impagination

I’ve just finished a review of the LIS literature on public libraries and the homeless for my research methods class. One striking thing I noticed is the dearth of empirical research conducted on issues specific to homeless public library patrons, despite the potential for valid, authoritative data to strengthen the claims of social justice advocates and bring both public attention and funding dollars to support libraries providing sanctuary and services to the homeless. Vanessa Budnick makes an interesting point about this in her Masters Thesis on the perceptions of library students and professionals toward the homeless.

Librarians often use the argument that they must pay great heed to the voices of “tax-paying” users. However, every article that I read about the homeless and libraries neglected to identify if the policies or attitudes truly were a reflection of public complaints. Admittedly it would be a challenge to approach patrons to see if homeless patrons were a concern; however, it seems likely that any “problem” behaviors are documented and that the creation of policies against body odor and bed rolls are substantiated by records of these complaints. Yet, where is the evidence? Library articles discuss homelessness, but rarely seem to back-up their statements with proof. Are these “problem patrons” a problem for the staff or for other patrons? Not to say that staff complaints are not valid, but we cannot cloak our decisions in patron beliefs when the concerns are really from the staff. (“Perceptions” 9)

Entitled “Perceptions of Library Students Versus Library Professionals Toward the Homeless Patrons: A Comparative Study,” Budnick’s is one of three interesting LIS Masters Theses based on empirical research about or related to homeless library patrons. Budnick distributed surveys to 21 graduate students in library science and 48 library professionals to measure their attitudes toward homeless people, and to assess the potential influence of their attitudes on library services to the homeless. Citing research from the medical and nursing professions, Budnick points out that nurses and medical school residents who view the causes of homelessness to be social as opposed to individual, and who have personal experience working with homeless persons, tend to hold more positive attitudes toward homeless people, and tend to me more willing to work with them (16). Budnick wanted to know whether the same conclusions could be applied to the library profession. Her survey showed that both library professionals and students tend to believe that homelessness is attributable to social over individual causes, and suggested that both library professionals and students hold relatively unstigmatizing views toward the homeless (25). Interestingly, the students surveyed indicated significantly less willingness to affiliate with homeless people (to share a meal, for example) than library professionals, which Budnick hypothesized might be due to library students’ comparatively lower exposure to homeless persons than their professional counterparts (26). Budnick admits the limited value of her research due to the small number of surveys distributed, and observes a significant contradiction between her data, which indicates a relative lack of stigmatizing attitude toward the homeless on the part of library students and professionals, versus library literature which is filled with examples of stigmatizing language and policies (27). Further, Budnick points out the lack of quantitative research from LIS scholars on the homeless despite the fact that library professionals must and do create and enforce policies targeting this population (29).

Entitled “Problem Patron Policies in Public Libraries: A Content Analysis,” Adam Webb’s 2005 Masters Thesis took a closer look at such policies. Comparing the patron conduct polices of 20 large urban public libraries (defined as serving at least 300,000 individuals) and 20 small public libraries (defined as serving less than 300,000 individuals), Webb tested his hypothesis that larger urban libraries can be expected to have more policies addressing homelessness and criminal elements than smaller public libraries, serving populations with ostensibly smaller homeless populations. Webb’s results indicate something much less conclusive. “The most surprising thing about problem patron policies,” he wrote, “is the sheer amount of policy types” (15). Suggesting that interviews with library administrators to learn about the particular rationales behind specific policies would be a logical extension of his study, Webb reported that he found 56 different types of polices in his study, and added that he assumed many more exist, given the number of libraries not included in his study (15). Digging into the details a bit, Webb also found that only 11 of the 20 large urban libraries had poor hygiene policies, and that similarly, prohibitions on large bedrolls and containers for personal belongings were less common than he had originally expected.

Libraries that want to limit the presence of homeless people within their walls would be expected to have policies limiting the amount and size of baggage that a person can bring into the library. Yet less than half (9/20) of the large libraries had prohibitions on bringing large bedrolls and large containers filled with personal belongings. (13)

Certainly, deeper investigations into the attitudes of library professionals toward the homeless and by extension, the guiding logic behind their patron behavior policies, seem likely to contribute to a deeper understanding of how and why the homeless are identified, stigmatized, and regulated by and within the public library setting. But the voices of library professionals already dominate LIS discourse about homelessness and public libraries. What’s missing from this conversation, writes Aisha Harvey in her 2002 Masters Thesis, are the voices of the homeless themselves. “Instead of assuming that we know what homeless patrons may want or feel in public libraries,” writes Harvey, by investigating their perceptions of information access, “we will be able to read for ourselves what some homeless patrons have said about their own experiences” (“Homeless Perspectives” 5). Harvey interviewed five homeless public library patrons, selected based on their residence at the Durham Urban Ministries homeless shelter in Durham, NC, and on evidence that they used the Central Durham Public Library (1). Each of the five participants was a daily library visitor, and these visits typically lasted for several hours (47). Three of the five claimed to use the library for shelter, and one revealed that he had been caught sleeping in the library. They also used the library for internet access, to read periodicals and stay apprised of current events, to write resumes, and to rent video tapes (48).

