(UN)CERTAIN ACCE

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diachronic analysis of the public library and its foundational values, emphasising the idea of meritocratic equality of .... Narratives and gatekeeping: the case of Trento Municipal Library . ...... scenario), the underuse of some specific services (e.g. MLOL - MediaLibraryOnLine and ...... Trento: Provincia Autonoma di Trento.
Master’s Degree in Sociology and Social Research International Joint Master’s Degree in Cultural Sociology

(UN)CERTAIN ACCESS TO PUBLIC SPACE: THE PUBLIC LIBRARY AND ITS RELATION WITH STIGMATISED PATRONS

Supervisor Prof. Giuseppe Sciortino Co-supervisors Prof. Bernadette Nadya Jaworsky Prof. Andrea Mubi Brighenti

Academic year 2017 / 2018

Candidate Marco Ciorli

Abstract

The thesis addresses the process of labelling and exclusion of the most disadvantaged patrons in the public library, on the basis of their behaviour or appearance, believed to be deviant or undesired. Like in analogous institutions, characterised by and proud of a peculiar egalitarian self-representation, such stigma creates practices of social exclusion, that reflect peculiarities as well as broader dynamics. I open with a diachronic analysis of the public library and its foundational values, emphasising the idea of meritocratic equality of self-development, and its ambivalences. Then, I focus on the topic of marginalised users, starting from the concept of acceptability thresholds, distinctive of the public domain in general, and decomposing the literature on the “problem patron”. I thus address the definition of legitimate and “improper” patrons as process of stigmatisation, regarding distinct levels of meaning-making. I complete my study with some findings from research I conducted for the Trento Municipal Library. Keywords: public space; public library; disadvantaged patrons; problem patrons; social exclusion; criminalisation; stigma

Table of contents

Introduction ..................................................................................................................................................... 7 My research process: development and methodological notes ....................................................................... 9 I.

The ideology of the public library ....................................................................................................... 15 1.

Historical development of the public library ........................................................................................ 17 1.1. The roots of the contemporary public library: book collections as biens nationaux....................... 17 1.2. The expansion of the public: “popular libraries” and the Anglo-Saxon “Public Library” .............. 27

2. II.

Free access as a universal and foundational value ............................................................................... 34 The issue of “problematic” patrons ..................................................................................................... 41

1.

The public library as “public domain” ................................................................................................. 42

2.

“Who belongs here?” Legitimate accessibility and deviant behaviours ............................................... 47 2.1. Perspectives and definitions: creating the “problem patron” .......................................................... 47 2.2. A new insight into the stigmatisation of the disadvantaged ........................................................... 58

III. Narratives and gatekeeping: the case of Trento Municipal Library ................................................ 67 1.

The Trento Municipal Library: spaces and transformations ................................................................ 68 1.1. The public library system in Trento ................................................................................................ 68 1.2. The Central Library ........................................................................................................................ 70

2.

The research ......................................................................................................................................... 71 2.1. Background and objectives ............................................................................................................. 71 2.2. Methods and data ............................................................................................................................ 73

3.

The disadvantaged in the Central Library: Public or non-public? ........................................................ 76 3.1. Foreign citizens and “improper uses”: deconstructing a connection .............................................. 77 3.2. Living the library: symbolic and material boundaries .................................................................... 81 3.3. Ambivalence of thresholds and ineffective dichotomies ................................................................ 90

Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................................... 95 References ...................................................................................................................................................... 99 Appendix ...................................................................................................................................................... 111

Introduction

A cold Midwestern winter led a group of homeless regulars of the Cincinnati’s downtown public library to seek refuge and occupy its public spaces. The local police are alerted and the resistance of the homeless library patrons begins. This is the plot of Emilio Estevez’s film “The Public” (2018): although the scenario is extreme and imaginary, it is inspired by the relevance of everyday situations that occur in the public libraries worldwide. Since its foundation, the public library has included an increasing section of the population and has established a democratic mission based on the idea of free and guaranteed access to self-development, in response to new social needs alongside the traditional protection of documentary heritage. However, during this process, the public library has encountered challenges with regard to the most unprivileged patrons: specific uses of public spaces by certain individuals (homeless, mentally ill, deprived migrants, …) collide with prevailing assumptions and introduce opposite claims. A difficult balance arises, between the promotion of the wide and free access and the inevitable triumph of the interests of certain groups to the detriment of others, somehow identified as problematic. The recurrent crisis of the foundational ideology of free access and the long-standing debates on “undesired” publics identify interesting social facts that may benefit of a sociological perspective. Thus, my aim has been to analyse the social exclusion of unprivileged patrons in the public library, on the base of their behaviours or appearance. The importance of democratic core values and the processes of criminalisation within the spaces of the public library make it a relevant example – I would say emblematic and extreme – to

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study power asymmetries in public spaces, especially in those loaded by democratic and egalitarian conceptions. Most of the previous studies on the so-called “problem patrons” have developed anecdotal, taxonomic, and denouncing approaches, especially in the core line between the 1980’s and 1990’s (Simmons 1985, Ferrell 2010, Yemini-Halevi 2015). More recently, an increasing number of authors has addressed the information needs of disadvantaged users (Yemini-Halevi 2005, Ayers 2006, Gaudet 2013, Delica & Elbeshausen 2015), their information seeking practices (Lloyd et al. 2013, Lingel 2015), and the problems of definitions and discretionary control (Chattoo 2002, Ferrell 2010). However, even among those who focus the discussion on “problem behaviours” rather than on “problem patrons”, the role of the public library in labelling user groups as deviant to various degrees remains undeveloped. In this sense, my research project does not introduce an innovative object of study, but a novel and relevant research perspective, enriched by social theory. Developing both early analyses (Simmons 1985, Shuman 1989) and recent critical contributions (Chattoo 2002, Ferrell 2010), I identify the need to address – recalling the concepts of primary and secondary criminalisation – the asymmetries in the definition and identification of deviants echoing librarians’ difficulties and expectations. The main argument is that the concern for the social responsibilities of the public library can be addressed only to a limited extent by the reassertion of the universalist value of equal access to information: most of the efforts devoted to this principle lacks a deeper insight on the long-standing problem of the subaltern classes’ position within the traditional public of libraries. Thus, a systematic analysis of stigma and its interactional and territorial stabilisation should be addressed, considering the role of ambivalent expectations and meaning-making at various levels (local interaction, urban context, national-state, transnational changes).

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In the first chapter, I address the historical development of public library, in order to analyse, through a diachronic perspective, the different values emerged since its foundation (roughly speaking: heritage protection, informational service, egalitarian educational institution) and how the crisis of these values also reflects the ambivalences within the liberal idea of meritocratic equality of self-development. Then, in chapter II, I focus on the relation between the public library and marginalised patrons, starting from the concept of acceptability thresholds, distinctive of the public domain in general, and decomposing the literature on the “problem patron” in the public library. Thus, I consider the role of library values as ambivalent expectations, and the definition of legitimate and “improper” patrons as processes of stigmatisation. The third chapter present some findings from the research I conducted for Trento Municipal Library, illustrating how the exclusion dynamics I have addressed take shape in a specific library, involving both peculiarities and broader tendencies.

My research process: development and methodological notes Research, especially qualitative social research, primarily consists in the production of plausible interpretations of complex phenomena: we aim at giving sense to the ways in which social actors, in turn, give meaning to their actions. It is a matter of offering «representations of representations» of which we are responsible (La Mendola 2009:51), and of which we provide the accountability. In the following pages I briefly outline the principles and the choices that have shaped my research path, contextualising it. Fieldwork and the emerging of conceptual forms. The research project I present below develops from the insight and limits emerged from the research-internship project that Visola Gjeka and I realised in 2017 for the Municipal Library of Trento, aimed at the understanding of the knowledge, evaluation and use of services by the foreign population. Although the

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reasonable limitations of a training programme, the research has represented a successful response to concrete changes of a library context: a significant loss of active users in the last four years, the under-utilisation of specific services, and the presence of practices perceived as “problematic” or “improper”, relating both to the evolution of the activities sought in the public library and to the specific needs of disadvantaged citizens. The study has provided an opportunity to address some sensitive issues without prejudice but with an adequate pragmatic and critical perspective, offering a methodical alternative to the emergency and security narratives, and opportunities for change.1 In chapter III, I provide a detailed account of our approach and techniques. Due to the centrality of ideological assumptions on patrons, and the «impressionability» of models regarding the role of public library (Faggiolani & Galluzzi 2017), the Trento Municipal Library constituted an attractive context for the deconstruction of an organisational culture – particularly challenged by social and economic changes – in relation to new and old practices of social exclusion. The qualitative approach adopted allowed me to understand prevailing images “from within” and highlight social inequalities in the library through the ways in which they are expressed in everyday life. The project at Trento Library shaped the primary background of my analysis, suggesting the focus on meaning-making processes and evolving early sensitising notions on the issue of “improper uses”: namely the idea of ineffective and acritical definitions and the idea of a “library foundational ideology” of free access. The diachronic perspective and the “public space” lens. Given these premises, I decided to continue my research, extending the recursive and abductive approach (Timmermans &

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A summary of the final report has been published in the Annual Report on Immigration in Trentino – 2017 (Ambrosini, Boccagni & Piovesan, 2018). The results have also captured the interest of librarians and scholars of library science in the national and international scene, by the participation in the national award “Premio De Gregori 2017”, and my presentation at the “Researcher-Librarian Training Workshop” (IFLA Library Theory and Research Section) in Milan.

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Tavory 2012): I reformulated my object of study – the social construction of “problem patrons” – and turned the perspective, addressing the topic in the light of the state of the art. Firs of all, I identified the importance to frame the issue in a broader context and to explore the historical development of the public library. The problematic relation between the public library and marginalised patrons appeared as long-term phenomenon, difficult to circumscribe within precise and recent time coordinates. Emergency narratives of the last thirty years relate the issue of the “problematic patrons” to national and transnational topics such the deinstitutionalisation, the welfare, or the migration flows, or to sectoral crisis such the “digital revolution”. However, it seemed necessary to consider these connections in the long durée, in order to problematise the ideal public (target group) of the public library. As stated by Peatling (2002:40), the long-standing issue of patrons’ behaviours has often reflected the hegemonic position of the middle class. Given the international influence of the Anglo-Saxon development of the Public Library (1850-1920), I recognised the need to problematise the connection between the foundational values of the institution and the ideas of public and equality of access to the means to self-development, emerged within the diverse frameworks of the Enlightenment and the British liberalism. Most of my analysis on the historical emergence of the public library, as it is established today, follows the accounts by Paolo Traniello (1997, 2005) and Frédéric Barbier (2016). The former proposes a «de-ideologised» history of the public library and, while only incidentally dealing with the themes of my work, provides an appropriate revaluation of the ideal of public access as a foundational democratic value and recognises some ambivalences in the worldwide evolution of the institution. In contrast, Barbier addresses a history of libraries in general, not focusing on the public library. According with the author, «a distinction between private and public has long been ineffective and anachronistic. Accessibility, achieved primarily through openness to the public, and publicness […] are

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fundamental elements, but they do not solve in themselves the distinction that allows one to define a book collection as “library” or not» (2016:29). While this may be valid with regards to the history of the library, the focus on the public library and to the concepts of accessibility and publicness is central for the objectives of this thesis. Similarly, library developments in the contemporary era, whose Barbier recognises the importance but not a dominant space, is receiving emphasis here. Nevertheless, the French historian provided a relevant contribute to my aims. Firstly, Barbier opposes the idea that «considerations of a material character make the world of thought impure» (2016:16). Thus, in full respect of his influences (starting from the mentioned Marc Bloch), he proposes also a material history of the library, able to combine a history of “library thought”, with a history of library spaces and a sociology of uses. Secondly, the author supports a valuable transnational approach. As he pointed out, although the nation-state is a relevant framework to understand the developments of the library, it should not be a main unit of analysis: a complete history of library is achieved by addressing the «exchanges that transcend the political and cultural geography of different times» (2016:30), realised – Barbier states – in forms of cultural transfer. As concern the historical connection between the public library and the public domain, I referred to their developments in the context of liberal conceptions of “public sphere” and “social justice”. In addition to Traniello, for example, Williamson (2000) illustrates the role of the library as a utilitarian institution drawing on the works of John Stuart Mill and Jurgen Habermas. The long-standing «obsession for safety» and «concern for unacceptable disorder» that characterised both the initial stages of the public library (1850-1920) and the neoliberal security policies since the 1980s (Brighenti 2010:34), raised my attention to the topic of segmentation of the public space. The consideration of the public library as specific expression of the public domain, may benefit from a dialogue between the different

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traditions of social theorists, interactional sociologists, and urban scholars (ibid.), accounting how material and immaterial elements contributed to the stabilisation of power practices. Meanings and agency. Concerning the dimension of meaning-making in the stabilisation of power dynamics, a major methodological reference has been the social definition of deviance, as identified by the tradition of the interactional sociology and the critical sociology of deviance (cf. Sbraccia & Vianello 2010). As identified by Ferrel (2010), approaches such as Blumer’s symbolic interactionism and Goffman’s framework on stigma provide, for example, a key perspective for new understanding on the labelling and exclusion of patrons in the public library. The qualitative study of narrations and interactions, both among librarians and users, can assist in understanding how actors conceptualise libraries, and “appropriate” and “expected” behaviours (Goffman 1963). Recalling the interconnection between these micro-practices and the stabilised and institutionalised ideas of library service and public space – both long-standing and more recent – it is possible to understand the role of semi-autonomous cultural references both in the short and long durée. Closing the circle. Finally, in the light of the new insight, I returned to the study at the Trento Municipal library, to better illustrate how the phenomena that I have addressed take shape in a specific library. I analysed in more detail how the project had been framed in the context of differing images on the library, and the existence of ambivalent ideas on its legitimate/ideal public, defined and discoursed within diverse spheres of meaning-making.

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I.

