Abstract: Abstract: A commentary on the report '2020 Vision: towards the libraries of the future' which concludes that it is a shallow document, largely lacking new insights into, or challenging discussion of the future of public libraries in Australia. The report is also badly written and edited First published in the New Librarian' section of the October 1997 issue of The Australian Bookseller and Publisher magazine Diligently reading my way through The Australian's weekend review on 23 August 1997, I came to a feature article entitled `Catalogue of catastrophe'. Written by Terence Page, described in a two line biography at the conclusion of the article as 'a writer who uses a public library most days of the week', the piece was a scathing and indignant critique of a recently released report entitled 2020 Vision: towards the libraries of the future. Prepared by Colin Mercer and Margaret Smith of the Australian Key Centre for Cultural and Media Policy for the Libraries Working Group of the Cultural Ministers' Council, 2020 Vision is subtitled A strategic agenda and policy framework for Australia's state and public libraries. With the reports Navigating the economy of knowledge, Bushtrack to superhighway and State of the nation -- Australia's public libraries, it presents the major research and recommendations of the Libraries Working Group's three year review of the Australian public library sector. My immediate reaction to Page's article was scepticism. I had not, at that stage, read 2020 Vision and I admit to thinking that Mr Page was perhaps `doing a Nicholson Baker' (Baker's inflammatory 1996 New Yorker article on the deaccessioning process at the San Francisco Public Library could well have been one of the factors contributing to the forced resignation of library director Ken Dowlin earlier this year). Describing the culture of Australian public libraries today as one of 'terror', Page lambasts local councils for their uncritical introduction of elements of modern business practice into the way in which our libraries are run. He also makes it quite clear that he would see the adoption of the framework for change/growth advocated in 2020 Vision as being nothing less than catastrophic. Prompted by the article, and fuelled by the suspicion that its author was probably wedded to outdated notions of how and why libraries should operate, I obtained a copy of the report and sat down for a good read. Imagine, then, my consternation as I rapidly came to many of the same conclusions as did Page. Quite simply, I found 2020 Vision to be a shallow document, largely lacking any new insights into, or challenging discussion of, the future of the public library sector in Australia. And to add insult to injury, I thought it one of the most appallingly written and edited publications I have read in years. At this point I should say that I did not, by any means, agree with all of Page's criticisms. I do not for instance, see a problem in libraries adopting many facets of modern business practice and I think the term 'information manager' is probably a more relevant title than `librarian' these days. Where his and my opinions meet, however, is in our conviction that there is a great danger in the adoption of the jargon of modern business managerial practice by library management that really does not properly understand the theory behind the terminology. As Page stridently asserts Municipal councils are considering `outsourcing' their long established libraries in the name of 'competition' and top library jobs tend to go to urgers who know the jargon of modern business managerial practice without demonstrating any sense of the underlying meaning of the words. The report's discussion of the 'competitive advantage' that Australian libraries have in 'the knowledge and online economies', seemed to me a good example of Page's point. …
Publication Year: 1997
Publication Date: 1997-12-01
Language: en
Type: article
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Cited By Count: 2
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