This study has shown that homeless people can also be artists, readers, and job seekers. When working with homeless library users, librarians must recognize that not having a home is one important aspect of their lives, but it does not sum up the totality of their needs. It is important for librarians to communicate with local homeless shelters in their area; to better determine the role that their library may or may not be playing in their homeless users’ lives. (Harvey 54)

Acknowledging her study’s small sample size and thus the need for further research to collect more data from a greater number of homeless library patrons, Harvey nevertheless observed that among her informants, perceptions of the library and librarians were positive overall. Participants in her study described the library as a reliable, drug-free and safe place, in contrast to their chaotic lives outside the library (51). “From the informants’ perspectives, they use the library for the same reasons that anyone would. What separates them from other groups of library users may be the frequency with which they participate in these activities at the library on a weekly basis. … This frequency combined with their described activity in the library would mean that some library staff see the same informants come in and get water, go to the bathroom, and ask for help almost everyday” (48). Many librarians view homeless patrons as “problem patrons,” writes Harvey, but this is not how the homeless see themselves: “‘Problem patron’ is a librarian’s category and a negative classification” (54).

When will LIS scholars publish an in-depth discourse analysis of the image of the “problem patron” or the “homeless library patron” as social constructions of the library profession? When will empirical research produce some hard data about the numbers of homeless individuals and families using public libraries? When will somebody conduct a serious investigation into the perceptions of non-homeless library patrons and library professionals toward homeless patrons? Harvey’s observation that most LIS literature about homeless or “problem” library patrons is based on unsupported conclusions is correct. The literature I reviewed in my paper includes legal analyses, case studies, interpretive discussions and an abundance of opinion, all of which contributes to our broader understanding of the issue at hand. But amid this literature is a noticeable dearth of both empirical research and sophisticated, theoretically informed analysis. Perhaps the library community needs to make connections with scholars working in other fields, to combine existing theoretical frameworks for understanding social, economic and political issues with the domain-specific experience of the library community. In any case, it will be difficult for LIS scholars with a social justice agenda to proceed much further on this issue without valid, authoritative information about the nature of the problem itself.

The Third Circuit Court of Appeals felt it was being a friend to Libraries, and in many ways it succeeded. To the extent that it has created a climate in which libraries may feel freer to exclude certain patrons or classes of patrons, the victory has been very hollow (Geiszler, 66).

Kreimer v. Morristown: Case Summary
In 1989, Richard Kreimer, an indigent and homeless Morristown, New Jersey man provoked the Morristown Public Library to enact a handful of behavioral policies. Kreimer exhibited poor hygiene, disturbing behavior such as staring at other patrons and sometimes following them, and was confrontational with the library staff. After being expelled from the library on several occasions, he launched a lawsuit in the Federal District Court for the District of New Jersey. Kreimer charged that his constitutional rights under the First Amendment had been violated and that the library had caused him pain and suffering. The District Court ruled in favor of Kreimer in 1991, but the following year the Third Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the District Court’s decision, ruling in favor of the library. There were no further appeals (Kreimer v. Morristown, 1991; Kreimer v. Morristown, 1992).

Three of Morristown Public Library’s behavioral rules were central to this case: rules 1, 5, and 9. Thet District Court struck down all three for failing tests of reasonableness, overbreadth, and vagueness.

Rule 1

Patrons shall be engaged in activities associated with the use of a public library while in the building. Patrons not engaged in reading, studying, or using library material shall be asked to leave the building.

Rule 5

Patrons shall respect the rights of other patrons and shall not harass or annoy others through noisy or boisterous activities, by staring at another with the intent to annoy that person, by following another person about the building with intent to annoy that person, by playing Walkmans or other audio equipment so that others can hear it, by singing or talking to oneself or any other behavior which may reasonably result in the disturbance of other persons.

Rule 9

Patrons shall not be permitted to enter the building without a shirt or other covering of their upper bodies or without shoes or other footwear. Patrons whose bodily hygiene is so offensive as to constitute a nuisance to other persons shall be required to leave the building.