The ideology of the public library

The usage of the words “public” and “public sphere” betrays a multiplicity of concurrent meanings. Their origins go back to various historical phases and, when applied synchronically to the conditions of a bourgeois society that is industrially advanced and constituted as a social-welfare state, they fuse into a clouded amalgam. Yet the very conditions that make the inherited language seem inappropriate appear to require these words, however confused their employment. J. Habermas (1962)

In this chapter, I reconstruct the historical evolution of the public library institution, focusing on the affirmation of the modern idea of universal public access in this context. This dimension appears extremely relevant to the issues that connect the ideas of public space, accessibility and “problem patrons”, considering both their emergence and related contemporary discourses. I progressively reveal this link during my disquisition, addressing it completely in the next section. Regarding this primary analysis, I critically deal, on one hand, with the historical ascent of a specific model of the library among alternative courses and, on the other, with the emergence of an “ideology” of the public library, interpreted as a set of values at the base of the collective representation of this institution and thus crucial for the purpose of my study. These two dimensions – the institutional facet of the organisational model and the ideology – are intrinsically interrelated, but significantly distinct (I think, both substantially and conceptually). I do not merely allude to the issue of primacy between action and values: as 15

I will try to persuade, while it is possible to trace and outline the ideology on the basis of the historical evolution of the institution, the relationship between the latter and the ideology itself remains an ambivalent strand, primarily because the degree of initial awareness - the intentionality of action – in terms of democratic and universalist orientation, seems to be reduced within more composite historical dynamics. Thus, my decision not to start uncritically with a mere introduction of the ideal of universal public access, taking it for granted (as it may happen in daily library routines), is driven by the potential of this study in forming a useful premise and a diachronic lens. By historically addressing the birth and establishment of the public library, it is possible to observe how some key concepts (such as “free access” or “public”) emerged with multiple meanings, and their relationship with the practices that they have oriented in different historical phases and different contexts. Simultaneously, the study of the idea of universal public access, even in the revaluation of its centrality as a foundational value – often retrospectively attributed – enables us to frame its importance more appropriately. It should be stressed that it is not so much a matter of refuting, on a historical basis, the crucial role of these values, but rather properly highlighting two crucial dimensions with respect to the topic of this thesis first, a set of ambiguities that the emergence of these values introduced into the collective image of the public library; second, their relevance in the narratives pertaining to the library sector as well as to the problems related to accessibility in the library public space. It is very significant, in fact, that the ideal of universal and democratic access to libraries is more complex than it may be perceived and it was not the direct driving force of the public library’s evolution. Finally, it is precisely on the grounds of these principles that we can illustrate both some peculiarities of the library sector (as well as some of its geographical manifestations), and how the public library effectively illustrates – at least in the West – the dynamics related to coexistence, admissibility, and legitimacy, in the sphere of public space in general.

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1.

Historical development of the public library

1.1.

The roots of the contemporary public library: book collections as biens nationaux

The origins of the public library, as it is established today, is generally attributed to that of the Anglo-Saxon Public Library, which developed in the United Kingdom and the United States between 1850 and 1919, and subsequently spread as the dominant model2. According to Frédéric Barbier (2016), the theme of the extended accessibility to book collections does not trace back simply to nineteenth century, but it had been already the focus of several reflections throughout the modern era, raised by enlightened intellectuals and, especially, the Protestant tradition. Moreover, he acknowledges how the late eighteenth century has been characterised by a crucial variation on the dimension of access to libraries, nourished by the progressive increase in the collective demand and the significative emergence of the issue of “publicness” (the Habermasian Öffentlichkeit), as well as of the concern for its organisation, disputed between emergent classes and clerical or noble elites3. These processes witnessed a decisive discontinuity, not surprisingly, during the French Revolution, both consequence and driving force of the passage from the erudite accumulation to a crucially new ideal of public acculturation. Paolo Traniello (1997) further highlights the importance of pre-industrial developments, starting from the «apparent contradiction» of the unfortunate recognition of the Revolutionary legacy despite its role as a crucial historical and cultural background, not only in ideal terms. French library policies in the late eighteenth

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The expression “public library” itself has assumed its contemporary meaning overlapping the specific model founded in United Kingdom and United States and replacing both previous acceptations and some of the expressions used to originally define the model itself in the English context (cf. I, §1.2). In the text, I refer to the specific Anglo-Saxon model with the term Public Library (often maintained in non-English literature), with the intent to keep this linguistic/semantic distinction and to facilitate the understanding of my analyses. 3

Regarding Barbier’s contribution to the theme of “publicness” and the “public library” in the context of his broad account, see my reflections in the Introduction.

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century gave rise indeed to an important foundation introducing notions, ideas and projects that are still at the basis of the dual nature of the public library (conservation and promotion) and – if we look closely – of its very contemporary definition as a public information service (Traniello 1997:19-20). In this regard, Traniello points out the consolidated perception of the Anglo-Saxon model as a radically new library policy compared to previous realities, based on a conscious democratic extension of access to information, by the first creation of a library system based on local public administrations, with a relative autonomy (ibid.). In addition to this emphasis – whose limits I will address later – the partial recognition of the Revolutionary legacy has retrospectively an additional origin in the limited and ambivalent outcomes of this first period, albeit fundamental. These can be ascribed, as a first approximation, to the substantial prevalence assigned to the appropriation and management of library assets as national properties (therefore, public because owned by the people), to the detriment of a complete creation of a public service (aimed at a community). However, it is precisely on these two conceptual pairs – those of public/nation and libraries/goods – that we can understand the way in which a «new way of defining the belonging of the constitutive assets of the historical-cultural heritage» has determined (as well as an innovative set of laws and cataloguing practices) a fundamental definition and application of a new “public” character of library (Traniello 2005:25). To better understand this non- negligible discontinuity, it is advisable to take a step back, and address some prodromes of thought at the base of the library reforms. The condition of the library prior to the French Revolution was varied and dissimilar from the following contexts, and even more from the present settings. Since the fifteenth century, there had been an “ideal library” nurtured in private, by virtue of humanist ideals, which progressively translated into the first collections with “public” access, yet intended as granted to specific individuals. All over Europe, these first examples of public library determined the transition

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from a collection as an «action aimed at values» to an offer as an «action aimed at purpose»; this was mainly done by the core institutions of power – noble or ecclesiastical – for whom the primary purpose of these «libraries of public powers» consisted, however, «in the control, also made of possession, of the expressions of written communication» (Traniello 2005:13-15). Despite the greater attention placed by Barbier on the historical continuity of the library institution throughout the modern age, he also highlights these processes (2016:153-192), characterised by both the accumulation inspired by the classical ideal of universal knowledge, and the attention to the aesthetics of power and the representation of control (both of knowledge and of censorship). A partial exception is represented by the “collectivisation” of municipal collections in German territories, inspired by the pedagogical inspirations of the Reformation4 (ibid.). Although these processes anticipated some of the following French developments, they maintained a purely local character, were based on the opening of previous collections and they did not lead to any formalization of a public library service open to all, as subsequently intended. A similar process of extension, but on significantly different bases, has instead concerned the progressive spread of the opening of private collections by booksellers or associations. This form of a “library for a public” became particularly relevant in the subsequent Enlightenment and pre-Revolutionary eras, in a political and social context in which new sources of study and information were perceived as means of expression of human intellect, as an opportunity for ascent and as criticism of the predominant erudite culture. In this regard, a key role was assumed by the movement of Encyclopaedism, whose contribution

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On the subject, Barbier refers to the connections between study, morality, and commitment to the community in Luther’s doctrine: «the success of the individual would be facilitated by an appropriate and modern intellectual education, based on study, books – and libraries» (2016:182-183). It is not coincidence – think about Weber’s analysis on the Protestant ethics of Beruf – that these elements will echo in the main narratives underlying the liberal development of the Public Library (cf 1.2; 2).

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was not to offer a new definition of the library itself, but rather to give voice to new reflections inherent to the concept of “public” (Traniello 1997:22-23). The idea related to public libraries was, basically, of private collections open to a public of scholars. This conception reflects the notion of “public” elaborated since the eighteenth century5 which was based on two fundamental aspects which, as we will see, cannot be relegated to a mere linguistic question. First, in this sense, “public” was not opposed to “private” but understood as a set of private individuals capable of constituting themselves as recipients (a public, in a substantive sense) of messages and tools of written communication. From the standpoint of the emerging bourgeoisie – and of the Encyclopédie itself as a “library/selection” project – a new culture of knowledge emerged, opposed to the idea of private library as symbolic capital and accumulation (bibliomanie) and linked to the value of modern selection and “utility”.6 Secondly, “public” was distinct from “popular”, in the sense that the former excludes the poorer and less educated part of the population (the “people”). At the same time, in the Enlightenment culture, the “people” came to identify a heterogeneous identity group, the set of equal citizens in opposition to the absolute sovereign. Along this line, the image of the royal library itself evoked a critique to a form of private book collection, limited not only because – as other similar forms – it was generalised and «bibliomaniac», but also in terms of access: books started to be perceived as socially useful tools for the full development of human faculties, therefore necessarily collective goods and not private property of any “public power” (ibid.).

5

In this regard, Traniello recalled the contributions by J. Habermas 1971, 1980 and R. Chartier 1991.

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Barbier (2016) also acknowledges the idea of utility as “imperative” during the evolutions begun in the eighteenth century. Moreover, considering a “sociology of the lexicon” (pp. 21-22), he highlights the relation between social practices and used terms. The Latin word “bibliothecae” and the French “bibliothèque”, evoking an image of a closed environment, reserved for the erudite readers and the collection of books «useless to the most», were opposed to others such as “librairie”, inherited in the English “library”. Barbier proposes how the comparison remained then current, not by chance: Eugène Morel raised these images in 1910, in defence of the importation of the English model of the “free library” (cf. 1.2)

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Certainly, such a consideration of an egalitarian community cannot be considered as generalised and univocal: the “people”, formed by the humblest workers, remains predominantly distinct from the public/recipient of the encyclopaedic culture, but progressively includes the exponents of arts and crafts. This is a crucial issue because it reflects a social change taking place with the progressive enlargement of the notion of “public” to the advantage of that of the “people”. Even at the level of cultural practices, this enlargement must not be read in terms of a mass demand; however, it is necessary to keep in mind the great development of “public reading” and first loan services, in the context of Cabinets littéraires/Cabinets de lecture, which started on the free initiative – already mentioned – of booksellers or clubs with registration fees, and aimed at emerging middle classes (Traniello 1997, Barbier 2016). The contribution of these realities was in terms of a progressive inclusion of new social groups, driven by widespread information needs (as it would have been, in a different way, in the context of English industrialization). Sometimes as a process of democratisation, other times as integration of new groups within the elites, the theme of “publicness” of books in these new forms represented a strategic element through which the bourgeoisie gradually appropriated a mode of acculturation, nourishing the shift from an erudite model to a public access ideal driven by the concept of utility (Barbier 2016:319-320). During the French Revolution, there was a resumption of the adjective “public” to designate a certain new type of library, both as an effect and overcoming of the conceptions of the Enlightenment. More precisely, the contribution of the Revolution was the use of the idea of public-state belonging and management, but with the addition of the «semantic specificity that identifies the public subject of such belonging directly in the reality of the nation» (Traniello 1997:25). Although there has not been a clear and univocal idea in the development of the library as a specific service – Traniello claims – the Revolution distorted

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the lines of development of the library, creating an institutional framework. The starting point was the Constituent Assembly of November 2, 1789, which decreed the confiscation of ecclesiastical assets making them available to the nation. This key concept can be interpreted in three ways: as a set of equal citizens before the law and in the access to collective assets; in the sense of national and historical unity; and in the sense of the cultural/book heritage of a community within a linguistic-geographical reality. The library heritage deriving from these appropriations (and, then, those of “second origin”, related to assets from escaped nobility) was conceived as national property, with a strong historical value and a principle of collective utility, implying a solution for its destination (Traniello 1997:50). Hence the development of legislation, with a policy of centralization in the organization of books and their inventory7, aimed at the functional creation of a public institution (state, of the nation) oriented to the community. In other words, the public library tends to be a national library, not in the technical sense normally attributed to the central library of a State, but in the sense of deriving its existence from books of national belonging and being public precisely because destined for the nation. And yet this second conceptual category, that of the public library, ends up assuming a further and more specific meaning during this affair, concerning the distribution of the library institution on the territory of the nation [...] which also involves the redistribution of the total library assets in view of the needs “of all”: of the people as a whole, one might say. (Traniello 2005:24)

The outcomes of this project were ultimately as significant as ambiguous, because they were the result of a series of proposals and laws strongly dependent on various political moments and heterogeneous purposes. In the context of this analysis, I do not intend to accurately

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As we must remember, the legacy of the French Revolution is linked, to a large extent, to the emergence of the first important institutional and legislative processes for the creation of a system of state libraries, with the development of fundamental experimentations in management and cataloguing. In my analysis, I consciously place these sectorial aspects in the background, favouring the ideas behind these reforms: my main attention is on the interpretation of library as a collective public structure, as a national good, and on the related extension of the concept of “public library” itself.

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report the entire set of relative policies, that were also not always fully implemented. Briefly, from the accumulation of books as “national goods” in the dépôts littéraires to be catalogued and allocated with a systematic subdivision to local offices (specifically identified or created), the public reading service was then framed within the new system of central schools. During the subsequent Napoleonic school policy, the local collection quarters – public and scholastic at the same time – were then further depleted in resources and devalued in the role, in favour of the nascent Lycées and the main national conservation institutes (e.g. the Parisian Bibliothéque Nationale), in an increasingly more centralist system. The reform process ended with a decree dated January 28, 1803 (Barnett 1987:416, as cited in Traniello 1997), which entrusts local libraries to the municipalities: even though it represents the constitutive deed of the French municipal libraries, it determines in fact their decline, entrusting to the local authority a role of mere surveillance, in the absence of an economic management policy and depriving the country of an effective national system of libraries, as it had been conceived (Traniello 1997:43). Returning to the contribution of the Revolution regarding the evolution of the public libraries as a universally accessible service, the first fundamental aspect is precisely that, even in discordant political dynamics, a common idea of a public library network has been established as belonging to the state and aimed at providing the community with an impartial access to a national asset. This, beyond the attempt of a state library system and the foundations related to the organization of collections, has contributed to a first and important change with respect to the public targeted by the service. However, precisely on the theme of public access – both on its significance and its full implementation – one can observe the limit of a full maturation of what will be central, instead, in the contemporary sense of the public library. The contribution of the revolutionary period, although fundamental, was in fact characterised by ambivalent planning and outcomes, such as the depletion of many

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collections through sale and sorting, in full opposition to the commitment to appropriation and conservation of goods (ibid. 70). The main point of ambivalence, with regard to the public nature of the institution, concerns the relationship between the introduction of a service for general access to a collective good and the treatment given to local administration (first the department, then the district, finally the municipality), to which most of the economic burdens are attributed, without ever fully perceiving it as «protagonist of the library organization, but rather a local space in which to organise goods and structures that have always been considered directly and exclusively national interest and belonging» (ibid. 51) and inserted in a mainly centralised framework referring to the «general and abstract reality of the nation» which finally resulted in Napoleonic centralism. In the failure to implement a complete policy of public libraries, a first fundamental role was precisely that, as previously hinted, of a change in political lines and reform in the course of the unstable historical events of the Revolution. At the same time, the way in which the reforms were implemented has considerably determined the inability to truly conceive a new public library as a service responding to the real interests of the emerging and dominant bourgeois class. Also in this regard, Traniello (2005:27-28) proposes an application of Weber’s sociological theory, considering the evolution of the public library during the French Revolution as an example of a « “material rationality”, distinct, within the category of social action “rational with respect to the purpose”, from that characterised by a “formal” rationality». He states that the institution of the public library is planned and programmed during the French Revolution (as it will happen in other situations and in other contexts closer to us like that of ecclesiastical devolutions in post-unification Italy) as an instrument capable of pursuing an aim which was assessed in terms of very high positivity from a political point of view, namely the spread and expansion of public education [...]; but it was still [...] lacking the ability to calculate, in the sense of identifying and

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evaluating in precise (if desired, formal) rational terms, the instruments and acts that would have been suitable for this result. (ibid.)

