Libraries and Their Publics: Rhetorics of the Public Library

Chris Ingraham University of Colorado System

Abstract

Arguments about the future of libraries are more trenchant than ever. Yet questions about the nature of public libraries are inseparable from questions about their public character. Historically, competing arguments about the ideal relationship between libraries and their publics have mirrored evolving technologies that affect a library’s potential content and accessibility. But today, when socially excluded populations need libraries to gain the cultural capital necessary to participate in civil society, threats to public libraries also threaten the public sphere’s viability as a way for the disenfranchised to address the state.

Journal
Rhetoric Review
Published
2015-04-03
DOI
10.1080/07350198.2015.1008915
Open Access
Closed

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Also cites 7 works outside this index ↓
  1. Dismantling the Public Sphere: Situating and Sustaining Librarianship in the Age of the N…
  2. 10.1300/J118v24n01_01
    Public Library Quarterly  
  3. 10.1215/9780822390923
  4. 10.1515/LIBR.2001.183
  5. 10.1080/01616840903562976
  6. Reception Histories: Rhetoric, Pragmatism, and American Cultural Politics
  7. 10.1080/00335638009383499
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