“November 5, 2024: Three Sources of Lessons for Libraries”

The CFP for this special issue is responding to a set of nested, documented phenomena, each of which is politically problematic and deserving of debunking. The effort being urged is to oppose or reverse these. But all this takes place in a context and forms a context, too. It is worth reminding ourselves that it has been a tumultuous decade since the election campaign of 2016, with reversals and re-reversals. Meanwhile, the United States has become more inegalitarian due to neoliberal policies over the last five decades, and the relationship between the public and democratic institutions like libraries has been reset, to the damage of democracy. Contemporary events are only accelerating these phenomena. Reciting and critiquing them again is comforting, but something different needs doing. By tying itself to democracy, modern librarianship is open to the deep currents to which democracy has always been subject. The paper explores them: 1) the Greeks, Democracy, Domination, and Rhetoric; 2) Anti-Intellectualism in American Life; and 3) Reaction to Progress or Revolution Never—Ever—Goes Away, followed by a conclusion.