Regarding the incomplete realization of a library service – understood in a contemporary sense – it is therefore appropriate to recall the idea of the absence of a pure and conscious programmatic idea, devoted to pure ideals of democracy, but rather the contextualised and abrupt nature of reforms, in the interweaving of evidently economic reasons and cultural understandings, such as an increase in education. From a predominantly economic point of view, it is historically clear that the measure of November 2, 1789, was conspicuously a response to the serious French financial crisis (ibid. 29), through the appropriation of assets mostly to be placed on the market (what which then occurred, at least in part, even with the book heritage). Then, the soon surfaced consciousness of the inalienability of the cultural assets that constituted the memory of the nation, among which those of a book, determined [the choice] to create a system of public libraries in France without having to incur practically any expense for its institution. (ivi)

On the other hand, this « “supply of goods” dictated by evaluation criteria [...] and economically oriented in the least onerous way» raised a dimension that would have been crucial in the subsequent affirmation of the English Public Library and in the contemporary problematization of the “publicness” of library: the affirmation of the public nature of libraries founded no longer on the destination for public use by the sovereign or individuals, but by virtue of their national character was inevitably destined to introduce the problem of the economic sources of their supply and the calculation of necessary capitals, within a society that was now organizing itself, on the political terrain, in the sense of representative democracy and, on the economic one, in the sense of modern capitalism. (ivi)

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Furthermore, the more contingent and economic reasons have merged into an ideal approach which, while aiming at widespread access to books, has not been able to carry out a useful popular involvement, and meeting and expanding the social demand for public reading and loan service. The creation of a new public library institution, conceived with innovative ways and purposes, was undertaken with the simple idea of changing destinations to book collections and making them available to the nation. This seems to be mainly due to the «ingenuous modalities» with which the enlargement of reading was proposed, linked both to the extension of the eighteenth-century notion of “public” and to the overcoming of the “erudite” mediation typical of the encyclopaedist approach (Traniello 1997:72). The substitution of the mass of books in private collections with a selection of resources aimed at the emerging classes was followed by the access to collections globally guaranteed to the nation: it would be a “restrictive” Enlightenment vision, which attributed an extreme confidence in the educational capacity of mere access to books and in the idea that the public offer was sufficient to increase people’s interest (ibid. 72-73). Moreover, «it could not be realistically assumed that the library collections coming from the nationalization of ecclesiastical properties (then those of the noble expatriates) were suitable for creating public libraries [...] during an age in which the prevailing interests of reading were by then made up of scientific information, politics and criticism of custom» (Traniello 2005:28). We can summarise, therefore, the contribution of the French Revolution on the creation of the public library and the universal character of its access. Within the limits of its implementation, the foundation proposed in a new and crucial form the public nature of the library on the level of state management, merging it – through the conception of national community – into a new, albeit ambivalent, reflection on a different public access, of which the nation-state is a guarantor and promoter. This tendency towards a public administration library with universal access cannot fail to be related, at least in part, to the emerging social

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and political tendencies of the «bourgeois public sphere» (Habermas 1980). However, although expression of the latter, the emerging public library was not able to fully involve the trends of reading and participation of the time, nor to translate the ideal of national appropriation into a completely new involvement, with the full overcoming of the previous notion of the public (opposed to “the people” of subaltern classes). The subsequent expansion of the public conception of library, towards the definitive contemporary idea of the institute, evolved precisely through the most unresolved aspects of the process that unites the idea of public administration with that of the community in universalist terms. The Anglo-Saxon model of Public Library involved a decisive extension of the public towards new social categories, and a greater formalisation of the service, based on a new idea of local autonomy and a more institutionalised nationalization by a type of “formal rationality”.

1.2.

The expansion of the public: “popular libraries” and the Anglo-Saxon “Public Library”

At the end of the French Revolution, the universalization of the public library was mainly in abstract terms, through the idea of nation as antithesis to sovereign power, but not realised in library practice, since – together with an idea of recipient still quite defined on the socioeconomic level – the project of public library evolved more on the appropriation of a collective patrimony, rather than on the effective creation of a service that could stimulate emerging cultural tendencies. These limits were re-proposed, later, also in the diffusion of the French experience during the “exportation of the revolution”, thanks to the strongly centralist Napoleonic system. This legacy has differently influenced European countries, with long-term effects, especially in the Mediterranean areas (Italy first), then fostered by the processes of national unification, with a strong emphasis placed on books and “historical” libraries as collective “inheritance” (Traniello 1997:133). More in general,

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Barbier (2016:356-358) argues that in eighteenth century the library institution was characterised by a vital competition among nation-states and the emergence of a new “nationalisation”, conceived as Nationalisierung (creation of collective national identity), rather than a state-run reallocation. The unresolved question of the expansion of the public to “new categories” – as anticipated – has proven crucial in the subsequent stages in the history of public library, again driven by significant socio-cultural changes. The nationalistic movements of postRestoration Europe and, even more so, the two industrial revolutions, in fact, laid the foundations for an accentuated re-emergence of informative, educational and recreational requests, including an increasingly wider segment of the population. In particular, the most important element is the fact that these instances began to openly involve the most excluded working classes – those of the “people” of the eighteenth-century vision. It is in this context that in Europe, from the mid-nineteenth century up to the second half of the twentieth century (with the affirmation, in heterogeneous modes, of the Public Library), the phenomenon of “popular libraries” spread. In general, these were libraries specifically addressed to the poorer classes and created in a separate way, even physically, from pre-existing library institutions. All over Europe, this type of library also developed non-univocally from the point of view of intentions, with founding initiatives ranging from the fight against illiteracy – alternatively, as expression of philanthropism or social claim – to more politically political/economic interests, aimed to control reading content among popular classes and safeguard social morality. Focusing on the creation of the popular library alongside other library models, it is important to note how, also in this regard, there has been a lot of heterogeneity, with different degrees of conjunction between the “patrimonial” state nature of the public library and the growing “public” role in a “popular” perspective (Traniello 1997, Barbier 2016). In this

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regard, Traniello offers a systematic overview of the various evolutions of the popular library in continental Europe, by geographical-cultural areas. A noticeable tendency emerges, which justifies an even more concise typing: the more “traditional” structures have monopolised the institutional space – hence public intervention – with respect to the “popular” needs, the more the proposals and the local examples of popular library have struggled to merge into a factual public-run system of libraries. This is the case, at one extreme of the scenario, of the countries of “Mediterranean dualism” (France, Italy, Spain). Here, public libraries have continued to be thought of as a set of historical and/or organizational structures for the collective “inheritance”, with a view to national affirmation rather than services in response to generalised cultural needs. (Traniello 1997:138). The local structures of the popular library have therefore evolved as a parallel and marginal reality, and almost exclusively by private initiative. In this context, an ambivalent institutional definition of the public library has grown, as a precarious balance between the great Central or National institutes, the research libraries, and those with more territorial vocation. In a median condition, there were the German and Austrian territories8. In these cases, even in the presence of a receptive cultural context – both for an advanced librarian theory, open to other contexts, and for a traditional sensitivity to the formative function of the library – the evolution of an organic legislative plan was lacking, maintaining a substantial separation between local, popular reading contexts and libraries for study and research (ibid. 159-169). A different evolution of the popular library can be found in the library systems implemented in central-northern countries, aiming at an organic and state-run management of the public library in terms of

8

The Swiss context, included by Traniello among the German-language models for expository purposes, is substantively an interesting exception: between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, in the country a library system with progressive state management was autonomously founded (Traniello 1997:170). This can be interpreted, at least to some extent, as an interesting example of how an economically and politically hegemonic position - assumed by the United Kingdom, first, and then by the United States – may be a crucial element for the establishment of an institutional and ideological model.

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generalised access. In Netherlands, Belgium and Finland, the popular library became institutionalised in a process that we can define as “nationalizing”, through the progressive public intervention in support of library systems created by associations, generally of a religious nature. Norway, Sweden and Denmark, on the other hand, followed a similar but “assimilative” process, in which the creation of a homogeneous system of libraries in a popular nature substantially evolved on the lesser presence of “traditional” library institutions and the early assimilation of the emerging models from the UK and, primarily, United States (ibid. 171-179). It is relevant that the more receptive contexts concerning state intervention in the popular library sector are – in apparent contradiction – not the most modelled by the French tradition, but those contaminated by or analogous to the Anglo-Saxon experience. This is linked to the fact, already evoked at the end of the previous paragraph, that the Public Library represented the ultimate realization of a model that is deprived of the “patrimonial” ideal but capable to combine the nationalization of library management – by means of internal revenue – with the democratic enlargement of access to library assets, as “popular library”. Assuming this perspective, I consciously accept another proposal by Traniello: contrasting previous opinions in literature, he points out (again, aiming at “de-ideologizing” library historical foundation) that the Public Library was not something radically different from the popular library, in which the offer aimed at the subordinate classes is replaced by a service «to all». Differently, it would be a specific example of the popular library, its most effective and historically successful realization (mainly for contingent reasons, such as the socio-political context and the rapidity of change). The characterization of the service not as sectorial but universal (unlike other conformations of the popular library) would be rather a gradual and more ambivalent fact, and, principally, the result of a “formal rationality” which shaped a system financed by specific fiscal sources and established the public library as utilitarian

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organisation (cf. §2), that addressed the issue of education and morality above the dimension of the Nationalisierung. Since the Public Library is the basic configuration of the library institute, as it is accepted and internationally recognised today, it behoves me to account the development of this service, in order to better understand its characteristics. The model was created, substantially in parallel, in the United Kingdom and the United States. Leaving aside, herein, the debate regarding the primacy between the two countries, I acknowledge the key role assumed by the British reforms, while the pre-eminence later recognised to the American library would be ascribable to the «impetuosity» of its formation and the subsequent slippage, on the general historical level, in terms of economic and cultural influences (ibid. 185). The rise of the Public Library has a clear historical connection with the industrial revolution, in a country that has been its supreme witness, starting from the relative economic and social changes. Among the elements that have shaped the favourable context, there are those more normative, sometimes related to the Chartist movement: a series of laws facilitating the diffusion of reading and periodic press, the extension of political participation (Reform Act, 1832) and, in particular, the foundation of the boroughs (Municipal Corporations Act, 1835) – the new local government unit that would be the protagonist of the Public Library – and the Museum Act of 1845. The latter, by authorizing local administrations to levy a tax for the establishment and maintenance of public museums, formed the foundation for the first new public libraries (e.g. Canterbury and Warrington), as well as the reference for the next and fundamental Public Library Act. Clearly, the legislative production related to information was an echo of strong tendencies in the field of public reading: similar to the contemporary continental contexts, in fact, the United Kingdom hosted several examples of public library as alternative to the main library institutes (e.g. the British Museum). On the one hand, there were the public libraries of the “Cabinets de lecture/Reading Rooms”, not free and open to

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members only; on the other hand, there were examples of the popular library, the “Free Libraries”, which – although not exempt from actual socio-economic exclusion – were aimed specifically for the lower and poorer classes. These libraries were realised, once again, on several inspirations: among these, we can identify the attention both to control of workforce for “productivity”, and to education and “class consciousness”, in the context of the emerging socialist positions. However, among the most important promoters – the middle-class bourgeois – the main motivation was the interest for public order and social morality (ibid. 191-193). Given these favourable conditions, in 1849, a political project was created for the constitution of a library system with new forms, realised as a concatenation of laws and crucial personal initiatives, by subjects such as William Ewart and Edward Edwards (whose contribution I do not intend to discuss in detail here). The institutional/legislative aspect of this foundation is crucial, both in general terms, as a distinctive feature of the model, and in relation to the role generally assigned to the state by English liberalism. The decisive passages were the First and Second editions of the “Select Committee on the best means of extending the establishment if Libraries open to the public, especially in large towns, in Great Britain and Ireland” (respectively, in 1849 and 1850), constituted in order to study the different European experiences, inspect the opinion of some professionals and devise a plan of proposals, also adequately considering the calculation between the social aims pursued and the economic means to achieve them. The main outcome of this work, on the legislative level, was the fundamental Public Libraries Act of 1850, which regulated the modalities for the foundation of new public libraries with free admission, through the introduction of necessary procedures and taxation for their creation by local administrations. Then, a series of rules have gradually extended the provisions of the Act to smaller urban centres, also providing an easier procedure for their creation and the increase of related tax

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contributions. Finally, in 1919, the abolition of the tax limit and the inclusion of library expenses in the ordinary local budgets were approved. We can locate in this process the argument, raised by Traniello, for the emergence of a library foundation as a social action oriented by formal rationality, «in which the main themes related to the history of industrial society are intertwined and recalled: from the identification of economic funds necessary for the performance of the services, their sources and their allocation, the methods for monitoring and then evaluating the management» (Traniello 2005:33). I conclude this section dedicated to the Public Library with a summary of the theme of its universal nature through the involvement of the subaltern categories. If, according to some people, this process can be interpreted as one of the reform achievements of the era, we can assert that it does not exactly answer to “bottom-up” claims – as we have seen – nor that the idea of “public” access has had a homogeneous and linear acceptation (Traniello 1997:186). Clearly, this idea did not refer to that of access to “national assets”, but to an information service. Even the “conservation” role of the library was excluded from this new project. However, considering the meaning and the recipients of public access and poorer classes, there was still a certain ambiguity, enough to raise the need for a definition of “public library” in the context of the Committee itself. This concept, in fact, was intended as a continuum of meanings, from a more “continental” idea of public library, to that of the emerging popular library, as a specific mission for the humblest groups. The first – still within the idea of study and the eighteenth-century vision of “public”, albeit enlarged – reflected the idea of public management, able to guarantee equal and larger access, in terms of resources, compared to “private” collections. The second, generally expressed with the meaningful name of “Free Library”, was the prevailing denotation to which, with fundamental consequence, the very notion of Public Library was officially and definitively related. The Act of 1850 founded, in fact, a public library with free admission, made possible

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through the support of public funds (initially guaranteed by a special tax) and able to extend access to all segments of the population, literate or in the process of literacy. In a context of modernization, the Public Library model resumed the “Revolutionary” experience of public management, introducing a robust institutionalization on territorial basis and a more explicit (and economically founded) offer in terms of “public service”, albeit with reasonable initial limits.

2.