Legal Significances of the Case

First, it’s worth mentioning that the District Court’s decision, although reversed by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, merits some contemplation as other circuit courts have not formed judgments on the issues debated in Kreimer v. Morristown and if another court had heard this case, another outcome is not unimaginable. Moreover, the case should not be understood as necessarily setting a nation-wide precedent. The judgment is only valid in New Jersey and Pennsylvania (3rd Circuit states), and until the Supreme Court speaks its piece, Kreimer remains open to debate. To date, the Supreme Court has not taken up the First Amendment rights of patrons to use public libraries. Morristown Public Library argued that no such right exists, but both the District Court and the Third Circuit Court of Appeals agreed that there is such a right (Greiszler, 56-7).

Why do we care? More specifically, why should library administrators care? Because limiting patrons’ access to library materials, or restricting patrons’ speech expose libraries to litigation in a Federal court under 42 USC §1983 for violations of civil rights (Geiszler, 57).

The Public Library as a Public Forum
How free are people to express themselves on library property, which is in fact government property? Geiszer writes that the answer to this question turns on just what category of public facility the public library is deemed to be. In “traditional” fora such as parks, public sidewalks, and streets, the government may only restrict freedom of speech and expression to protect public health and safety. In “non-public” fora by contrast, settings where the government facility operates for a very specific purpose, there is a government interest in and right to control the substance and timing of public speech and expression. In “designated limited” public fora, however, places such as publicly owned theatres or arenas which are spaces constructed for the explicit purpose of expression and entertainment, speech and expression can be regulated, but only when based on a compelling state interest, and not based on any content of expression (Geiszler, 58). Public libraries are clearly “designated limited” public fora. The delivery of information services is perhaps the most central and overt purpose of the public library, but to focus exclusively on this and thus consider it a “non public” fora, would be to overlook the importance of the library as a destination. The notion of the library as a destination is closely tied to the explosion of newly renovated or architected public libraries with coffee shops, “commons” spaces, “living rooms” and so on. Seattle Public Library’s new downtown branch is perhaps my favorite example of this.

Anyway, the debates will focus on questions about exactly what behaviors and which bodies public libraries can - and more importantly - should - control, limit, exclude. I think library administrators need to think beyond the walls of their particular institutions to consider the broader contexts in which they act and exist. Public libraries are part of broader communities, and the excuse that “we didn’t get into this profession to become social workers” doesn’t really carry much weight. If you are a public servant, you serve the public. You work within, are part of, and help to define your community. You absolutely must open your eyes to the social, political, economic and cultural contexts which contour your work. I think we need to wake up to the fact that behavioral policies in public libraries are political.

Kreimer v. Bureau of Police for the Town of Morristown, et. al. 765 F. Supp. 181 (D.N.J., 1991).

Kreimer v. Bureau of Police for the Town of Morristown, et. al. 958 F. 2d 1242 (3rd Circ., 1992).

Geiszler, Robert W. “Patron Behavior Policies in the Public Library: Kreimer v. Morristown Revisited.” Journal of Information Ethics 7,1 (Spring, 1998): 54-67.

Last spring, the Journal of Information Ethics published an interesting and insightful article by longtime librarian Sanford Berman. Berman founded the ALA’s Taskforce on Hunger, Homelessness and Poverty and this article was originally delivered in 2005 at the ALA’s annual conference in Chicago. Entitled “Classism in the Stacks: Libraries and Poverty,” Berman’s article observes that libraries have largely ignored the American Library Association’s Policy 61: Library Services for the Poor (which he co-authored).

If only librarians would recognize their own hang-ups, their ostensible distaste for welfare mothers and homeless people, and wake up to the fact that “poverty - not poor people - is the problem” … writes Berman. “Why the cascading efforts to exclude them from public spaces, deny them fair access to library resources, and treat them as “problems,” as pariahs” (Classism, 107) ? Berman’s alarmist and extremist tone aside, let’s take the question seriously for a moment. If I posed this question to the clerks and pages at my library, and perhaps also to the librarians and administrators (if they spoke to lowly pages, that is), I’m pretty sure what sort of response I’d get. Most of these folks, in my limited experience, blame the “homeless” folks themselves.

