpoints but we can also speak out against anything that impededs an individual’s access to information (in every way we might define that term!).