Free access as a universal and foundational value In the previous section, I reconstructed the historical evolution of the public library as an

institution and a model of service with certain essential characteristics. As anticipated in the beginning, I was not aiming to propose a mere alternative reading of the history of public library to «de-ideologize», as intended by Paolo Traniello, the foundation of this institution. My intent was rather to exploit a process of “unveiling” to present a more complete reconstruction of the universal character of the public library, able to bear witness to the intrinsic ambiguities, both in the historical foundation of the public service and in the ideal references in the debate concerning the accessibility to its resources and spaces. We can now try to summarise the outcome of this path and outline an image of a contemporary ideology of the public library, globally institutionalised. In this way, we bring to light all those elements of ambivalence and friction, internal to the ideology itself, which will be completely dealt with in the next chapter. The progressive affirmation of the public library over the twentieth century explicitly takes place in the shape of the Anglo-Saxon model. On a historical level, it should be noted that a first change in Europe of the “popular library” in the direction of the Public Library formula took place in diverse ways within in the European context, not only between centralnorthern and southern areas, but also between the liberal democracies, the totalitarian fascist

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countries, and the Soviet regime. In the case of nationalist countries, the reform of the public library in the contemporary sense was primarily based on the revival of the ideas of “people” and “nation”, with a view to cultural control and education policy (Traniello 1997:261). The Soviet library, on the other hand, established itself as an «instrument offered to the proletariat to achieve, through its cultural elevation and the appropriation of the tools of scientific information, the hegemony which belongs to it in the Marxist-Leninist vision of society and the State» (ibid. 267). These inspirations, together with the different legacies of the “patrimonial” archetypal of the public library (e.g. in Mediterranean areas), have maintained a fundamental influence in the different contexts, concerning the theme of “publicness” and the legitimate publics-recipients of libraries (cf. Ch. II §2.2). Nevertheless, it is crucial how, through the most authentic influences of the Anglo-Saxon model – especially under the American influence after World War II – the issue of accessibility in the public library has been considerably loaded with a democratic and universalistic emphasis. This library ideology has been an evolving expression of the long-standing trust (cf. §1) in the power of books and reading and the role of the public library in democracy – that Library Faith, still witnessed by Oliver Garceau in his “The public library in the political process” (1949), a report of the renowned Public Library Inquiry (1946). The original development of the Public Library, as I mentioned, followed a universalist and democratic intention in a more limited and ambivalent way compared with its perception and transmission. The model has evolved on the opening to new social categories, but nonlinearly, among philanthropic intentions and the concern for control and social order. Even so, there has been a kind of renewal of the previous egalitarian ideals of enlightenment, through the realization within British and American liberalism; and this remains, despite new historical and social challenges, the core reference point for the perception of the public library. In the understanding of this evolution, the complex notion of “public” – in the

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English scenario itself – reflects the apparent contrast between the state-run process of institutionalization and English liberalism, ideally reluctant to public interference: by not completely excluding the influences of the bottom-up reforming instances and of the concern for social morality in itself, the interpretative key lies in the liberal idea of (meritocratic) equal access to the means for self-development, with all the complexities still encompassed by this value (Traniello 1997:240). In this regard, Matthew Williamson (2000) proposes an appropriate insight into the public library’s mission arising from the nineteenth century’s attention to moral improvement. Considering J. S. Mill’s utilitarianism as lessening of inequalities and the Habermasian perspective of the public sphere, Williamson illustrates the public library as «a clearly utilitarian organization» whose public accessibility, accountability and independence should provide means for justice and equality to everyone. The public library assumed a universal mission within the public sphere, ensuring «state action in those circumstances where hindrances to fuller self-development could be removed» (p.180). From a complementary point of view, the Public Library, as a utilitarian and rational answer to social needs, has been progressively sensitive to the concept of “user/customer”: With this term, we want to designate the library public as the bearer of demand of services that can be evaluated economically and in terms of costs, and reachable by the requested services, or by other proposals from the same service, to a greater or lesser extent, also evaluable in relation to the way of configuring the same offer (Traniello 2005:49)

Both economically and politically, this innovative way of conceiving the public library emphasises the issue of the relationship between the interests of those who fund the expense and direct customers as (through the free access) two groups that may not directly overlap. Thus, the theme of positive “externalities” in the sense of widespread benefits guaranteed by

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the service – consistently with Mill’s utilitarianism – raises the issue of “responsibility” in terms of budget expenditure on activities (cf. Ch. II), with a difficult debate between the interest of the general, idealised, tax-payers’ community and the specificity of some needbased services, between the supposed « “deserving” versus “undeserving” individuals» (Yemini-Halevi 2015:3). Not only the status of the public library as a “merit good” entails cyclical crises in terms of its collective recognition (cf. Olivo 2010), but the very reference public appears uncertain. Since 1850, the library has been a “public service”, in the twofold sense of being born as a public act (collectively administered through the distribution of costs among taxpayers) and of guaranteeing a modern service aimed at a community, in an open and inclusive way. The category of “user” is thus understood generally/universally, but not as “generic”: the group of users is conceived in components, to respond to articulated needs and guarantee «equal opportunities» (Traniello 1997:252). In this sense, its initial purposes sometimes relate the public library to the group of “social services”, «namely the set of services aimed at individuals or groups in order to remove situations of particular need or disparity and to facilitate the insertion in the social community» (Traniello 2005:41). If this recalls the mentioned public library’s mission as epitome of public sphere, it nevertheless enhances the intricate debate concerning the social responsibility of the public library and the boundaries defining the activities that can – or should – be promoted by this institution rather than others (cf. Ch. II). Although common debate concerning user segmentation is relatively more recent than the foundation of the public library, some reflections on inequalities of access were immediately expressed, for example, with respect to the issue of diffusion in rural territories or that of people with special needs (Traniello 1997:253-256). The democratic role of the public library, concerning socio-economic barriers or specific minorities, is today perceived

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as a universal ideal, and promoted by the main guidelines in the sector (e.g. UNESCO 1994, IFLA 2003, ALA 1943; 2008; 2012a; 2012b): Freedom, prosperity and the development of society and of individuals are fundamental human values. They will only be attained through the ability of wellinformed citizens to exercise their democratic rights and to play an active role in society. Constructive participation and the development of democracy depend on satisfactory education as well as on free and unlimited access to knowledge, thought, culture and information. […] The services of the public library are provided on the basis of equality of access for all, regardless of age, race, sex, religion, nationality, language or social status. Specific services and materials must be provided for those users who cannot, for whatever reason, use the regular services and materials, for example linguistic minorities, people with disabilities or people in hospital or prison. (UNESCO 1994:1, emphasis added)

The “ideology” of the public library’s universality has emerged through a complex and ambivalent process, from a collective ideal based on the notion of national good, to the universality of access in terms of equality within a society, and then, lastly, to open access as a human right to be globally guaranteed. Historical contradictions (amplified by some territorial peculiarities) remain, concerning the very role of the public library – among conservation, education and leisure – the proper public-recipient of the services and, thus, the physical and symbolical borders of legitimate accessibility inside this specific realm of the public sphere. Therefore, as stated by Simmons (1985:115), if «it has generally been accepted that “public” indicated not only that anyone is entitled to be in the library [...] but that it is the mission of the public library to serve the whole of society» we should acknowledge that «who comprises the public library’s public is another concern». When the topic of inequalities is generally addressed in the public library sector, policies and narrations are framed within the mission of equal response for (in)formative and cultural

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needs, referring to the role, albeit unstable, as agent of democracy and development. However, the so-called topics of “improper uses” or “problem patrons” (using two evocative and controversial expressions for the issues concerning marginalised library patrons) recall different implications on accessibility, partly discussed in literature and inherently more problematic in their connection to the ideal of egalitarian public service. On one hand, as we have seen, the public library has a prime role in the cessation of injustice and the promotion of self-help: thus, as stated by Williamson (2000:180), it is the ideal place for the socially marginalised, who are elsewhere «excluded because their lifestyles do not match those which are deemed “acceptable” by the majority» and «do not have access to the mechanisms which exist for the majority of the populace». Practically, when the public libraries are used and perceived mainly – if not exclusively – as public spaces that offer safe shelter, comfortable temperature and chance to sleep, bathe or simply spend the day, a section of the population may be labelled as problematic. In a place where free and public access is guaranteed to achieve self-development – not lacking a certain elitism and paternalism – many patrons that «frequently use a newspaper, magazine, or book [just] as a prop to justify their presence» become a “problem”, because of their abnormal (occasionally criminal) or simply irritating and scary behaviour (Simmons 1985:14-15). Based on external social tendencies as well as internal logics of the institution, the “yoke of the majority” against which the public library would be a main bulwark of democracy (Williamson 2000:180), breaks into its borders, undermining its identity within the idea of public sphere. Discrimination and stigmatization processes in public libraries can only be addressed to a limited extent by the concern for the civilian equal right to access of information and technology: these phenomena not only risk fostering or erecting socio-economic barriers, but they also bring to light a series of internal difficulties between the very ideals of publicness and the normal administration of a public service. The diverse needs of

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disadvantaged patrons are scarcely addressed in library literature (Yemini-Halevi 2015), although in recent years many libraries report positive programs and profitable relations with other institutions (Salter & Salter 2004:347); even less has been written on the role of the public library between publicness and discrimination, having to deal with these populations and the divergent claims of “general” public. My argument is that the elements explored in this section constitute a relevant framework for an improved understanding and nonnormative evaluation of the “problematic” uses in the public library and, therefore, for the more general account of free access in public spaces. In the next chapter, I will introduce some additional elements, describing the dimensions of materiality and interaction in the public domain, and address the very issue of “problematic publics” opposed to legitimate patrons.

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II. The issue of “problematic” patrons

When, in an attempt to build my own useful network, I attended conferences on homeless issues, I was always met with puzzlement and the question: “What are you doing here?”. “Where do you think they go during the day?” I would invariably answer. C. Ward (2007) Retired assistant director of the Salt Lake City Public Library System

The quotation above, from a successful post by Chip Ward, gives clear evidence of some relevant dimensions: the existence of users perceived as “problematic” in the public library (homeless patrons, herein), the recurrent understating and rejection of the issue, the need for response and the possibility to base it on new information and networks. The topic of this chapter is exactly the problematisation of library patrons, intended as a social fact involving specific processes and forces. I will explore how a part of the public library’s population came to be perceived and stigmatised as problematic in some extent, and I will propose a typology of how, more generally, the issue of the so-called “problem patrons” is narrated and handled in the library sector, one of those most proud to be open and egalitarian. Before entering into these topics, I think it is useful to better consider the socio-spatial stage of the phenomenon, supplementing my arguments on the themes of coexistence, irritation and tolerability in public space. We have already seen how the public library may be understood as epitome of the public sphere: to address the theme of accessibility in the public library means to also consider the elements of materiality and interaction that define

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thresholds in the public space, as an analytical lens as well as social environment – at least in the West.

1.

The public library as “public domain” Proceeding from the idea of the public library as a paradigm of the public sphere, the key

point concerning my analysis is the fragmentation of the public within its spaces, understood not so much as segmentation of the users and their relative needs, but precisely as form of social construction of deviance. The subdivision of the public with regard to the use of spaces, through the management of legitimate visibility and circularity, expresses relations of asymmetry within the population of the public library, representing the most critical dimension in which the contradiction of a “problematic” access to this “universal-utilitarian” institution is expressed. As we have seen, the public library has emerged as a peculiar service influenced by the parallel formulation and development of the bourgeois notion of “public”, as a group of individuals as well as the common space defined to express their social and political prerogatives. While a (more or less) specific acceptation of “public” may be demarcated by the ideal and formal frameworks of the library institution and librarians’ professional ethic, as Andrea Brighenti (2010) points out, we cannot sociologically define it just on any normative frame. Otherwise, in order to disclose the frequent cleavage between the formal characterisation of a certain space and its actual usage, Brighenti acknowledges the criticality of accessibility: rather than being completely unrestricted, public space is shaped by «low entry» thresholds, whose different degree of enforcement is what may define the public in its complete social significance (ibid. 29-30). Being so complexified, the notion of “public space” encounters in fortiori the theme of segmentation of the public and its construction. On the subject, Brighenti’s analysis builds

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on the limits of the idea of a plurality within the public sphere, defined with H. Arendt and J. Habermas as «grounded in the existence of a life in common»: Once we introduce the idea of a plurality of communicative arenas – whose existence, we should remember, is a fact – can we still refer to each of them as ‘public’? Or are we, on the contrary, before a different configuration? If we can speak of ‘public life’, how many ‘public lives’ can exist? Public lives can only be the lives of (private) people in public, but once again that only shifts the question: what is ‘public’? Are counter-publics really publics, or are they in fact non-public publics? I believe the latter is the case. (ibid. 19-20)

Far from being something negative or unsympathetic – Brighenti states – the notion of “nonpublic” addresses the factual existence of counter-subjects and their claims, with respect to a mainstream in which the «communitarian, subcultural or oppositional minorities» notably intervene but preserving – and being defined by – their subaltern position. Thus, in the attempt to overcome the contradictions regarding the idea that the public should belong neither to any institution nor specific social group, Brighenti suggests distinguishing the public from any entity that might reclaim it or be associated with it and considering the degree of accessibility in which subjects and institutions may express themselves. Similarly to Splichal (2016:5), Brighenti intends the idea of publicness not only as intervisibility, but also as a specific communication structure that allow subjects to live “in public”: the always fragmented interactions between social entities define themselves in the public space and how they access this domain. As hinted, Brighenti asserts, following Isaac Joseph, that «the public is inherently a phenomenon of thresholds» (Brighenti 2010:36) and their management shapes the affordance of spaces in the public – viz. their use and purpose perceived by people – so its actualisation. Some of these practices, relevant in contemporary issues on the public, are the visibility asymmetries generated by surveillance, the forms of restriction to access by means of checkpoints, and the performative power of the very

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categories of professional surveillance knowledge (ivi). As also pointed out by Splichal (2016), the act of “making visible” does not only allow access, but it may also be instrumental to several forms of purposive influence: «disciplinary visibility in surveillance is aimed at suppression of diversity, forced compliance, and conformity, which ultimately makes the visible invisible» (2016:8). Therefore, moving on to the theme of the public and non-public in the library – namely the distinction of a legitimate informational-communicative arena and a sphere of “challenging” uses and users – a fecund approach is, similarly, «to imagine the public as a register of interaction and a regime of visibility» (Brighenti 2010:36), analysing how these elements product a spectrum of socially defined accessibility. Another relevant contribution to the topic is the collocation of the relational façade in the proper spatial and material constraints that constitute the public. By establishing a dialogue between the different traditions belonging to social theorists, interactionist sociology and urban scholars, Brighenti adequately reveals how the actualisation of the public through the shaping of its boundaries is inherently defined by the materiality of spaces and the immaterial qualities incorporated by relations (ibid. p.26). In order to appreciate the publicness in this multi-faceted character, he introduces the idea of “public domain”, intended as the convergence of material and immaterial elements, an «encompassing and general term to address issues traditionally associated in various ways with the public sphere, the public realm, public space and public order». Among these “material-cum-immaterial constructs”, the public order is a key concept, as it epitomises the tendency to create thresholds of acceptability on the basis of specific ideas of order and legitimate actions in the public space. public order is an active practice of ordering public space, setting flows and boundaries, calculating possible events which are going to occur with a certain

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probability. More precisely, public order is not order per se, but rather entails managing the thresholds within which disorder is acceptable. (ibid. p.32)

As summarised by Brighenti, the accessibility of public space for multiple subjects is achieved by the fact that it is always a «governed place», whose integrity and functioning is guaranteed by an administrative agency (ivi). The regulation of acceptable and unacceptable uses of public space come to be physically and normally inscribed in the material and social environment of the public domain, starting from the science of control of eighteenth century to the re-emergence of “law and order” policies in the neoliberalism of the 1980s (cf §2.1). Through the dispositifs de sécurité identified by Foucault, «the discourse of liberalism did not fall in contradiction but could rather ally itself with governmental practices: […] liberalism represented since its inception a specific type of governmental rationality» (ivi), as we have well recognised in the very example of the Public Library model. As observed by John Gehner (2005), today public libraries continue to convey their ambivalent enforcement and, by defining and controlling what is acceptable behaviour in library public space, they may participate in “the annihilation of space by law” (Mitchell 1997) to the detriment of the poorest citizens. I will return later on how accessibility in the public library is shaped by material-cumimmaterial elements, considering the contributions of Actor-Network Theory on the theme of territorial impacts on everyday life in public spaces (Kärrholm 2007a, 2007b), and presenting some hints on the «intriguing reflections about cultural and cross-cultural perceptions and symbolic discourses on purity, contamination, idiocy, and madness» that Brighenti recognised but consciously left aside. Dwelling instead on the ideas of communality and thresholds within the library as public domain, further suggestions by Brighenti can be offered regarding the two concepts of the Public and the Common (2016).

