"Free to All" by Abigail Van Slyck

Abigail Van Slyck’s book was full of different strains of history that developed in the late 1800s and were completely new compared to what we had read about in other books. First of these that I found intensely interesting was the battle between librarian and architect in the late 1800s. It makes sense, if one is a bit pessimistic, to predict that the librarian would not have had a very vital role in new library design. What I thought was so confounding, however, was that the designers of the earliest libraries had almost no interest in being either innovative or building to suit its customers. On page three one of these early libraries is shown looking like a bizarre mix of Gothic revival and other genres of design, mashed together and dumped on a peculiarly American bare lot with open space all around. If libraries had been built like this in Europe, it would never have had grass around it. It would have been crowded by centuries of decaying buildings and cobblestone streets. It was disappointing to find out that the tradition of American innovation really was not present until the ALA voiced the displeasure of the end users of these libraries and Bertram was there to listen.

Another strain of library history that I thought was intriguing was the period of change after people started criticizing Carnegie’s paternalistic philanthropy. While on the one had Van Slyck seems to think that the changes made sometime after such dissent directly stemmed from him being hurt by such accusations, I think he was simply on a sharp learning curve that all people who donate in any amount must develop. Donors today and Carnegie started to understand that it makes no sense to simply throw money around without any cohesive plan of development and long-term viability. I think rather than showing how Carnegie was affected by publicly-voiced opinions, he was finally acting as a businessman in the area of philanthropy, shown by the creation of his Carnegie Corporation in 1911. Van Slyck herself actually supports this theme of business development and corporatization of his giving, by showing how he created a streamlined process to which all cities had to conform.

In the section entitled, “Designing the Modern Library,” I really appreciated how well Van Slyck outlined the conflicting trends in American library design and included floor plans that highlighted some of the major differences. Sometimes such waves of change in all kinds of history are condensed into one sentence that generalizes. She showed clearly that there was a lack of consensus about the purposes of rooms, the circulation practices, etc. The most interesting part perhaps of the entire book was the next section in which she showed empirical evidence that Carnegie libraries were more likely to be ahead of the modern trend during this time period concerning open stacks and children’s rooms. While Professor Downey certainly is entitled to his own opinions, I think the insinuation I got from him in class before was that Carnegie definitely was expounding his own view of what a library should be upon towns that perhaps did not want them or liked their design. While Detroit is perhaps an example of the difficulty in finding consensus during this period, I think these statistics about Carnegie libraries being ahead of the curve tells a different story about Carnegie’s donations. These monies were being used more often in new ways that fit the future trends of libraries in America, and to ignore this seems a bit one-sided and pessimistic. Of course, it is easy to find lots of groups that either did not benefit from or did not agree with Carnegie libraries. But to be fair, he was one man who, after all, was giving away money that he easily could have spent on himself, like the Biltmore family who built the largest private home in America during the same time period.

The last strain that I found wholly new was in the chapter concerned with the feminization of librarianship. I had read before that there was an effort on the part of men, in reaction to the influx of female librarians, to imbue the profession with a sense of “manly vigor” and manly adjectives only to have females claim these as their own! What I found most surprising, however, was that concurrent to the influx of females into the profession was the use of design to define the duties and borders of the female librarian. The creation of these charging desks that successfully hemmed in the area that librarians controlled or could affect was extremely interesting. I wonder, however, whether this was a concerted effort in controlling the female librarians or the influence of the factory metaphor that Van Slyck outlines. I’m partial to believe that both were at work here, but I thought it unsurprising that the female librarians found small ways to stop the design of the library from keeping them away from the patron. The story hour to me seemed like the obvious way for the librarians to interact in real ways with those that they wished to serve despite the charging desk. While Van Slyck gives the impression that there is something questionable or underhanded about librarians accepting the role as surrogate mother, I am not all that concerned with the fact that librarians saw in their jobs the role of surrogate mother because even to this day we use the parent-child relationship to define all kinds of other relationships we have. What is a protégé except someone that is learning from a mentor (which is really another name for a surrogate parent)? Teachers even in this day and age find an increasing pressure to act as parental role models to children whose parents are uninterested or overworked. I find nothing wrong with these librarians wishing to have an influence upon their little patrons, because I think these examples show that people believe the presence of a stable role model, whether parent or not, is essential to the development of a child.