The Atlas of New Librarianship

Citation

Calvert, P. (2012), "The Atlas of New Librarianship", The Electronic Library, Vol. 30 No. 1, pp. 148-149. https://doi.org/10.1108/02640471211204141

The first response that most readers will have when opening this book is that it offers an entirely new way of communicating the basics of librarianship. Numerous graphs are used to present ideas that would otherwise be rather abstract, and there is simply no denying that the book has a great impact and will rightly be the subject of much discussion within the profession. The primary audience is participating librarians; occasionally the text speaks to “you” (the practitioner). Other audiences are LIS academics and students.

The book is built around six major concepts that together make up the mission of librarians. Lankes ties these together in a single sentence (the upper case denotes the major concepts): The MISSION of LIBRARIANS is to IMPROVE SOCIETY through FACILITATING … KNOWLEDGE CREATION in their COMMUNITIES. Within each category there are several threads. As an example, the concept of “communities” includes threads called “pressure for participation”, digital environments, credibility, physical environments, public, academic, school … and several more.

The atlas has three components: “the map”, the threads, and supplementary arguments. The map is flexible, it is the relationships it displays that are the most important element, and two connected concepts can be either mutually supportive or cause‐and‐effect.

It is an interesting decision to use conversation theory as the foundation of the worldview, though because it brings together learning and knowledge it can be seen as a rational choice. The purpose that Lankes has is to reduce the prevalent focus on objects (as he perceives it) and instead concentrate the minds of librarians on the part they play in building knowledge. One point that Lankes is trying to show us is that our “worldview” has become so obsessed with the artefacts of our business – the books, discs, and so on – that we forget to look beyond them to the higher purpose for which they will be used, and that is, the learning that will take place in the minds of their end‐users. This message, though understood by many, can be forgotten in the day‐to‐day struggle simply to cope with the next customer in line. The worldview, however, is actually very western (a point Lankes acknowledges) and not always consistent with global realities. It is correct for him to say (p. 16) that newspaper publisher is declining – if that only refers to the US. Newspaper sales are booming in India, for example.

It can sometimes be difficult to find what you want in the Atlas. For one thing there is no index, which seems like a strange omission, but then again this is not a conventional “atlas”. I do not think Lankes is trying to be comprehensive in his coverage as one would expect of a typical reference book. This is his personal view of the mission of librarians that he has chosen to show in graphical form, hence his choice of the word “atlas” to describe the physical product of his thinking. It is sometimes a rather eclectic view of librarians, occasionally introducing his own particular favourite example of a resource or a practice he wishes to discuss in more detail. The example on p. 89 of the “Delicious Library for iPhone app” is quite typical.

Having stated that this book has a great impact I could go on to add that it is a visually exciting book, has numerous good ideas and examples of practice, and I still enjoy dipping into it, and for those reasons it would be a justifiable purchase for almost any library in which the managers wish to be challenged intellectually. Yet I reserve something in my comments. Much as I admire the scope of this work that must have absorbed a huge amount of time and energy in its creation, and I enjoy the challenging ideas to be found in parts of it, I remain doubtful if there is any big message contained in this that the profession has actually missed. Yes, it is easy to forget about the mission from time to time, but most managers know what it is. Putting into graphic form that which could be represented as tables does not change the concepts, it just makes them more approachable by those who learn visually. Having had my say, I still recommend this book.