Berman calls this classism and he explains its role in this fracas over public space in libraries as follows:

… where money and wealth not only rule, but also determine status and social worth; the widespread, almost religious grip of the “American dream,” that myth of unlimited mobility and opportunity and luxury; and an ingredient or aspect of the dream: oldtime Calvinist predestination, which posits a divine, a holy, basis for owning property and being rich. Poor people do not have the dollars to make influential campaign contributions. They cannot afford memberships in politically powerful organizations … And given the thesis of the American dream, if they are not prosperous, it must be their own fault, hardly the consequence of bad luck, racism, sexism, disability, downsizing, outsourcing, corporate greed, union busting, or an inadequate safety net. Worse, from the deeply ingrained Calvinist perspective, it is God’s will. If they are poor, that is the way the deity wants it (Berman, 106-7).

In my experience, Americans simultaneously perform yet deny the existence or significance of socio-economic class. That’s hardly a unique observation, but it’s one which I find people seem quite offended by. Working at a public library certainly hasn’t convinced me otherwise. To my surprise, here - more than any other place I’ve ever worked, I find deep hierarchies along lines of perceived (note - not actual, but perceived) status. I see this in the ridiculous snobbery of clerks who will barely acknowledge the existence of the pages - some of whom have worked at the library for upward of 6 years. These are people who dress up for what is essentially a cashier job - one which offers medical benefits to only a privileged few. And don’t get me started on the “living wage” or lack thereof of so many of the non-professional library staff …

Berman, Sanford. “Classism in the Stacks: Libraries and Poverty.” Journal of Information Ethics 16(1) (Spring 2007), 103-111.

Kevin Barbieux is a homeless man in Nashville. He blogs. Read about how he ran into his kids at the library after 7 years of not seeing them.

http://thehomelessguy.wordpress.com/2007/11/22/dadland/

Imagine having no place of your own and being unwelcome at most businesses or other private establishments. Public places may be open to you, but parks and streets may be cold or dangerous, bus and train stations noisy and chaotic, museums and art galleries expensive or lacking places to rest for long. A logical candidate for a reasonably safe, warm in winter, cool in summer, and relatively quiet place to rest for hours undisturbed is the nearest public library. Encyclopedia of Homelessness

Homeless people at the library? Huh?

While explaining my research interest in public space and democracy, and more specifically public libraries and poverty to a coworker the other day, it suddenly dawned on me that something obviously evident to me was in no way common knowledge to everyone else.

“Are homeless people hanging around public libraries everywhere,” she asked? “I thought it was just us.”

Not everyone is tuned in to the ubiquity of homeless people at urban public libraries across America. Even fewer, I imagine, are tuned in to the broader social, economic and political contexts underlying the issue.

My plan this evening was to blog about the famous case of Kreimer v. Morristown. This is the early 1990’s lawsuit in which a homeless man alleged that a New Jersey public library’s anti-odor policy violated his civil rights. The case is said to have propelled a major shift in public library policies, especially with respect to the treatment of seemingly-homeless people.

That post is coming. Tonight’s topic is a bit more basic. Tonight we take a look at one prominent and visible symptom of a much much grander problem. Woeful calls them “irregulars.” Sometimes they’re homeless, they’re not always rational, sometimes they’re drunk or strung out … They’re the ones you notice… because they smell, they’re wearing dirty puked-in, peed-in clothes, sometimes they’ve got bedrolls or big napsacks, they might try to shave or take a make-shift bath or sleep or shoot up or anything really in the restrooms. If they fall asleep in the library and a librarian has to wake them up due to some sort of anti-sleeping policy, they might not be polite … These are the so-called “problem patrons.” Oh there are plenty of well-heeled “problem patrons” to be sure. But they bring up a whole other set of issues. What I’m interested in here is poverty and the negotiation of public space. …

Any public library director will tell you that they don’t discriminate against categories of people, and that policies which regulate hygiene and behavior are there for the safety and comfort of patrons and employees. What they’re reluctant to admit is that not only do behavior and hygiene policies function, regardless of intention, as anti-homeless policies, they’re deliberately used to keep the “homeless” out.

“Homeless” is a problematic name for the people I’m talking about, actually. They’re not all homeless. They’re not all suffering from mental illnesses. They’re not all alcoholics or drug addicts. But many of them are all or some combination of these things and wherever they congregate, those places become arenas where the boundaries of social life are made, unmade and remade. If you’re transient and have no fixed address, my public library says you are, in effect, a non-person. They’ll deny you a library card until you can bring in something that proves you are a resident - read, taxpayer - in their service-area, and you’ll have trouble voting as well, by the way. You don’t just live in the margins, you are the margin.

