"Ambivalence and Paradox" by Phyllis Dain

I thought Phyllis Dain’s piece had some good points to make about Harris’ treatment of library history, but it sometimes came off as apologetic to classic librarian attitudes. I thought the words on the first page about Harris’ work as lacking “rigorous analysis, solid verification, or appreciation of complexity” were for the most part correct. While there were several quotations used in his piece there was a certain lack of evidence for the assumptions he made, and I agree that his arguments are probably too simple to accommodate the entire truth. But I think that what Harris was trying to create-and he says so in the last paragraphs of his article-was a text that would get people talking and thinking in new ways about library history.

I think Dain believes she is answering the call with a reasoned response. In some cases this is true. For instance, she asks key questions about using the Boston Public Library as an example for libraries across the countries as well as what the definition of a librarian really is. Also, she answers Harris’ call for discussion by bringing up an issue we have not yet talked about in class in-depth: racism. In other places, however, Dain not so much answers the call for more discussion as presents the apologist’s answer to some of Harris’ accusations about librarian authoritarianism. For instance, she mentions that other professional jobs did not permit end-user input, and if librarians had done so it would have undermined their authority. I think she’s simply trying to make the case that librarians were not wholly guilty in their coldness to input by the public, an ‘everyone’s doing it’ response to what could be a really interesting research topic.

I would like to have read, instead of a reaction to Harris, Dain’s own research on library history. She only mentions this briefly in the article. It would have prepared me more for judging her appraisal of Harris’ work and an appraisal of her true standpoint regarding libraries.