The ALA’s Poor People’s Policy & Classism at Public Libraries

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.