Facing shrinking budgets, closures and privatization, public libraries are exceedingly preoccupied with proving their social value these days. You see this in the subtext of the new “bookstore” template which many libraries eager to become “destinations” are adopting (public libraries with cafes, couches, and interior design elements which literally mimic bookstore chains like Borders, Chapters or Barnes&Noble). Richmond Public Library’s Brighouse Branch is an example of this sort of “customer-driven model” which John Buschman critiques. Buschman is a librarian and professor at Rider University, and author of the important book Dismantling the Public Sphere: Situating and Sustaining Librarianship in the Age of the New Public Philosophy. Here’s what Buschman has to say about the “customer-driven model” of librarianship:

Librarianship - which has prided itself on its vital role in democracy - is turning that credo into empty lip service through its avid adoption of the customer-driven model and in the process chipping away at what remains of the public sphere in our institutions…”

In the end, customer-driven librarianship contributes to the changeover from “a democracy of citizens [to] a democracy of consumers” because it is only those who can “vote” with money or tax support who are meaningfully addressed by libraries. Henry Giroux contends that “within this new public philosophy there is a ruthlessly frank expression of doubt about the viability of democracy” and a ‘disdain [for] the democratic implications of pluralism.”

I digress. My original point was simply to underscore the ubiquity of “wackos” at the library. Wackos? Am I crazy? I’m using the word for two reasons. First, I think that by being descriptive, I can in fact be prescriptive. “Wackos” paints a pretty accurate picture of how lots of people (including, and perhaps especially library staff) see them. Second, I’m trying to point out the problem of identifying, accurately, just who these “wackos” really are. Who are my subjects? Why are they so shadowy and elusive?

I think we need a study.

How would this work? Position a grad student outside a library with instructions to count the number of hygiene-deficient, and otherwise stereotypically “wacko” souls dragging their backpacks and bedrolls inside? This is preposterous. Everyone knows you can’t always recognize the homeless. Hell, if you count couch-surfing, I was homeless for 2 months back in the summer of 2005. I was definitely pennyless and I used my maximum 1 hour of free computer time daily, writing resumes and scouring job adverts. But nobody would ever have lumped me into the “wacko” cohort. And anyway, there are plenty of “wackos” at the library who aren’t homeless. Just ask woeful. Just visit your local library …

Anyway, according to the Encyclopedia of Homelessness, library publications rarely (if ever) mentioned homeless patrons before the late 1970s. This changed sometime during the mid-1980s when seemingly homeless patrons began attracting negative attention at several large public libraries, mainly due to poor hygiene issues (346). The encyclopedia doesn’t actually say this, but it’s pretty tough not to notice that “homeless” folks started to be identified as a problem at public libraries right around the same time as the de-institutionalization movement kicked off …

Why libraries?

Public libraries offer safety, shelter, Internet access, restrooms, chairs, reading materials, social interaction, and quite a bit more. Public libraries don’t typically turn anyone away unless they violate behavioral or hygiene policies, and although borrowing privileges and sometimes also computer access will require a library card, you can hang around anonymously and read stuff for free all day. Restrooms are often used for bathing, shaving, tooth-brushing and other activities which may or may not be tolerated to varying degrees. Even in libraries with policies prohibiting bathing etc. in the restrooms, if you go about your business quickly, don’t make a big mess, and don’t otherwise call attention to yourself, you can usually get away with it.

Public libraries also typically offer free computer and Internet access. Whatever your view on the supposedly looming death of the book, it’s hard to deny the speed at which on-line and electronic information is replacing and surpassing print media. For people with nowhere else to access e-mail and the web, the library is the place to be. And why not? Personally I can’t imagine how stranded and disconnected from the world I’d feel without broadband. …

Although anyone is susceptible to poor hygiene, policies dealing with hygiene can be interpreted as anti-homeless measures meant to discourage the presence of homeless persons in the public library.

While performing my weekly duties as a Page (bookshelver and gofer) at a public library, I found myself close to retching. Perfume. Something fruity and stinky. The culprit? Another Page. Yuck.

I guess she didn’t smell quite as bad as some of our patrons. The mix of urine, alcohol, unwashed bodies and who knows what else can take your breath away. Some people complain when confronted by the unwashed, and the library staff struggle (some more than others) over how to respond. Do they plug their noses, open windows, and tolerate the stench? (Have you ever observed anyone being asked to leave a public library for wearing perfume?) Or do they remove the “offender” and ask (or sometimes compel) the “smelly ones” to leave? There are different ways to go about this. Sometimes information is provided about shelters and other places offering shower and laundry facilities. Sometimes the police are called. Either way, bleeding heart liberal that I am, something twists in my gut when I watch this go down …

So I began to wonder. How do public libraries arrive at policies on access and services for the homeless, the mentally ill, the narcoleptics, the ones who can’t or won’t wash themselves …and so on. Who decides who is or isn’t a legitimate public library patron? The police? (Please tell me it’s not the police … ) Do individual libraries draft their own policies, or do they follow templates/guidelines meant to serve the profession as a whole? How much variation do we find from one library to another? Is there a consensus within the library profession about whether or how to respond to so-called “problem patrons”?

