Fase 3: Inferencia textual

In keeping with the fundamental principles of “scientific management” and coordination (Martin, 1996; Stueart & Moran, 2007), all activity inside a library building is both time- and

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place-bound.38 “Managing time, like managing space, is an organizing process,” explains Becker (1981, p. 29). “It is a social process that contributes as much to the nature and character of the physical setting, and our experience of it, as do the more tangible walls, desks, [and] lights.” Indeed, Dale & Burrell (2008, p. 64) compare time tables to a spatial grid: “The development of a timetable is one grid form which provides a way of producing knowledge or control and movement through time and space. If there has to be movement between places, it has to be controlled, so that time and space are known and rational.”

As discussed earlier, most if not all of the library’s daily activities are fixed within the library building itself. In all three cases, staff from the respective libraries’ Children’s Departments mentioned working off-site but only on occasion: for example, service work on literacy and educational committees—or more frequently, conducting outreach visits to nearby schools and daycare centres. In these latter instances, those staff members bring items with them, perhaps a selection of books or some puppets. In other words, they bring the library with them rather than bringing people to the library. A-Sally, Salterton’s Head of Children’s Department, mentioned conducting occasional summer programs in a nearby park, and Salterton’s Deputy CEO mentioned appearing on a local cable access program about once a month. Such cases are unusual, however. “I’m probably unique that way,” admitted A-Sally. So, with some exceptions, most library activity that constitutes “the library” happens at the library, in the library.

Most of this activity occurs within the regular operating hours of “the library”. An exception that proves the rule: in all three case libraries, “after hours” places—programming rooms, for

38 _{Certain aspects of the library’s processes transcend time- and space-boundaries, and one of these is phone and computer forms of}

communication. Staff telephone extension directories, regularly posted at staff telephones throughout the library, remind on-duty staff that, despite the physical separation between workers, just about any staff member is immediately available for contact (if not their voicemail). Home phone numbers are also available but used only in emergencies. However, most communication between staff and users takes place inside the library and in-person. Staff and users communicate via phone and email but only in certain circumstances. For example, the user phones the library to renew an item or have a reference question answered. The library might call a user to remind them of an overdue book, a hold (at some libraries automated voice messages are sent, or even email, rather than having staff call the users). Sometimes administrative staff must speak with off-site members of the public for the booking of meeting rooms, and so forth. In such cases fax machines and email facilitate the exchange of contracts and other documents. Staff interviewees tended to agree that email is best used for something that is not time-sensitive and requires a broad audience—a memorandum about an upcoming meeting, for example. The advantages include not having to “bother” someone needlessly while they are working. Ultimately, email enables two-way communication between people who are not necessarily in the same place (the library building) at the same time (different schedules). It is a two-way, asynchronous method of communication and thus lacks the immediacy of phone or in- person conversations. In-person conversations tend to occur when there is a time-sensitive matter at hand, the person is not available via telephone extension and thus spatial distance must be overcome.

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example—extend the daily life of the library beyond the temporal boundaries of regular “operating hours”. These places are carefully contained spatially by means of fixation and partitioning. In other words, a temporal irregularity is made possible by means of an adjustment in the library’s regular spatial configuration. Regularity means predictability, hence the use (and importance) of temporal boundaries. Both part-time and full-time staff follow set schedules of roughly the same number of hours per week. Schedules operate on a set basis—usually a Week 1/Week 2 format—and shifts are a set number of hours per one or two week blocks. Despite the unpredictable aspects of daily library work, staff tend to order their approaches to getting their tasks done in the same, formal and routinised way as the schedule orders their hours per week. As A-Sally described her approach to just one portion of her day, “We start at nine but the library is not open until 10am. [That] first hour is usually spent doing office work and supervisory kind of stuff. Days that I’m programming... that hour ... is [spent] getting set up for storytimes.” Hence, time of day affects where someone is in the library and what it is they are doing, according to where they are scheduled to be. Temporal and spatial order becomes one.

Indeed, a library staff’s duties and activity gives action to the process of “the library”, and scheduling is the codification of the spatial and temporal dimensions of that process. It organizes activity in space and time into set routines, which then create a sense of knowing, by means of paper, when and where someone is or simply what is happening and where. “You can’t see through walls, so [otherwise] you don’t know,” explained A- Sarah. Thus scheduling is, in a sense, a way of “seeing through walls.” Master schedules can be found throughout the library’s back of house: on bulletin boards, on marker boards (see 4xxxiv), outside managerial offices, and even in key places in

the front of house—behind a service desk, for example. Just like the fixing of people and activity in space, the fixing of people and activity in time—scheduling—creates a predictability on which “the library” depends, and predictability creates stability. For example, though most administrative personnel could be seen moving throughout the Schedules and in/out boards, such as this one in Salterton’s staff space, can be found in all three libraries. (Photo by author.)

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buildings consistently, the staff idea or belief that supervisors spend most of their time “at their desks” creates a sense of locational reliability. “I can pretty well assume that [the administration is] at their desks,” said A-Sheila, “unless I go down there and find [otherwise].”

In summary, the public library building can be divided into two distinct sections: first, the library’s “front of house”, which includes all the publicly accessible collections space, foyers, quiet reading areas, cafes, and services desks; second, the library’s “back of house”, which includes all the staff-only space, the workrooms, administrative and supervisory offices, cubicles, lunch rooms, and technical services rooms, and so forth. This distinction is multivalent and relative: even the “back of house” has its own “back of house” that not all staff can directly access or would have reason to access. Nevertheless, staff rely on a clear divide between user space and staff space in order for the library to function.

The library depends on very careful systems of fixation, classification and ranking in order to maintain stability in the library building: building design reflects and reinforces organizational structure and divisions; schedules and timetables fix staff and even users into time-place routines; and movement, access, and freedom among staff members is a reflection of rank, not need. In sum, systems of emplacement constitute the “clockwork” of the library and unite the organizational and spatial dimensions together: namely, the specialization of tasks; the separation and compartmentalization of functions; the monitoring of people and their activities to ensure efficiency and compliance; the thorough routinising of work through the use of time schedules; and the bureaucratic “pyramid” that defines the downward flow of power from the library manager or CEO to the part-time, non-professional support workers. In some ways, looking at these three case libraries through the lens of Dale & Burrell’s (2008) emplacement suggests that some public libraries, even in the new century, remain fine examples of organizations that subscribe to this approach to management (and thus, certain, unchanged aspects of library design).

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