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Both the public and the common are forms of gathering; both are also forms of taking care, although in remarkably different frameworks. Whereas the public privileges foam formations in which people are kept together by what sets them apart, the common privileges the atmospheric condition of rhythmical (respiratory) continuity (Brighenti 2016:326)

Brighenti identifies the public and the common as two non-dichotomous, spatially, and temporally coexistent points of view on the “togetherness” of social life. Their relevant complementarity regards that process of “coming into existence” which defines the public itself « through the making visible of an issue that affects a group of people, thereby turning them into a community of the affected» (Brighenti 2016: 315). In fact, the perspective he adopted on the concepts is analogous to the relationship displayed by Victor Turner between what he called communitas and societas. While the former is the egalitarian and performative moment that precedes any form of social specifications, the latter is the experience of lifein-common realised by mutual exclusion, asymmetries, and the maintenance of a “social structure” (ibid. p.316): Consequently, just as the public corresponds to an experience of visibility, the common is located in an area of relative invisibility. In this sense, commonality forms a sort of implicit condition for the constitution of a public. If the public seems to presuppose the existence of the common, it is because we could not make anything public without some degree of commonality—at the very least, a commonality of beholders attesting that things come into existence. At the same time, though, precisely because what happens in public is visible to a multiplicity of subjects, we should also say it is publicness itself that institutes commonality. Such a complex double relation, perhaps, might be summarized by saying that, on the one hand, the common is the (invisible) element in which the public comes into existence, and on the other, publicness is what institutes all (visible) commonality. (ibid. p.315)

This understanding, together with the other pertinent concepts we have addressed on the public library as public domain, assists us in tackling the issue of belonging and

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segmentation. We can glimpse the dimension of common in the ideology that places the public library in the public sphere as a field of equal and free expression (I.2.), and thus expressing the continuity within this public domain. But this is realised (it comes into existence) only by the institution of its public, the historically located form of societas embodied by the public service, yet connected to the liberal notions of public order, moral development, and security. Indeed, the complex and ambivalent set of values that constitutes the common of the public library, when realised as a form of existence/visibility in the public – characterised by fragmentation and control rather than continuity – create the terrain in which the population of patrons is governed and divided between library’s public and “nonpublic public”, being the latter problematic on the base of an ever-negotiated management of circularity, visibility thresholds and acceptable disorder in respect to ambivalent assumptions and expectations.

2.

“Who belongs here?” Legitimate accessibility and deviant behaviours

2.1.

Perspectives and definitions: creating the “problem patron”

Foundations. The appearance of grievances and problems related to the access of some individuals to public libraries is not a recent phenomenon (Peatling 2002). According to Barbier (2016:358), it goes back to the first historical prodromes of the institution: for example, after 1833 when the Royal Library of Paris was enlarged and furnished with a public reading room, it was reported that the opening to a more general public implied «complaints about the presence of readers who, according to some, should not be admitted to the room». Even after the institutionalisation and diffusion of the library service in the popular sense, with the progressive awareness (and pride) of its social mission, the public

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library has regularly found it difficult to encounter its most marginalised constituencies, first of all the poor, the homeless and the destitute mentally ill (Chatoo 2002, Peatling 2002, Salter & Salter 2004, Barrows 2014). As described by Chattoo (2002:13), since public libraries introduced rules to admit the general public, they have also adjusted regulations and standards to govern library use and accepted behaviours in their spaces, some, however, being directed to specific deprived social groups. The literature between the end of nineteenth century and the early twentieth century reports complaints from both the United Kingdom and the United States about “library loafers”; other similar demeaning terms were used to refer to undesired or problematic patrons, such as “library pests” and “idle hands and idle minds” (ibid.). Gary K. Peatling (2002), investigating the experience of British public libraries between 1850 and 1919, confirms that there were significant levels of concern that public libraries would be abused by their intended users. One of the main worries, for example, was betting: not even the action in itself, but the reading of “betting intelligence” was considered a misuse of public resources and persecuted in many libraries. Even if there was not convergence among different libraries, common implemented solutions to the problem of gambling-related information comprised the censorship of betting sections in the newspapers, the removal of comfortable seating and even the abolition of reading rooms. As stated by Peatling (2002:40), «librarians’ hostility to “betting men” reflected the hegemonic faith (and self-justification) of the middle classes as much as real problems of order in libraries». Indeed, most concerns for certain patrons’ behaviours did not exclusively refer to harmful or criminal practices, but to a wide spectrum of conducts, often on the base of stigmatised assumptions of specific groups, such as the “grumbler” or the more generic «idle loafer who uses the reading-rooms merely as a shelter and resting-place», and the «coarse-mannered and unwashed», normally opposed to the ideal «bona fide users» (ibid. 39-40). Even today, the same or similar policies are suggested and implemented by librarians

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to dissuade patrons with an interest in specific activities or remove undesired groups themselves (Peatling 2002, Henry 2003), in accordance with the managing of acceptability thresholds within the structured domain of the public (Brighenti 2016), based on the rhetoric of public decency and blight (Pitch 2013). Over the decades, many norms as well as forms of defensive/hostile architecture have widely obstructed various kinds of behaviours – such as lingering, sleeping, carrying bags – raising significant reflections and debates on the legitimate boundaries of control procedures. The complexity of the issue, from its very beginning, has thus resided in the fluid value of publicness and ambivalent expectations on public libraries, that widely range between the protection of public property, asymmetric considerations of public morality and the social construction of “proper use” (mainly the quiet, disciplined dedication to self-improvement). Later perspectives. According to Salter & Salter (2004:346), library literature had little direct mention of specific social categories, such as the homeless, before the late 1970s: «such individuals were often described with euphemisms, in the context of the problems they seemed to cause (mostly hygiene-related) that brought complaints from other citizens». Albeit the judgment seems to overestimate the change of categories, the authors properly assess the emergence of a renewed and peculiar attention to the issue during the 1970s and 1980s, with the appearance – primarily in the English-language literature – of another demeaning phrase: “problem patron”9. From these decades onwards, more and more public libraries denounced recurrent problems concerning people with personal difficulties and no other house but the library, while literature often focused on policies to govern behaviours and hygiene of those disadvantaged patrons (Simmons 1985, Silver 1996, Salter & Salter

9

I would like to acknowledge dr. Krystyna Matusiak for her encouragement and advice during my poster session at the Researcher-Librarian Training Workshop, IFLA – LTR Section (March 2018). Concerning the “problem patron”, she reminded me how the phrase continues to be revalued with sensitivity, starting from the academic community. As I had the opportunity to discuss, while ensuring that we do not perpetuate their symbolic power, it is sociologically relevant to address and deconstruct these types of concepts within a field.

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2004). This revival of concern for public order and purity, also reflecting the wider intensification of neoliberal security narratives, was clearly fostered by news stories of significant resonance, which became a central source and ground for the polarisation of the debate on the subject. These events include, for example, the well-known American case of Richard Kreimer10, a homeless man who in 1990 sued the Morristown, New Jersey Public Library, for being barred access on several occasions because his staring and hygiene annoyed other patrons (Hanley 1991a; 1991b, Shuman 1996). In 1991, federal district court ruled the library had violated Kreimer’s rights and that the policies on the standards of behaviour, dress and hygiene, adopted in 1989, were «unacceptably vague and overbroad». After the ruling divided the library profession, the case was overturned on appeal in 1992, but the general issue remains (Barrows 2014) and the lawsuit stood for years as a landmark in the area of library access, nurturing a critical change in regulation writing and user treatment (Murphy 1999, Salter & Salter 2004, Kelly 2006, Yemini-Halevi 2015). The phrase “problem patron”, albeit debated, has certainly been «part of the collective vocabulary of libraries to describe users such as vandals, flashers, people who smell bad, angry persons and even the homeless» (Chattoo 2002:12) and it continues to suggest that dealing with challenging conditions is a real issue in public libraries (Ferrell 2010:142). Indeed, besides being a peculiar expression of English-language writings in general, its specific use is particularly pertinent to the Anglo-Saxon contexts, where it is also losing acceptance: otherwise, more indirect references, or phrases such as “improper users”, “patrons with special needs” or some denoting specific categories, are preferred11. However, I want to address the expression because of its importance and its representativeness:

10

Kreimer vs. Town of Morristown et al, 958 F2d. 1242 (3d Cir.), 1992

11

Regarding the problem of a complete comparative analysis on the topic, and the consideration of territorial peculiarities, see my notes in Introduction and in the following section: I will return to discuss, in part, how the different contexts participate in defining the boundaries of the issue and its language.

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actually, the phenomenon dates back from previous periods and yet goes beyond specific terms, but nevertheless, key concepts within a field always bring a central significance. “Problem patron” not only became a common descriptor and keyword for relevant literature on the topic (ivi), but it embodies a pivotal point: the relationship between the problems identified in patrons’ behaviour and the problem as reflection of librarians’ difficulty, that leads to the naturalisation of certain nuisances through a category. As reported by Chattoo (2002:12), «the word “problem” when used as an adjective, as it is in the phrase “problem patron,” denotes the meaning of dealing with a problem of conduct or social relationship and “difficult to deal with” ». However, the ordinary use of the phrase – Chattoo asserts – seems ambiguous because, based on the its conventional idea, recalling trouble or abnormal behaviour, one may wonder if library users who actually fall into the category are the only problem patrons. In response to the context and the nature of their actions and demands, different users in the public library may appear as either a “problem” or patrons with problems. Moreover, as I will recall, many “respectable” patrons with questionable conduct may not be perceived as a problem at all. Similar reflections, not fully developed, had already been raised by Simmons (1985) and Shuman (1989), regarding the difficulty in discerning harmful actions from minor situations of annoyance. According to Ferrell (2010:143), Chattoo’s observations raise the fascinating «idea of the problem as something beyond the patron or the behaviour», drawing attention to the expectations of librarians (and other users). Following a similar perspective, for example, Chalton (2002) addresses how the public libraries create the «young adult problem patron», on the basis of «taken-for-granted service assumptions». Both Chattoo and Ferrel conveniently conclude that the complete meaning of the phrase, the symbolic borders of the category, should be addressed by considering its interactional and situated usage. Before

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developing this profitable direction, it is relevant to evaluate the more typical positions on the issue during the last decades. As acknowledged by Yemini-Halevi (2015), Randal C. Simmons (1985) was among the first who critically addressed the literature on the “problem patron”, in order to define the subject and analyse the attitudes of the public library towards the population from poor social classes across the United States. According to the author, «very little research» had been conducted, while the majority of works in library literature tended «to be (1) reports of conferences and workshops on the problem patron, (2) how-to-handle-the-problem patron articles, and (3) anecdotal descriptions of problems faced in various libraries or narrative descriptions of problem patrons encountered in given settings» (Simmons 1985:110). Consistently, among the main themes concerning the issue, Simmons identified the offences to other patrons, the offences to library staff, and the «balancing» of rights in favour of the «real library users» (ibid. 113). Moreover, two standing perspectives were the idea that friendly and open assistance are to the public library’s detriment, attracting «nonusers», and the confusion of civility with antisocial and criminal behaviour, categorised by Simmons as form of «elitism» and «snobbery». Yemini-Halevi (2015:5) argues that the professional literature has continued for decades to focus on identifying problem behaviours and appropriate solutions. However, among the two typical approaches already acknowledged by Simmons and Shuman in the 1980s – reactive and proactive – the former continued to prevail and have a particular impact. Reactive solutions tend to be coercive and focused on the library itself rather than nurture change: they include, for example, hiring security staff, writing detailed codes of conduct, keeping behaviour logs on specific persons (ivi). Several librarians and scholars, such as Kelly (2006), although they expressed greater courtesy and avoided humiliating vocabulary, openly advocate the reactive attempt to extend formal control from disruptive behaviour to appearance and hygiene, focusing on how norms should

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be constructed and enforced. The predominance of “normative literature”, intended as oriented towards the formulation of bounds, plans and guidelines to prevent the library from becoming unsafe or a temporary shelter for undesired people, was fostered by what Barrows (2014:2) described as one of the effects of lawsuits in the 1980s: the concern in avoiding liability by patrons removed for their appearance or hygiene, introducing policies «reasonable, and not vague, and not overbroad in their application». Furthermore, several publications maintained a radical complaint line on the subject, claiming, for example, that the library profession «is not meant to encompass social work» (Yemini-Halevi 2015:4). Despite the inclinations above, over last decades different approaches have increased. They are oriented towards proactive responses and ponder on the social responsibilities of the public library. Many inclusive policies have developed locally, often being covered by generalist media, while an increasing proportion is also adequately analysed in professional and academic literature, addressing the relevance of inspiring case studies and the need to also serve the most disadvantaged citizens. First, some authors recall the publicness of library services and the value of impartiality as critical standpoints. They claim on legal basis the protection of free expression and access to information, as well as the equal treatment of patrons (Shuman 1996, Murphy 1999, Barrows 2014). In addition to juridical responsibilities, others endorse the image of librarianship as a «helping profession» addressed to all, thus the obligation to respond to all particular needs of all user groups (Yemini-Halevi 2005, Ayers 2006, Delica & Elbeshausen 2015). For instance, the sociologist Serge Paugam conducted for the Bibliothèque Publique d’information (Bpi) – a large public reference library in the Centre Pompidou in Paris – the first French study on the habits, needs and demands of frequent users with poor living conditions (Gaudet 2013). Paugam analysed the experience of refugees, migrants, homeless and people with mental health issues, in order to identify inequalities and to understand whether the library should