I began searching the catalog for anything related to homelessness and public libraries. Within an hour I had a list of at least 50 somewhat relevant articles, soon to be added to my working bibliography. I’ll be writing much more in the coming weeks as I wade through the existing literature. But today, one stood out as a “must read first.”

Here’s what American Library Association (ALA)’s Taskforce on Hunger, Homelessness, and Poverty has to say about “problem patrons,” poverty, homelessness, public space and public libraries:

• Contrary to much of the literature on so-called “problem patrons,” poor hygiene and homelessness are conditions of extreme poverty, not types of behavior

Libraries are contributing to a “deliberate process” referred to as “the annihilation of space by law” by geographer Don Mitchell:
“The anti-homeless laws being passed in city after city in the United States work in a pernicious way: by redefining what is acceptable behavior in public space, by in effect annihilating the spaces in which people must live, these laws seek simply to annihilate homeless people themselves … we are creating a world in which a whole class of people cannot be - simply because they have no place to be” (Mitchell, 2003).

• Odor policies such as those enacted by San Luis Obispo County in California or the “civility campaign” launched by Salt Lake City Public Library in Utah to “teach the homeless, children, and others, how to behave,” are at best misguided and at worst, contribute to the criminalization of poor people (Snyder, 2005).
• Homeless people dwell in public places because we as a society have failed to provide private spaces for these individuals, who are among the most vulnerable members of our communities

Here is what the ALA asks front-line librarians to ask themselves (from the ALA’s Policy61: Library Services for Poor People)

• Do I understand the scope of poverty in my community and its human face?
• Are our programs and services inclusive of all poor people and their needs?
• Do we actively partner with social service providers and anti-poverty groups?
• Do we advocate for public funding of programs that help poor people?
• Do our actions address core problems or simply treat superficial symptoms?

References

• “Are Public Libraries Criminalizing Poor People? A Report from the ALA’s Hunger, Homelessness, and Poverty Task Force.” Public Libraires 44,3 (May/June 2005), 175.

• Brady Snyder, “Salt Lake Library Attracting Homeless,” Deseret Morning News, Mar. 9, 2005. Accessed May 10, 2005, http://www.deseretnews.com/dn/views/1%2C1249%2C60011737302C00.html

• Don Mitchell, The Right to the City: Social Justice and the Fight for Public Space (New York: Guilford, 2003).

Hang around almost any urban public library for any length of time these days, and it quickly becomes apparent that a significant number of the so-called “problem patrons” are suffering from some combination of mental health issues, substance abuse, and/or homelessness. Although seemingly one-sided, Library Woes does a great job of depicting the wacko scenarios many librarians deal with daily at public libraries - places which often seem to serve more as de facto homeless or daycare facilities, than institutions dedicated to education, enlightenment, literacy, democracy and so on. Where does this Parade of Freaks, as Library Woes puts it, come from? Part of the answer may lie in the deinstitutionalization movement.

What is deinstitutionalization?

In the United States, deinstitutionalization refers to the long-term reorganization of mental health care beginning during the 1960’s, wherein patients were shifted out of psychiatric and public hospitals and treated as outpatients via community-based mental health centers. Advocates of deinstitutionalization characterized this shift as liberating and underscored the fact that inpatient mental health care was restrictive and ineffective. Some have also emphasized the invention of new psychiatric medications and their ostensible role in reducing the demand for inpatient mental hospital care. In practical terms, deinstitutionalization means a reduction in the scope of mental health care from longer inpatient to shorter outpatient treatment (Kemp 19-27). Partially due to insufficient funding for community-based mental health care, it has also been tied to the issue of homelessness. In 1990, for example, the Public Citizen Health Research Group and the Alliance for the Mentally Ill released a report that the number of people with untreated mental illness living on the streets, in public shelters, substandard boarding houses, transient hotels or in jails was higher than it had ever been since the 1820s. However, many argue that although homelessness among those with serious and/or chronic mental illness is associated with deinstitutionalization, the problem is not due to deinstitutionalization per se, but rather to the specific way in which deinstitutionalization has been carried out. In 1984, Dr. Richard Lamb observed that insufficient plans for structured living accommodations as well as for community-based treatment and rehabilitative services had “led to many unforeseen consequences such as homelessness, the tendency for many chronic patients to become drifters, and the shunting of many of the mentally ill into the criminal justice system.”

