Just collaboration or really something else? On joint use libraries and normative institutional change with two examples from Sweden.

ABSTRACT

This article is an attempt to discuss the establishment of joint use libraries as something more than just administrative collaboration. It focuses on joint use solutions between public libraries and university college libraries. Normative institutionalism is used as a theoretical framework for the discussion, which draws from studies on and experiences of the establishment of two joint use libraries in Sweden: Sambiblioteket in Harnosand and Almedalsbiblioteket in Visby. Conclusions are drawn that show that the establishment of joint use libraries is a very complex process of change. Norms and values of the collaborating units are challenged, and the institutional identities of participating libraries as well as the professional identities of the librarians are subject to change. This is due to a shift in normative institutional identity, which makes it possible to claim that joint use libraries may actually be regarded as a new form of library with a unique identity. In claiming this, a need for further library and information science research on joint use libraries is called for.

INTRODUCTION

 
   The library as a medium of communication is going to have its 
   impact upon the communication of society too. It is our objective, 
   our role in society, our dedicated purpose, to make this 
   communication as complete as possible. (Shera, 1910, p. 16) 
 
   A major activity in political institutions is educating 
   individuals into knowledgeable citizens. A knowledgeable citizen is 
   one who is familiar with the rules of appropriate behavior and with 
   the moral and intellectual virtues of the polity, and who thus 
   knows the institutional reasons for behaviors, and can justify them 
   by reference to the requirements of a larger order. (March & Olsen, 
   1989, p. 161) 

These two quotes say something essential about the point of departure for any analysis of library change and development. The first is stated within the context of librarianship, the second within the normative institutionalism that has reshaped political science during the last two decades (Peters, 1999). When considering joint use libraries, they point directly to various aspects that are at the center of interest. The discussion in this article will emanate from the experiences of establishing joint use libraries in Sweden. As such, joint use libraries are nothing new in Sweden. In 1842 a national school bill was passed by King Carl XIV Johan and the Swedish Parliament that encouraged elementary schools all over the country to establish library activities. In many cases this requirement was solved practically by placing the local parish library within the school building as a combined school and community library for the benefit of the working classes or, in most places, country folk. These kinds of libraries have been with us ever since, although they have changed and developed over time. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, however, a new form of joint use library emerged. Almost simultaneously in the two towns of Harnosand and Visby, new libraries were established combining the services of the local public library with those of the local university college library. These two libraries have been put forward, in the Swedish discussion, as something new, and, although the form of integration differs between the collaborating library units, the phenomenon as such has been heralded as something that meets the requirements of the knowledge society.

I will make a brief presentation of these two libraries, Sambiblioteket (1) in Harnosand and Almedalsbiblioteket in Visby. However, the emphasis will not be on the actual description but rather on the question of what is actually "new" in these libraries from an institutional point of view. Is it possible to speak of these joint use libraries as a whole new form of library, or are they merely an administrative collaboration aiming to, in the words of Ranganathan (1931), "save the time of the user"? My initial claim, to which I will return, is that the creation of a joint use library from one public library and one academic library is problematic due to differences in institutional logic and affiliations. Public libraries are best viewed as political institutions, while academic libraries relate more to the world of "science" or "education." Reading the international literature on joint use libraries, it is clear that it is time to move beyond the production of yet another set of guidelines for the implementation or evaluation of singular library initiatives. This article is an attempt in such a direction.

WHAT IS a LIBRARY?

The fundamental question "What is a library?" is rarely asked. It is relevant, however, in relation to the establishment of joint use libraries. At least since Lowell Martin published his influential essay "The American Public Library as a Social Institution" in Library Quarterly in 1937, libraries have been seen as institutions influenced by social and political changes, driven by an idea of being in some way beneficial for contemporary society. In the late 1960s Jesse Shera modified this view by suggesting that libraries should be seen rather as agencies that implement the underlying idea of the institution, which he somewhat vaguely labels "knowledge," equivalent to, for example, marriage, law, and religion. He motivates the distinction between institution and agency as follows: "I prefer to think of the library as a social agency--as an agency rather than as an institution--because, I think there is a real distinction between the great concepts like family, religion, law, and so on, and the agencies that are responsible for implementing the basic underlying bodies of belief" (Shera, 1970, p. 60). With this distinction, he makes way for the idea that libraries can exert an influence on society as a whole, something that is a core issue in social epistemology, the theoretical foundation of librarianship first formulated by Margaret Egan and Jesse Shera in 1952. It is important to mention this perspective, proposed by Shera, as most library and information science (LIS) research devoted to library issues today assumes that the library as an institution is more or less instrumentally influenced by society, but seldom the other way around. Where the library is seen to have an influence is in the sphere of general political thoughts such as the development of democracy in fostering citizens to become active participants in democratic processes. Seen as merely an institution, libraries can be defined as rather passive and at best responsive to social change. Defining them as agencies in Shera's sense, they might be understood as active in propagating and accomplishing social development. This view is further compatible with the so-called new institutionalism that has grown within political science over the last two decades. This refutes the traditional theory of institutions as reductionstic, instrumental, and functionalistic. New institutionalism has the following characteristics in analyzing political action and institutions: "Rather than collective action being the major conundrum that it is for the economists, collective action should become ... the dominant approach to understanding political life. Further, the relationship between political collectivities and their socio-economic environment should be reciprocal, with politics having the option of shaping society as much as society does of shaping politics" (Peters, 1999, p. 17).

New institutionalism shows itself in many guises, but one that is particularly suitable for the analysis of libraries and issues related to their institutional characteristics is normative institutionalism as presented by James G. March and Johan P. Olsen (1989) in direct opposition to rational choice theory or rational choice institutionalism. I will use their theory, which combines the reciprocity of social environments and institutional development with the importance of shared values and meaning between members (or agents) of an institution, to create an understanding of the problems that make joint use libraries something more than just issues of administration.

The definition of the conceptual foundation of a library is not so unambiguous that it is possible to define all types of libraries in the same way. In Sweden the division between public libraries and academic libraries into two separate communities has traditionally been very distinct. This alone is enough to claim that a library is not to be defined by what it does in a technical or administrative sense but rather by what aims it sets out to fulfil. In the literature on joint use libraries, some effort has been put into definition. One of the more authoritative is provided by Alan Bundy. In his words, a joint use library is "a library in which two or more distinct library services providers, usually a school and a public library, serve their client groups in the same building, based on an agreement that specifies the relationship between the providers" (2003, p. 129). Focusing on joint use libraries combining public libraries and university libraries, Kathleen Imhoff gives a somewhat similar definition: "A joint use library involves two or more libraries of different types coming together to provide services in a single building operating cooperatively to provide resources, such as curriculum support, bibliographic instruction, and information literacy to the general public and/or students, faculty…