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offer the same programs to all the public or whether it should target special specific groups. Likewise, in his research concerning the New York Public Library (NPL) – a renowned network of research and branch libraries – Yemini-Halevi denounced the lack of studies on «the information needs and the use of the library for “library purposes” by homeless patrons» (2015:3). Recalling «the basic concept of civilian equal right to access of information and technology», the author advocated the idea of addressing such categories as group of patrons with special needs, deserving the same attention and respect already recognised for other minorities. «For a homeless person» Yemini-Halevi argued, «the only access to a computer and consequently to electronic information and the Internet is in most cases the public library». Being so, the key role of the public library in bridging the economic digital divide – central in NPL key study – is a suitable example for a legitimate and impartial attention to the most deprived patrons, in spite of possible annoyances. Another approach to improve the traditional informational services to meet the needs of disadvantaged users is to remodel the library spaces, by analysing how they are perceived and experienced (Agnoli 2009:21-26): for example, the joint city-university library of San José, California has considered how the reference desk can be intimidating to the homeless population (Collins et al. 2009:113). Others, such as Murphy (1999), suggest that homeless people – particularly the mentally ill – should be accorded rights under the norms concerning disabilities, or similar protections. Apart from the specificities – the indistinct overlap between poverty and disability may lead to substantial simplifications and labelling – these positions suggest the adoption of affirmative action policies/ positive discrimination (Usherwood & Linley 2000). Indeed, the consideration of social responsibilities towards inequalities often goes beyond the “special needs” intended as specific informational necessities or the removal of resource barriers. Even if librarians’ concern is addressed to the “traditional” informational, educational, and recreational services, the necessity to identify unique needs may easily inspire wider

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reflections on the role of the public library and on the collective inability to deal with phenomena such as poverty and social exclusion. In first place, the idea that libraries can be experienced as safe shelters, comfortable places to spend time, or where disadvantaged groups find opportunities for interaction and meaningful belonging, has been addressed with increasing awareness and interest (Audunson 2005, Audunson et al. 2007, Vårheim 2007, Branyon 2010). Furthermore, the common assumption that in-depth, specialised services to individuals with special needs are completely beyond the scope or intent of traditional library service has been progressively called into question (Salter & Salter 2004, Ayers 2006, Frederiksen 2016). In this regard, I identify two typical perspectives. First, the implementation of complementary services customised for special needs – restrooms, employment services, legal assistance, childcare service, activities for newcomers (Silver 1996, Gehner & Freeman 2005, Ayers 2006, Collins et al. 2009, Johnston 2016, Johnston & Audunson 2017). Second, the establishment of constructive partnerships between services and institutions: public libraries may host social workers, creating networks with other agencies to provide primary services, help patrons find additional places where to spend time (Murphy 1999, Cart 2002, Gehner 2005b, Gary 2015, Sandi 2015). As well as “normative” approaches, the more critical and proactive literature, aimed at denouncing the responsibilities of the library sector or the collective inability to deal with inequalities and segregation, highlights both the strengths and limits of the issue. Most authors put extreme trust upon the founding values of inclusion and equal access, with the risk of offering simplistic analyses and romantic solutions. On the other hand, while the main positions in literature continue to have a prevalently descriptive, classifying or anecdotal nature, some “romantic-critical” perspectives provide a first contribution towards a more analytic understanding: in addition, to stress real problems related to the denial of free access, some authors disclose a first and important awareness of the complexity that binds

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the acceptability of “proper” or “improper” behaviours, and certain disadvantaged categories. First, many analyses illustrate that disadvantaged citizens do not perform only inappropriate and dangerous acts, but also activities that are considered appropriate and beneficial to their condition. Moreover, while maintaining the risk of simplifying or underestimating actual problems, these studies describe how certain social categories are often subjected to simplifications and stigma: primarily, the link between economic disadvantage or socially deviant behaviour, with “improper” and criminal conduct. Definitions and thresholds. In this direction, some works address the problem of discretionary regulation, disclosing asymmetries in the recognition and labelling of “improper users”. The expected starting point, therefore, is the attempt to identify a definition of “problem patron” and “inappropriate conduct” that, developing from that idea «of dealing with a problem of conduct or social relationship» (Chattoo 2002:12), may determine whether librarians’ concerns equally target all social groups or not. The definitional problem was first identified by Simmons (1985) and Shuman (1989), who critically reviewed contemporary library literature and tendencies on the “problem patron”. According to Simmons, the phrase encompassed so many behaviours or people – assault or physical threats, chatty patrons, disruptive and unattended children, eating and drinking – that he declared a total «lack of consensus as to what or whom the term refers» (1985:111). Likewise, Shuman has illustrated the weaknesses of comprehensive acceptations. Adopting the idea of “problem patron” as «anyone who is doing anything illegal, immoral, annoying, or upsetting to anyone else», or «anyone who visits the library and either breaks or flouts existing rules, or presents an actual or potential threat to other persons within the building» (ibid. 6), the individuals who may be labelled as problems remain widely different: criminals, sleepers, “latchkey children”, talkative elderly people, as well as anyone with a «bizarre or disturbing behaviour» (ibid. 8-11). The author has

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advocated that «rules and policies have been enacted for the preservation of order and the protection of the common welfare», and they should be applied equally and with continuity, directing all those «members of the public who exhibit problematical behavior patterns in libraries» (ibid. 4). Nevertheless, both Simmons and Shuman have identified a major focus on homeless, people with mental health issues, transients, and other deviants, with the tendency to vaguely comprehend “emergencies” and “nuisances”. Indeed, besides the distinction between normative and critical perspectives, a second important opposition in literature is defined by the object of analysis. According to Ferrell (2010:142), literature suggests dichotomous positions: some definitions focus on specific categories with certain undesired characteristics and thus labelled as problematic (problem users), while others emphasise the conduct behind challenging situations, regardless of the people doing them (problem behaviours). Among the former – as I mentioned – a major portion targets the “chronically homeless”, blamed for using public libraries as safe and comfortable shelters and for taking books and newspapers mainly to justify their presence (Simmons 1985:113). Some of the problem user approaches have extended easy identifications, recognizing the multiple origins of homelessness, or including other patrons with poor living conditions (refugees, recent economic migrants, unemployed persons). More important, some scholars have returned to include individuals who are not deprived, nurturing a shift in favour of problem behaviours approaches, especially during the 1990s (Chelton 2002). Ferrel understands this tendency as a response to the awareness that patrons are multifaceted and that behaviour is more effective dimension to produce change: Labeling a problem patron as homeless does not accurately reflect the challenge that person brings to the library. Focusing instead on behavior allows the librarian to define the same expectations for all patrons. This behavioral focus gives a librarian a starting point for problem solving, or a concrete goal to work toward. (2010:142)

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2.2.

A new insight into the stigmatisation of the disadvantaged

Deviance perception and definitions The emphasis on conduct rather than on individuals does not obviate the problem of discretional control, neither the assumption that the problem may lie within the patron. If “problem” is an assigned label, «not reflective of the individual as a whole» (ibid.143), we need to observe the variety of interactional occurrences regarding deviance identification. In this regard, we are dealing with the familiar problem of the informal or institutional definition of norms, as well as the problem of discretionary application – the criminalisation of groups (cf. Sbraccia & Vianello 2010). An appropriate contribution concerns those taxonomic approaches that account for the variety of individuals and behaviours encompassed by the idea of “improper” conduct and emphasise the relevance of acceptability thresholds. Classifications, if designed critically and not fostering inflexible labels and hegemony, may lead to the appreciation of continuities and demarcations in the definition of what is “acceptable” or “problematic”. Shuman, for example, suggests a simple taxonomy of problem patrons according to behaviour patterns: albeit aware of the limits of a simplistic dichotomy, he divides Emergencies and Hazard, «cases in which there is a real or potential threat to life, personal safety, or property», and Nuisances, «cases in which there is an annoying or unpleasant situation, but one which may be classified as relatively harmless» (1989:10). Simmons (1985) adopts a similar classification (1. Relatively Harmless Nuisances; 2. Disruptive or Threatening; 3. Violent)12 but he provides a more successful insight, specifically addressing the labelling of individuals

12

The classification had been identified by J. K. Brashear, J. J. Maloney, and J. Thorton-Darringe (1981), in their study of incidents in Illinois public and academic libraries.

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who do not pose an illicit threat, but whose presence is equally deemed inappropriate on the matter of civility and personal condition. The need to distinguish between matters of appearance, civility and criminality represents a crucial element. One could raise the criticism that, considering what I stressed about discretion and differences in regulating conduct, we cannot always and clearly distinguish the nature of misbehaviour. In this regard, I acknowledge the difficulty of defining such thresholds, especially in universal terms, so further observations are required. Above all, we should recognise that most criminal actions give less or no space to critical levels of discretion in limiting access in the public library: they normally refer to a wider social sphere and should be prosecuted in accordance with the law (Simmons 1985:111). Normally, for example, a man found guilty of physical violence against another library patron will be removed and punished regardless of circumstantial elements. Indeed, all ideas of deviance deserve attention, despite their level of institutionalisation: as well argued by the sociology of deviance, no deviant behaviour is immune from asymmetric processes of primary criminalisation (i.e. the penalisation of conducts) and secondary criminalisation, intended as those funnel-shaped dynamics that identify and then prosecute certain categories more easily than others (Sbraccia & Vianello 2010). But so, our concern must be addressed to the definition and application of the ideas of deviance and (possibly) criminality, without allowing the grouping of crimes and other annoying behaviours to overshadow such forms of selectivity or, even worse, to encourage easy stigmatic associations between poverty and morality to the detriment of subaltern groups. Similarly, Simmons states: While some writers distinguish between various behaviors and the measures needed to meet them, the inclusion of behaviors of varying intensity and consequence within a single article may hinder meaningful discussion of the issue by (1) implying the potential for applying a “generic treatment” to cure the “problem”, and (2) alluding

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to “guilt by association” by suggesting, for example, that all disheveled people are potentially violent. (1985:111)

Simmons also acknowledges that «there are many individuals who can be described as relatively harmless nuisances who are not homeless – for example, unattended but disruptive children or lonely, chatty senior citizens». However, the patrons he discussed – drunks, people who sit and stare for hours, or who are dirty and smelly – represent a central subject (Simmons 1985:111). Behaviour-centred analyses may discourage the identification of appearance as source of threatening or inappropriate conduct (Salter & Salter 2004:348), as well as direct the focus on all the behaviours not in compliance with library rules; however, recalling the concept of secondary criminalisation, there are substantial differences in the identification and interpretation of deviants. First, specific groups of patrons are commonly under-criminalised, due to peculiar roles in fostering collective library representations (e.g. students), or to their authority and prestige. For instance, Cuesta identifies the “dignitary nuisance”, referring to those patrons – typically from the academic environment – who are «certain that library rules apply to everyone except themselves» and whose status secures their actions from sanctions and public indignation (1996:17). Second, while many problem behaviours are perceived as exceptional, eccentric or undesired, appearance usually contributes not only to the overestimation of deviant conducts, but also to the formulation of stigma such “improper user”, hence to the creation of “discredited” patrons – in the sense identified by Goffman (1963) – whose admittance is called into question. In other words, my support in discerning different types of behaviour goes precisely in the direction of bringing more prominence to labelling mechanisms that are deeper and based, problematically, on specific expectations worthy of being taken into consideration. Practically – as I realised also during my research in Trento – a suitable approach is to extend the idea of a fluid continuum from expected “proper” behaviours to general crimes, in order

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to analyse how in the different contexts specific thresholds of acceptability are produced and to detect cross mechanisms of criminalisation. In conclusion, we recall Ferrell’s idea of “the problem” as something beyond both the individual and behaviour, contrary to most of the literature. Her analysis (2010), following interactionist approaches in the nursing literature on the “difficult patient”, endorses my perspective on the segmentation in the public library as public domain: most difficulties concerning the presence of deprived patrons – not by chance, represented by the varying phrases “problem patron”, “challenging patron” or “problematic patron” – are a matter of expectations and stigma, and should be studied in their interactional construction. My argument is that the awareness of such labelling within the public library and its understanding – addressing the symbolic assumptions behind the administration of the public space and their situated expressions – may provide a crucial new framework to deal with actual difficulties in public libraries. The processes of definition and reproduction of stigma, however, should be consider in the light of those expectations on the public library’s public that are stabilised in the long durée.

Raising the right questions The recognition of deviance emerges interactionally during gatherings and the broader situations in which they are bounded, namely, in what Goffman (1963:18) calls “social occasions” that are structured on expectations and «standing behaviour patter». If social situations are performed on the basis of «intended» and «appropriate» conduct, what are the expected behaviours that characterise the public library as situation at large? And, in the contrary, on what expectations and violations are shaped the “problematic” gatherings? «Who says there’s a problem? » Levels of definition and durée. As I mentioned, Shelley Ferrel (2010) represents a first attempt to address the issue of challenging interactions by

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problematising the processes of labelling, mostly absent from reflection in library science. She, drawing on Blumer’s symbolic interactionism and Goffman’s stigma framework, suggests targeting the distinct levels/contexts in which the labelling of patrons is defined, in order to gain insight for problem solving. Ferrel’s framework identifies three levels: Library Staff, Library and Community or Society. In order to systematically deal with situations that are defined as problematic, it is necessary to consider which elements and subjects define the situation as such. For example, at staff level the “problem” is defined on the basis of individual values and beliefs about who and how the library should be used. At the level of the library as a whole, these definitions are linked to policies and procedures for the use of the space. At the higher level, the “problem” is defined by laws and regulations, but also on the basis of particular events that have marked a particular social group, favoring attention to certain aspects or individuals. The multi-level approach identified by Ferrel seems appropriate, as it allows us to frame the interest paid to certain categories (such as the homeless), focusing on personal prejudices and formal procedures that intend to criminalise their habits. However, in light of the increased complexity and interrelation between the different levels of label application, I believe that a wider stratification can be introduced. For example, “problems” defined at the level of the library sector, such as those related to the offer of specific services and the way of use, are placed at an intermediate level between the specific library and the wider context. Likewise, talking about “Community or Society” does not reflect the differences that can exist between local, national and transnational dynamics13. Therefore, I believe it is more appropriate to reason in terms of scale, or continuum, than through closed box levels.