Kemp, Donna R. Mental Health in America: A Reference Handbook. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2007.

Lamb, H. Richard. “Deinstitutionalization and the Homeless Mentally Ill.” Hosp Community Psychiatry 35 (September 1984): 899-907.

Torrey, E. Fuller, Karen Erdman, Sidney M. Wolfe, and Laurie M. Flynn. Care of the Seriously Mentally Ill: A Rating of State Programs. Washington, DC: Public Citizen Health Research Group and National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, 1990.

By the Public Citizen Health Research Group and the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill:

• 1 in 5 of the 2.8 million people with serious mental illnesses receiving sufficient care
• State of psychiatric services for the seriously mentally ill in a state of near collapse
• Federal budget for mental health research = $515 million - just a fraction of the billions spent on Aids, Cancer and Heart Disease research
• Not since the 1820’s had so many untreated people with mental illnesses lived on the streets, in public shelters, in substandard boarding houses, transient hotels, or jails.

Torrey, E. Fuller, Karen Erdman, Sidney M. Wolfe, and Laurie M. Flynn (1990). Care of the Seriously Mentally Ill: A Rating of State Programs. Washington DC: Public Citizen Health Research Group and National Alliance for the Mentally Ill.

The National Alliance to End Homelessness is hosting it’s 2008 National Conference on Ending Family Homelessness on February 7-8, 2008 at the Sheraton Seattle Hotel.

“What do you think about a culture that abandons suffering people and expects them to fend for themselves on the street, then criminalizes them for expressing the symptoms of illnesses they cannot control? We pay lip service to this tragedy - then look away fast. As a library administrator, I hear the public express annoyance more often than not: “What are they doing in here?” “Can’t you control them?” Annoyance is the cousin of arrogance, not shame.

We will let Ophelia and the others stay with us and we will be firm but kind. We will wait for America to wake up and deal with its Ophelias directly, deliberately, and compassionately. In the meantime, our patrons will continue to complain about her and the others who seek shelter with us. Yes, we know, we say to them; we hear you loud and clear. Be patient, please, we are doing the best we can. Are you?”

Ward, What they didn’t teach us in library school

“Library managers widely imitate business practices whole cloth. A colleague at Indiana University (Day) has identified what he calls an imitative “transformational discourse” which takes “as valid the core argument [to] enhance competitiveness, performance, and productivity” resulting in the recasting of library users as “customers, ” the library manager as “entrepreneur,” the acceptance of information commodification, and the “imperative” to “reinvent” libraries - all business buzzwords and trends which appear seamlessly in our management literature. Thus does a privatized and economic vision of the library come to dominate discussions and assumptions about its future and define its purposes.”

“By having their purposes recast in economic terms in contrast to their public, democratic function when they were founded, my argument is that we are dismantling what remains of the democratic public sphere by managing libraries in this way. There has been a fundamental change in the purposes of libraries (and, I would argue, of an education too) - one that has come about almost “naturally” and without wide debate. In adapting Habermas’s ideas, I have proposed that libraries embody and enact the democratic public sphere ideal in the form of rational organization of human cultural production. Our acceding to economic models as a public philosophy results in an active deconstructing of the public sphere discourse that libraries represent.” …

“When we skew services and collections toward constituencies that “pay,” whether in the form of donations or local businesses or those who will vote for tax support of public libraries or in purely popular collections to pull in foot traffic and “compete” with the mall bookstore, we inherently evacuate historical policies of fairness, broad representation, and public purposes beyond the immediate payoff for the institution.”

Buschman, On Libraries and the Public Sphere

“[W]hy is it that Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction” caused such a furor with the public and with Congress? Why is it that the last Presidential campaign ended up focused in part on the violence and coarseness of the typical product coming out of Hollywood? What is it about Jerry Springer and his imitators that makes us draw uncomfortable conclusions about our culture?”

“The answer is the same for all three, and deceptively simple: in our putative information-driven society, when we debate the sources and nature of the information we produce and consume, we’re debating the basis and nature of our economy, and as the media scholar John Durham Peters notes, “we’re [also] debating democracy by other means.” That is why exchanges about such trivial matters take on sharp political inflections, and why as Peters states, the “spectacle of a stupefied TV audience worries us” so. …”

“If information and its related sets of critical skills are as important to economic and political participation as we keep insisting, then what information we produce, how we keep it, what we keep, and how it is absorbed or not are crucial questions in our culture - and libraries are important (if undervalued) institutions in this.” …

