ABSTRACT

In this article, I survey efforts by librarians to alter collections and services amidst the demographic and political transformations of late twentieth century Australia. To examine this complex history, I focus on the Working Group on Multicultural Library Services (Victoria). For two decades, this independent group were active in positioning public libraries as key to the promotion and endorsement of a multicultural Australia. Using Group archives and interviews with key members, I argue that dominant understandings of recognising and accommodating cultural difference in libraries reflect the limitations of state multiculturalism. To demonstrate this, I focus on two Group activities: the state-wide adoption of the Standards for multicultural public library service, and lobbying by the Group for a national languages policy. While the former adopted the language of welfare provision based on discrete ethno-cultural groups, the latter echoed the emerging policy discourse of ‘productive diversity’. In this case study, I critique the politics embedded in how ‘cultural diversity’ is typically understood within libraries and how library policies and practices are implicated in broader social and political developments. Such an approach offers insight into steady shifts in how the role of public libraries in culturally heterogenous societies have been debated and defined.

摘要

在本文中，我调查了图书馆员在20世纪后期澳大利亚的人口和政治转型中为改变馆藏和服务而做出的努力。为了考察这一复杂的历史，我主要关注多元文化图书馆服务工作组（维多利亚）。在过去的二十年中，这个独立团体积极地将公共图书馆定位为促进和认可多元文化澳大利亚的关键。通过使用小组档案和与主要成员的访谈，我认为，对承认和适应图书馆文化差异的主流理解反映了国家多元文化主义的局限性。为了证明这一点，我将重点关注集团的两项活动：全州范围内对多元文化公共图书馆服务标准的采用，并由集团进行游说以制定国家语言政策。前者采用基于离散的民族文化群体的福利提供语言，而后者则呼应了新兴的“生产多样性”政策论述。在本案例研究中，我批评了在图书馆中通常如何理解“文化多样性”以及如何将图书馆的政策和实践与更广泛的社会和政治发展联系在一起的内在政治。通过这种方法，可以洞悉公共图书馆在文化异质社会中的作用已被辩论和定义的稳步转变。