13

Two important phenomena are, for instance, the de-institutionalisation of psychiatric care and the migration flows. Structural reforms or changes can influence national contexts, while more specific events or narratives can characterise the local dimension in a unique way.

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In Ferrel’s analysis, the application of interactional theories is only a preliminary framework, designed to define a model of interpretation and practical action to address the problem that arise within libraries. This constitutes one of the major contributions of her article, since by producing a multi-level model, she outlines the possibility of framing the problem of stigmatization in a middle-range theory, capable of making structural models of cultural action dialogue with those of micro-interaction. A further element that needs to be added is the way in which definitions at various levels can act as semi-autonomous cultural references in the short and long term. As I mentioned earlier, the main element missing from the reflection in librarianship is the full awareness of the ambivalence related to the mission of the public library and, more specifically, to the definition of its target audience. In fact, the ambivalent relationship between the public library and the more marginalised categories raises divergent images about the expectations of behaviour and service. If the key element for the analysis is the identification of who defines “the problem”, this should not ignore the consideration of such long-term ambivalences, perpetuated in the level between the Library and the community. A library for whom? The legacy of ambivalent ideals. As pointed out by Peatling (2002:40), current literature on the “problem patron” «underestimates the extent of the historic continuity of the issue», based on long-standing «discursive demarcation between “the real library public” and “improper” users». As I explain, not only the condition and behaviour of more disadvantaged patrons are often perceived as cause for direct concern (Yemini-Halevi 2015:4-5), but a stigmatic link remain between disadvantage, disreputable appearance and morality, as was the practice between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Often, fostered by the liberal ideal of equality, the implementation of enforcement or assistance reflect respectively how librarians and communities view the underprivileged, as «victims or as socially irresponsible people» (Silver 1996), as «deserving» or «undeserving»

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individuals (Yemini-Halevi 2015:3). These representations are primarily founded on those historical ambivalences I identified in chapter I. In order to conduct an effective analysis of social exclusion in the library we should pose, at the legitimate levels, the question of the target public: does the library offer a universal service, or does it focus on certain groups? Is it concerned with the preservation of cultural heritage or the promotion of reading and information? Does the library contribute to the mitigation of social inequalities by addressing the community as a whole or does it follow the interests of taxpayers, who are generally the patrons of socially comfortable backgrounds (Peatling 2002:41)? Regarding the (occasionally) problematic relationship with the most disadvantaged, these ambivalences can be particularly clearly identified, for example, in the case of the libraries of Central and Southern Europe, characterised by a greater intermingling of the model of the “national” or conservation library with the Anglo-Saxon model of the public library (cf. Ch. I, §1.2). As mentioned, in fact, the English model has been adapted in Europe in diverse ways, shaping with the existing models in different national contexts. The most evident contradiction of these dynamics can be seen, typically, in the libraries located in ancient palaces, created for an erudite public and later opened in a “popular” perspective, but maintaining all its functions (cf. Traniello 1997, Galluzzi 2009). Accounting the material facade: bodies, senses, territoriality. What I highlighted above with respect to multi-level dynamics concerns not only ideal or abstract elements but also the tangible dimensions in which expectations of use and the control of movement are stabilised in space. (Kärrholm 2007a; 2007b, Splichal 2016). «Architecture is a powerful way of managing intervisibilities» (Brighenti 2010:6) and «unsurprisingly, public visibility is often scandalous and outrageous» (ead. 2016:325). In the public library, some users appear to be particularly visible, as they do not comply with the thresholds of acceptability of conduct, but also of management of own bodies and

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lifestyles. I have already mentioned the relevance of decency narratives in the stabilisation of power dynamics in the public space. Something more should be addressed in the sphere of cultural perceptions on purity and contamination. As stated by Agnoli (2009:21-26), library spaces can contribute to the exclusion of certain social categories through the production of symbolic and material boundaries. For example, the architectural design of many libraries and the rules governing silence and isolation tend to evoke the image of a “cold culture”. Moreover, the sense of marginality, isolation and, consequently, the stigmatization of the most disadvantaged users also passes through the theme of the body, according to those processes analysed by the sociology of the senses. It seems necessary to study how visibility and the discipline of the body contribute to the contextual definition of the appropriate “reader” or “legitimate patron”, as expression of the Western rhetoric of control (Douglas 1979, Sclavi 2002), based on symbolic discourses that connect control, purity, and the construction of knowledge.

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III. Narratives and gatekeeping: the case of Trento Municipal Library

Q1: I mean, if anyone thinks it’s a problem that someone is sitting there all-day long, it’s not my problem […] and I certainly won’t move that person… This is a highly delicate issue… All in all, I’m welcoming, I tend to be so. I rather tend to be stricter with those who insist, expect or demand. Q2: The library can’t stop and say “I was this way once, so I’ll stay that way”, because it’s not right. It’s an institution that must follow the times, isn’t it? But it must save its founding cornerstones [...] that define the place as a place of culture... The term culture has many facets... yet culture is not “I open to warm you up”. Anonymous librarians to me and V. Gjeka (individual interviews, 2017)14

The research activity conducted in 2017 for the Trento Municipal Library, besides having outlined the experiences, motivations and needs of foreign patrons and potential patrons, has provided critical insight into issues regarding the identification of illegitimate uses and the stigmatization of some publics. In this chapter, I present some results and analyses concerning the municipal Central Library, in order to illustrate how the exclusion dynamics that I addressed hitherto take shape into a specific library, involving both peculiarities and broader tendencies. I emphasise the way in which the project has been framed in the context of differing and sometimes conflicting images of the library and its relationship with foreign

14

In compliance with the agreement between interviewers, interviewees and the Library, given the possible identification of the librarians involved in the study, in all the documents developed from the research direct quotations are omitted or minimised and aggregated. All translations from Italian are mine (cf. Appendix).

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patrons. Likewise, I highlight ambivalent ideas on who the library’s “public” should be, as well as the main levels of meaning-making in which implicit and explicit references are defined and discoursed.15

1.

The Trento Municipal Library: spaces and transformations

1.1.

The public library system in Trento

The current Municipal Library and Historical Archive Service was definitively established in 1997 and is now part of the Trentino Library System (SBT), the integrated network of more than 150 public, academic and special libraries operating in the Autonomous Province of Trento (PAT), in Northern Italy. The Municipal Library of Trento is also the depository institution of the Province (in accordance with the law, it receives a copy of all material intended for publication). Like many municipal systems, the library of Trento is widespread throughout the city: the Central Library (Trento, via Roma 55) is the historical and administrative centre of an urban system, consisting of 10 branches in districts and suburbs (Argentario, Clarina, Gardolo, Madonna Bianca, Mattarello, Meano, Povo, Ravina, Sopramonte, Villazzano), 5 additional loan points (Cadine, Martignano, Montevaccino, Romagnano, “S. Chiara” hospital) and the itinerant Bibliobus (mobile library service). In order to better contextualise the current library framework, it is useful to consider the most salient phases of its development (cf. Cetto 1956, Biblioteca Comunale di Trento 2017). Foundation. The library was created when Trentino went from a small independent state (the Episcopal Principality of Trento) to a marginal part of the Land of Tyrol. The first Civic

15

The contents of this chapter are partially derived from material included in the general research report “User survey of the municipal library [of Trento]: foreign citizens” (Ciorli & Gjeka 2017) and the Annual Report on Immigration in Trentino - 2017 (Ciorli & Gjeka 2018).

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Library of Trento was officially opened to the public in 1856. The origin of its public collection may be actually date back to 1806, when the one-thousand volumes belonging to bishop Giovanni Benedetto Gentilotti and his heirs were bequeathed to the public for consultation, which was later integrated with further private collections (by Borzi, de Schreck, Mazzetti, Giovanelli) and the assets from suppressed religious congregations. The nascent library thus followed the model of private and ecclesiastical collections opened to the most erudite citizens (Ch. 1, §1.1), inspired by the idea of universal library and then merged with that, ideally borrowed from the German Landesbibliothek, of the institution for the memory and documentation of local culture. Since 1856 (official opening of a building for the Civic Library), the collection has been enriched with continuous donations by local intellectuals, until its closure in 1914, at the dawn of the first world war. During this period the institution began to host the municipal historical archive (1976) and art works, becoming both library and civic museum. 1919-2017: The Municipal Library and Historical Archive Service. Trento became part of Italy in 1918 and this did not change the structure or the main mission of the library: it remained the most relevant library institute of the area and it was still considered an instrument for the study, but also for the preservation, of the Italian heritage of the territory16. In 1919, part of the former Collegium Tridentinum Societatis Jesu was acquired for the new facility, which was opened to the public in 1921 as the Municipal Library and State Archive. Only in the 1970s and 1980s did the typical inclination to the erudite study and collective inheritance (cf. Ch I, §1.2) progressively encounter the interest in the Public Library model

16

Today, in contrast, the Central Library hosts the “Austrian Library/Österreich-Bibliothek”, part of a system of institutions created in 1955 with the contribution of the Austrian Ministry for Foreign Affairs, in order to promote the reading and study of texts on Austrian culture and history, in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Beside the extensive collection, there is the “Centro LAI” (Centre for Documentation on Austrian Literature in Italy), that collects all Italian translations of works of Austrian literature, and critical works on Austrian literature and authors. The two collections lie next to the Multilingual Section.

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and the diffusion of public reading rooms, also mirroring the socio-cultural change fostered by the newly founded university (1962). In line with the joint influences, the result today is a mixed configuration. On the one hand, the library continues to serve as a place of documentation and historical memory of the city and its province. On the other hand, it contributes to the lifelong education of all citizens, with the purpose of satisfying the broadest needs in reading, information, and training, including new technological tools and services aimed at specific categories of patrons. Moreover, as I will outline, no unanimity exists on the level and recipients of this specialisation. Although it has been able to express itself with quality and balance, this framework is today under discussion – not by chance – and it manifests a key role for the subject discussed here. The difficulty in offering an unbalanced image of the service17 seems particularly amplified in the case of the Central Library, whose location, role, and architectural features place it in a peculiar condition with respect to the peripheral branches.

1.2.

The Central Library

The current Central Library, which includes the headquarters and main collections, was founded in 1919 at the former Collegium Tridentinum Societatis Jesu, after its division and sale. The building, thanks to the generous donation of General Mattia Galasso, was purchased by the Jesuits in 1648 and progressively adapted to the needs of ecclesial formation. The role had also been maintained after the suppression of the Society of Jesus (1773), when the Prince-Bishop Cristoforo Sizzo assigned the Collegium to the Seminary.

17

I intentionally refer here to the adjective “balance” rather than “coherent”. The problem of the consistency and compatibility within the contemporary mission or image of the public library, although captivating and upto-date (cf. Galluzzi 2009), cannot be addressed in this context. The idea of “unbalance”, maybe defective, yet evokes the interactive vacillation that may affect the societas in the public domain, and foster conflicting narratives (Brighenti 2016).

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From 1796 to 1815, following the devastation of the French, Austrian, Bavarian and ItalianNapoleonic invasions, the area was used as a military quartering, hospital, and depot. In 1990, the former Collegium was joined by a large Art Nouveau room, the current Sala Manzoni, which stands next to the internal garden and hosts the entrance hall. All the areas were subject to a substantial restoration between 1991 and 2001, which evolved over the years in an attempt to create a unique space for the central services of the public library: the Historical Archive of the City, the “historical” library, research library, public reading, and children’s section (moved in 2015 to the nearby Palazzina Liberty and replaced by the Multilingual Section). The adopted reference model is the German tripartite library (Dreigeteilte Bibliothek): 1) entrance area dedicated to main services and collections divided into classes of interest, 2) area with special sections and systematic open shelves (Dewey Decimal Classification), 3) depository. In these areas (cf. §3.2), therefore, wider interests are interspersed with more particular ones, rapid information with study, current events with history, informal spaces with more controlled ones, noise with silence. The outcome, further changed in recent years, remains constrained by the stabilising framework and sort (Kärrholm 2007a:1915-1917) of the historical structure, whose spaces favour segmentation – rather than the circularity of the public – and tend to evoke the past ideals of concentration and composure.

2.

The research

2.1.

Background and objectives

The research project was carried out between February and July 2017 as part of the research internship projects of the Municipal Library of Trento, conceived as a training activity, but primarily as a need for service. In fact, as emerged from the preliminary

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meetings with the director Giorgio Antoniacomi, the company supervisor Ugo Scala and the office manager Eusebia Parrotto, the study on the foreign potential users and users was part of a more extensive project, aimed at interpreting a transitional phase of the mission and role of the library – both at the local level and in the sector – and at grounding this new interpretation on new analytical tools, with respect to those of traditional library science. With respect to the general sector, the Trento library is aware of the wide theoretical debate about the need for a deeper understanding of the users, also in the direction of a “social” approach that is oriented to the methods of the social sciences (Faggiolani 2012). This attention responds to the progressive force of ongoing social changes, which can shape the practices in the library and change its functions, more or less radically. On the subject, we can recall the challenges introduced by the digital revolution, the role of information in the so-called “post-truth era”, and the emergence of a “post-modern user” who demands a quick, differentiated, and personalised use-consumption. Last but not least, the centrality of the social impact of the library in relation to the needs of local communities. The emerging perspectives of analysis promote an interpretative approach to the representations of the library and its role (Faggiolani 2011), in the attempt to refine visions that are often selfreferential and narrow, and a relationship between ideal and real users that is too frequently simplified (Faggiolani & Galluzzi 2017). Regarding the local context, the challenges concern three main issues: a significant loss of active users in the last four years (compared to a former prominent position in the national scenario), the underuse of some specific services (e.g. MLOL - MediaLibraryOnLine and the Multilingual Section), and the existence of activities perceived as “improper” and “problematic”, related both to a change in the services currently sought in the public library, as well as the specific needs of disadvantaged social groups. To respond successfully, the need is perceived to develop services according to a new model of library, which does not

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merely wait for users to take advantage of existing services and in the expected manner, but “opens up” to recognise the demand for new services among citizens. This “opening up” should be understood spatially, by listening to those who do not know or do not attend the library, but also ideologically, by shedding the inadequacy of self-referential, implicit, and exclusive visions. Therefore, the research I conducted with Visola Gjeka aimed to critically put into dialogue the differing perspectives and narratives that exist, and to compare them with data collected with methodological rigour. The development of a project specifically addressed to the foreign population was driven by a lower percentage of active users among adult newcomers, the need to evaluate some recent services (e.g. the Multilingual Section, reading groups, conversations in Italian with the volunteers of ATAS Association), and the relevance of this group with respect to the issue of “problematic” behaviours (cf. §3.1). Specifically, the investigation aimed at understanding: - the actual experiences of foreign users, and their expressed and unexpressed needs; - how to turn “challenging” situations into opportunities for collective improvement; - motivations and latent needs of potential foreign users, and their level of knowledge of the services; - the experiences and perspectives of library staff in contact with users

2.2.