“With formal rights established, the press was “relieved of the pressure of its convictions” in his words, and free to “take advantage of the earnings possibilities of a commercial undertaking.” The road to Jerry Springer begins right there: the press and manipulation of public opinion (publicity) becomes a means to administer the public sphere to smooth out the rough edges of an unequal economy in a putatively equal democracy. Habermas called this the “refeudalization” of the public sphere, referring to the political effects of kingly splendor and spectacle that were a hallmark of governmental authority under such systems. If we were meant to be awed and obey the authority of kings through communicating power through spectacle, we are now meant to be confused and diverted by a spectacle like “wardrobe malfunction” from questioning the nature and legitimacy of authority. “

Buschman, On Libraries and the Public Sphere

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According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, an estimated 744,313 people experienced homelessness in January 2005. This effort undertaken by the Homelessness Research Institute at the National Alliance to End Homelessness represents the first attempt to count the number of homeless in the USA in ten years. Of those counted:

• 56 percent lived in shelters and transitional housing
• 44 percent were unsheltered
• 59 percent were single adults and 41 percent were persons living in families
• 98,452 homeless families were counted
• 23 percent of homeless people counted were chronically homeless, defined by HUD as homeless for long periods or repeatedly and having a disability
• States with high rates of homelessness included: Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Washington State

Washington State

There were 23,970 homeless persons in Washington in January 2005. 14,450 of these people were living in shelters of some type and 9,520 were unsheltered or literally living on the street. The total represents .38% of the state’s population of 6,287,759 . The highest rate of homelessness occurred in Washington DC at 1.00%, followed by Nevada, at .68% of that state’s total population, followed by Rhode Island at .64%, Hawaii, California and Colorado, each at .47% , Oregon at .45%, and Alaska at .41%. Washington and Idaho followed with .38% of their populations counted as homeless.

The Homelessness Research Institute of the National Alliance to End Homelessness. “Homelessness Counts.”

• What criteria do public libraries use to define legitimate versus illegitimate patrons?

• What criteria governs decisions about whether or not to grant library cards and borrowing privileges to any given individual?
  • Residency status (taxpayer status?) and ability to prove one’s address/status
  • Address location (full borrowing privileges may be denied to some residents of shelters and transitional housing)

• What criteria governs judgments about the legitimate presence of individuals in public libraries? What characteristics, actions or behaviors warrant anyone’s removal from a public library?
  • The body: persons with offensive odors may be removed, also intoxicated or incoherent persons
  • Actions: violent, aggressive behavior, use of offensive language, sleeping, using the restrooms for activities such as shaving, washing clothes, drug use, sex etc., viewing pornography on public computers (?), consumption of food/beverages, vandalism, destruction of library materials/property … other “inappropriate” actions …

Are judgments about “legitimate” versus “illegitimate” library patrons, when based on the prohibition of certain behaviors/activities, any less discriminatory than “profiling” categories of patrons, if the “inappropriate” behaviors in question are markers of socio-economic marginalization, poverty, mental-illness, chemical dependency, homelessness?

Why the ”regular” patrons don’t care about the homeless

“In an editorial in the Christian Science Monitor entitled, “Libraries for All” (1991), the editors argue that as we become desensitized to world tragedies and social problems in general, we experience “compassion fatigue”. Expanding on this idea, Silver (1996) suggests that “the public is weary of the demands this segment of population places on social services and health agencies, and a growing backlash toward the homeless is evident” (p. 20).”

“Unfortunately, because of “compassion fatigue”, it is hard to educate patrons about the homeless’ similarities, let alone their civil rights. In response, Turner (1993) proposes an equitable enforcement of codes of conduct and continuous community involvement by the library. The key philosophy underscoring this strategy is promoting access by all individuals to the library itself, regardless of economic status, appearance, or living situation.”

Murphy, Julie. “When the rights of the many outweigh the rights of the few: the ‘legitimate’ versus the homeless patron in the public library.” 1999. Julie Murphy’s Homepage. 11 December 2007 http://www.crowbold.com/homepage/homeless.htm .

“Librarianship - which has prided itself on its vital role in democracy - is turning that credo into empty lip service through its avid adoption of the customer-driven model and in the process chipping away at what remains of the public sphere in our institutions…”

“In the end, customer-driven librarianship contributes to the changeover from “a democracy of citizens [to] a democracy of consumers” because it is only those who can “vote” with money or tax support who are meaningfully addressed by libraries. Henry Giroux contends that “within this new public philosophy there is a ruthlessly frank expression of doubt about the viability of democracy” and a ‘disdain [for] the democratic implications of pluralism.’”

John E. Buschman, Dismantling the Public Sphere