La catarsis: un cambio de visión de mundo

As the above profiles show, these libraries and their communities are reasonably comparable on a general scale; each case community is relatively similar to one another, even if their public libraries vary in age and slightly in size. Yet just how different are the public library organizations that inhabit these buildings? Have they any characteristics that distinguish one from the other?

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To begin, what is an organization? Organizations as we know them are, much like free public libraries, a modern development. Though in a mechanical sense organizations are a group of people, they are also a singular entity. As Scott & Davis (2007) explain, “The social structure of modern society can no longer be described accurately as consisting only of relations between natural persons; our understanding must... include as well those relations between natural and collective actors, and between two or more collective actors” (p. 7, emphasis mine). Just as Marshall McLuhan believed that technology is an extension of the self or the body, organizations can be viewed as extensions of larger society: they achieve goals no one individual can achieve on his or her own. They are thus “mechanisms” (p. 5) by which certain goals are achieved on behalf of some public or group interest. “Organizations,” continue Scott & Davis (2007), “are viewed as the primary vehicle by which, systematically, the areas of our lives are rationalized—planned, articulated, scientized, made more efficient and orderly, and managed by ‘experts’” (p. 4). In other words, they organize their operations around the provision of services or goods that target specific individual or collective wants or needs.

The word organization, in its simplest form, means “to put in order” (Martin, 1996, p. 4). Organization, as in the act of organizing, has been described as “a set of relationships designed to further the purposes of an agency... [and] includes all relationships which affect the performance and the product of the enterprise—between administrators, between managers and staff, among groups within the staff, and among individuals” (Martin, 1996, p. 6-7). Indeed, according to most researchers of organizational studies, organizations employ several interconnected elements when organizing their operations: organizational strategy and goals, the work and technology required to meet those goals, formal organization (policies, procedures, job design, and organizational structure), informal organization (culture norms and values), people (those who work for the organization, those for whom the organization works), and an environment (physical, social, technological, local and extra- local) (Scott & Davis, 2007, p. 19-25). While none of these elements can (or should) be studied in complete isolation, it is certainly common for researchers to emphasize one over the others (Scott & Davis, 2007). In this study, I consider the environmental element specifically but the reasons why public libraries have organized over the past 150 years (and

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continue to in the new century) are fundamental to understanding how they have organized their environments.

What kinds of organizations are these three public libraries? What is/are their purpose/purposes? We know that, as libraries, their objectives, in the plainest sense, are to organize, administer—and in some circumstances, synthesise and create—information for use by their users in an efficient manner. Indeed, libraries have been referred to as “bodies of organized knowledge” (Martin, 1996, p. 4) for use by people in and outside of the library itself. Moreover, these case libraries are not just libraries but public libraries: these libraries are funded by local and provincial funds, and they are public buildings (i.e., represent local government) and are thus open to the general public. They are classed, usually, “in the class of service organizations, and [in] the sub-class of educational agencies. This means they cannot be measured by tangible product or by profit, but rather by their effect on people they service, an elusive and nebulous outcome,” (Martin, 1996, p. 11). Summarizing McClure, Van House & Lynch (1987), Martin (1998, p. 186-7) lists the eight roles of the public library. These are:

 a community activities centre;

 a community information centre;

 a formal education support centre;

 an independent learning centre;

 a popular materials library;

 a preschooler’s door to learning;

 a reference library; and

 a research centre

An examination of each library’s collections, organizational documents, and public literature reveals that indeed these libraries administer information, services, and programs that fulfill these eight roles (albeit to varying extents). Each case library specializes in the provision of and access to all kinds of information, from obscure and little-used reference and governmental information to certain types of local (community) information to worn-out copies of best-selling fiction novels. Outside of their information-provision role they offer

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myriad social-informational activities (classes, clubs, and workshops), from age-, interest- or user group-specific to general interest; and they support local educational programs, from preschool to post-secondary learning (depending on the existence of local, post-secondary programs).

In fact, learning appears to be the library’s chief benefit; and experience, either individual- or group-based, seems to be the means by which library users learn. Each case library’s vision statement, though unique in its wording, is its own variation on the idea of learning as a process and not an end in itself: words such as “inform”, “enlighten”, “literacy”, “enrich”, “engagement”, and “discovery” focus on the benefits of learning and of access to the public library as a service. Emphasis on words such as “community”, “opportunities”, “relationships”, and “world” suggests not only a broadness of accessibility but also a broadness of experience—that learning is interconnected, that it can be an individual and/or a shared process. These vision statements also emphasize, perhaps more than anything else, the public library’s position in this larger process: words like “connection”, “link”, and “access” not only suggest that the library is a source of learning but also a facilitator in the process— even a gatekeeper, perhaps. These libraries are thus not just keepers and organizers of information, they are administrators of the means and processes by which people access and make sense of that information. One library’s vision statement (Salterton) refers to the library as a “destination”—the library is thus not just a facilitator but a place where this facilitation, this “connection” and “linking”, occurs.

Ultimately, all three case library buildings are planned so as to “set the stage” for the learning and processes their vision statements advertise. These libraries store information but their contents are necessary for these experiences and to ensure that these experiences occur in controlled conditions. To begin, all three case libraries operate on a model of voluntary use; unlike school children, who by law must attend school up to a certain age, libraries depend on users to make a choice to use the library’s materials, services, and programs. Their access model is much like that of a department store: the building is open a set number of hours per day, and entering users are allowed direct contact with information and materials. Consequently, in each case (except for perhaps the Cornish library), most library space is

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devoted to collections storage, the majority of which is placed in open, user-accessible space. The influences of scientific management philosophies and planning are already evident in each of the three libraries: for instance, each library compartmentalises or arranges (with some minor exceptions) collections by format (e.g., print, electronic) or type (e.g., fiction). (The art gallery in the Cornish library provides a place for a “special kind” of material: visual art.) Other kinds of secondary rooms allow for more social-informational activities: programming and multi-use rooms provide space for workshops, classes, performances, and club meetings (see, for instance, the multi-purpose room on Deptford’s lower level, or the programming room at the south end of Cornish’s third level); cafes allow casualness and chances for more informal social-informational exchange. These places are rarely integrated into the collections, however; they are instead placed adjacent to the collections, interspersed around the perimeter of the library or located on secondary levels (e.g., the basement). These public libraries, therefore, see programming and group activities as not just a separate part of their mandate but perhaps even a secondary one to their more traditional role of making stores of information directly accessible to the individual user.

Perhaps the most important aspect to these libraries’ spatial organizations is how the user and the staff member relate. Each library makes catalogues and other findings aids available to users; these are placed either in clusters or individually throughout the collections. To varying extents, each of these libraries has separated its services into categories. Desks placed at key points within the each library’s space plan offer a range of specialized assistance: circulation, reader’s advisory, general information, reference, and separate desks for Children’s Departments. Independent research and information gathering is therefore possible, although for many reasons the librarian or desk staff member must mediate access Therefore library users have the freedom to enter and leave the library building at will, and are free to browse materials and collections at their discretion; however, selecting and accessing information is not always an independent act.

4.2. Enchantment: Bricks, Mortar and Symbolic Meaning