Methods and data

The research was developed in two phases: the study of users at the Central Library; and the study of potential users at the Cinformi offices. In the last phase, an attempt was made to compare the results. Although we mostly had a qualitative interest in the phenomena, aimed at in-depth knowledge of experiences and representations, the study was developed with a mixed approach, using both structured (questionnaires to potential users) and more

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unstructured techniques (stories, field observation). In these pages, I refer to the investigation carried out at the Central Library. In accordance with the emerging approaches in library research (Faggiolani 2011, Faggiolani & Galluzzi 2017), Visola Gjeka and I have adopted an approach aimed at the emergence of an analytical model from the context of investigation, ideally inspired by the traditions linked to the Grounded Theory (Glaser & Strauss 1967) and the idea of “sensitising notions” (cf. Blumer). The result was a qualitative research with a typical circular design (Cardano 2003, Cardano et al. 2011), that is, open to the redefinition in progress of work choices, techniques, and conceptual tools. Another important frame was the idea of approaching the motivations and perceptions of users and librarians according to the interpretative paradigm (Faggiolani 2012). Our “researchers position” (as described by Timmermans & Tavory 2012), being sensitive to internationalist approaches and ethnographic methods, has fostered a contextual understanding of phenomena. This, according to what has been highlighted in the areas of critical sociology of deviance and urban spaces (Sbraccia & Vianello 2010:103), has favoured the emergence of the relational practices at the base of deviance definition and the control of public space. During the research, 47 in-depth interviews were conducted: 27 interviews with users, including 22 foreign users, (from about 30 to 80 minutes); and 20 interviews with members of the library staff (from about 60 to 140 minutes). In addition to ethnographic notes during the interviews, we spent about 50 hours specifically observing the spaces, over several weeks. The material collected from the interviews was the main source of data. The choice of this technique was also inspired by a previous study (2016), based on some structured interviews with migrants, which resulted in data that were quantitatively modest, partial, and not fully accessible. By acknowledging the general validity of the approach, and evaluating both our resources and knowledge interests, we decided to enhance the exploratory

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perspective and propose open in-depth interviews. They were conducted face-to-face to avoid a “snowball” sampling, which could have overestimated the impact of social networks on the reported experiences. The selection of the interviewees inevitably emerged from the issues of the so-called “improper uses”: these, emerging from definitions outlined by weak boundaries (between what is “problematic” and not, “improper” and not, “foreign” and not), have given great prominence to the problem of the research units. Our attention, as researchers, has been to aim at understanding the practices associated with these definitions, to respond simultaneously to the questions that the Trento Library raised, but also to analyse the distinctly social construction of the boundaries that pose them (cf. 3.1). Therefore, in the light of a continuous critical approach to notions such as “recent foreigner”, “improper user” (but also to the very idea of a specific study on the immigrants, considered as “particular users”), we relied on the very elements of prejudice – eventually refutable – as guiding criteria: visibility, behaviour, frequent use of spaces. Indeed, foreign interviewees were a quite heterogeneous group, both in terms of routines and their state of living. Most, regardless of the activities they prefer, can be defined as habitué rather than newcomers. By contrast, almost all respondents make frequent (several times per month) or very frequent (almost daily) use of library space, in line with expectations. Most of them, finally, have a varied use of the library, also engaging in activities that can be defined as “traditional”. In planning the interview outline, inspired by the dialogical model (La Mendola 2009), I paid particular attention to the following objectives: 1) to offer frames within which the interviewees/reporters could explore their own perspective in a personal way; 2) to allow these frames to offer wide settings, in order to explore some themes in depth and be open to discovery; 3) to avoid starting the interview with a categorising or information-seeking approach (as in the case of specific questions), in order to discourage quick (“closed”) answers and the concern for “defensive strategies” and expectations. The three main

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“frames” in which the discussions were realised were: 1) the narration of one’s daily habits in the library, with attention to the description of spaces and activities; 2) the knowledge of the library and its services; 3) the theme of change, in terms of desires and evaluation. In the closing part, we encouraged the provision of personal information on cultural consumption and socio-demographic characteristics. The interviews to the 20 librarians, chosen for their closer contact with users, were conducted with the aim of assessing a different and complementary view on the topic, rather than looking for “confirmations”. The employees, following the same methodological approach, were questioned about their work, their perspective and experience regarding foreign users and “improper uses”, and their views on the role of the library and librarians. (The original outlines are exposed in the Appendix). Besides some classical and reasonable practical difficulties, the main challenges identified during the fieldwork were the language barrier and the difficulty in facilitating detailed replies18. In addition, potential interviewees were scarce during some periods and, in general, the refusal rate was very high, especially in regard to the male interviewer.

3.

The disadvantaged in the Central Library: Public or nonpublic? While the primary objective of the project was to familiarise the library community with

the experience of foreign users, part of the research was shared with an exploratory study on the topic of “improper” uses. Moreover, given the importance of the subject in relation to our aims and the use de facto of behaviours as criteria for the categorisation of foreign users, we decided to approach the “debate on uses” to identify the appropriate elements for addressing this public. Therefore, as wider outcome, we proposed a new typology, opposed

18

Some interviews were conducted in English. However, many respondents had a limited level of proficiency, or were more familiar with French or other native languages.

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to an ambivalent separation between what is “appropriate” and “inappropriate”, and we critically illustrated how the most marginalised users are alternately described as normal “users”, as “improper users” or even as “non-users” (recalling, in negative terms, Brighenti’s notion of “non-public”). In this section, I present an elaboration of these results.

3.1.

Foreign citizens and “improper uses”: deconstructing a connection

In accordance with the requests of the Library, the empirical identification of a plausible and impartial image of the uses was based primarily on the perspective offered by the foreign population, especially the «less integrated», and by other «improper patrons». The very consideration of such a population as identifiable and homogeneous immediately recalled an ideal opposition with users who are perceived as “typical”, that is, responding to a certain imaginary of the library. Thus, a key behavioural segmentation of the public emerged, founded on an ideal, simplified and largely implicit association between conduct and other social characteristics. This reflected a reasonable “political” ambivalence regarding a study focused on immigrants, but also the desire to proceed in the light of opportunities, asking to critically deconstruct ideal and often self-referential images of the patrons. However, this problematic starting point – the ambivalent connection between “certain” foreigners and “improper uses” – has recalled, both theoretically and practically, an important sociological position (Sbraccia & Vianello 2010:52): not to combine the sociological problem of deviant behaviour, as object of study, with the social problem of deviant behaviour. In contrast, we aimed at revealing some of the norms, values and contexts that define certain actions or characteristics as deviant, thus illustrating how they are socially defined as problems. In this regard, I shall introduce two general frameworks: one internal to the institution, namely the debate on the services that should be provided in the Central Library; and one external, that is the urban and political context in which the Library is situated.

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Starting from the renovations (1991-2001), a heated debate is ongoing inside the Municipal Library, which focuses on the limits of the building, in terms of differentiated and innovative offer, but also on the very idea of innovation. The positions reflect those in the sector and are placed along a continuum, rather than in a polarised conflict. At one extreme, there is the inclination for a strong opening towards uses, starting from the “new needs” (internet, social aggregation, consumption) and from the very “improper uses”, as drivers of change and response for social inclusion. On the other hand, there is a strict claim for a “traditional” cultural mission, exclusive and separate from other institutions (social services). The concrete difficulties (real or perceived) make the debate even more complex and accentuated by emotional responses and uncritical positions. If the debate on the appropriate uses of the contemporary public library was explicit at the core of the research, the emotional responses towards the most marginalised patrons would also have had a more implicit framework. This emerges more completely in the individual stories of the participants: the broader urban and political context of Trento, characterised by security and emergency narratives of both immigration and the use of public spaces by the most disadvantaged. Although it is not possible to cover the whole issue in these pages, it is appropriate to consider some key elements. First, although Trento continues to be ranked at the top of the quality of life studies (ItaliaOggi 2017; Istat 2017), an essential part of local political debate focuses on themes of the “urban blight” and crime. The issues are at the centre of the news (e.g. Franzosini 2016, Maschio 2017, Db 2017), the activities of some neighbourhood committees (first, the Associazione Rinascita Torre Vanga) and the political agenda of several political groups, including the centre-left parties (Fin 2018). The city also hosts an innovative geo-referenced

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information system19 , which statistically analyses security, starting from reported crimes, victimization surveys, perception of security and urban disorder. Second, although Trento has witnessed more conspicuous and accelerated migratory flows in the previous decades than today (Ambrosini, Boccagni & Piovesan 2018), the different composition of these flows and, above all, the revival of political security narratives, foster an overestimation of the foreigners and the crime associated with them. This process also reflects the national public attention of recent years: the political narration of landings and asylum applications, in particular, has fuelled and established distorted matches between refugees and immigrants, between landings and immigration growth, between the regulation of immigration and security problems (ibid. 15). On this basis, the migrant population (especially the refugees and those with poor housing conditions), together with university students and the homeless, is a major target of security narratives in Trento. As outlined by Andrea Brighenti (Mastrodonato & Sambataro 2016), Trento represents a distinctive example of Italian minor cities, with «a typical inclination to small scale vision and a difficulty in positioning itself in an expanded scenario». The city reveals «an intrinsic tendency to live in a state of siege and fear that the great forces of the world will arrive at your home» (ivi), which is expressed by the urban space, often empty and characterised by the militarisation of public life: video surveillance, defensive architecture, patrols. In line with well-known urban dynamics (cf. Lofland 1985, Sbraccia & Vianello 2010, Gottdiener & Hutchison 2010, Pitch 2013), some areas of the city reveal patterns of involuntary ghettoisation and demarcations of public space on a socio-economic basis. One of the most stigmatised areas, also in the media, is the one between Portela, Torre Vanga and Dante square, in the north-west corner of the old town and close to the train station (Mastrodonato

19

eSecurity: http://www.esecurity.trento.it/

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& Sambataro 2016): it has become over the years a common place for immigrants and homeless people, and is also a place of drug trafficking. Located in this district, the Central Library epitomises the urban conflict: while it is a key resource for the “street people”, it is also a historical building, a symbol and guardian of local identity, located in the old town centre (now also a gentrified hub for shopping). Despite the protection offered by a public place that is open to everyone, and where, in most cases, a situation of comfort and security is evident, the themes of use, that of the disadvantaged and that of security, are therefore interwoven and brought to the extreme. In addition, the Central Library is occasionally at the centre of news stories (e.g. La Voce del Trentino 2017), nourishing the problem of “improper uses” as being responsible for a negative public perception and the decline of active users. Both the dimensions I presented above provide a constant background for the dynamics within the library, both as a reference for action, especially in the definition of problems and in the exercise of control, and as narrative repertoires, when discussing the role of the library towards emerging needs. This contact between macro and micro levels, but also between “institutional” and “subjective” spheres, has once again recalled the need for a confrontation of views. Being these elements in the background, the deconstruction of the association between disadvantaged users and “problematic” (or criminal) behaviours focus on two dimensions. Firstly, the relevance of meaning-making processes, in which users and librarians elaborate what the public space of the library is and to whom it belongs. The plurality of visions within the library shapes symbolic and material boundaries and creates conflicting interpretations of spaces and functions. Secondly, the ambivalence of acceptability thresholds is normally simplified by uncritical and dichotomous distinctions. Selective control reflects the

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ambivalent interpretations of library functions, but also involves the issues of displeasure, visibility, and stereotypes.

3.2.

Living the library: symbolic and material boundaries

The library as place The use of the public library reflects the various meanings of its spaces, the sense of belonging to its “public” and therefore the idea of being a legitimate user of it. This is particularly evident in the case of patrons. Contrary to what is idealised in common sense and by some librarians, they appear to be a very heterogeneous and complex group, consisting of individual experiences and personal belongings. From another side, the librarian staff, equally multifaceted, interprets needs and offer services according to how they imagine their profession and the mission of the library. A first important image emerged by investigating how foreign patrons began to visit the Central Library of Trento. The approach of foreign citizens is mainly informal and subjective20, and the most common motivations are the possibility of accessing the Internet to contact relatives and to find a job, improve their language proficiency – especially in Italian – and the interest for a welcoming and clean place, where to spend time on activities that are useful, pleasant and opposed to those of «the street» or «Dante square» (cf. §3.1). First time I came with friends, yes, people. But they don’t come anymore. They stay in the square. But better here, here no one disturbs, in the street evil people and police. (Q3, a young patron from Libya)

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The main source of contact is provided by informal networks among foreign citizens, especially at the arrival. A minor portion of foreign users has begun to visit the Library spontaneously, typically because of its proximity to their home or workplace, or because of previous habits. The latter include older users or those who have recently lost their jobs, who have already frequented other libraries and consider them a stimulating place. Finally, contrary to expectations, the promotional activity carried out by other offices and organizations (e.g. Cinformi) seems to be of little significance.

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The use of the library as a meaningful choice - even when consciously limited in terms of habits - can contribute to a wider involvement in the activities offered, but also to a less ideological approach to this public and its needs. The library is often seen as a «window on the [arrival] society», a preferential opportunity for integration compared to other contexts. While for some interviewees this choice does not exclude the possibility of spending time in other public spaces, others express a strict motivation and sense of belonging, which drive them to stay in the library for a long time, to avoid «bad people» and engage in various activities (reading and studying, but also job-searching or simply resting). These stories show a relevant alternative to the main public narratives, which identify the library as a natural «extension of the street» and urban blight. However, some of these testimonies are shared by foreigners who have lived in Trento for several years, even from a different point of view: I like the library...it’s a cultural place, of culture, where to keep yourself updated [...] It’s about 20 years that I have been coming to the library, it always changing in 20 years. The new part [multilingual section] looks nice [...] Languages are ok, but it is important to know Italian. First the language of the place, because it’s important, the most important thing, to socialise, integrate […] The library is open in the sense that it’s welcoming, cultural. But it’s welcoming if one is clever, if you show that you want, then you make your way. (Q4, a man from Morocco) I’ve been reading here for many years [...] but there are those who smell. That isn’t good. That isn’t nice. Many come here to do nothing and they stink a lot. (Q5, a man from Afghanistan)

These two men repeatedly expressed in their interviews the idea that it is crucial for a migrant to learn the language and find other means «to integrate» and «move in the world». The library is described as a place to be «respectable», to show that you are «a good guy». Expressing the concern for «loafers» and «stinking» patrons, however, the interviewees

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seem to echo mainstream speeches about the “inappropriate users”, perhaps to distance themselves from the newcomers and thus from conditions of vulnerability and deviance. It is appropriate to focus on the issue of language learning and job search, given the significance of this activity both in our observations and in the debates on the issue of uses. Foreign users consider the library an ideal place to write their curriculum vitae, register for job search services, or send applications. As reported by some employees, some foreign patrons explain that they have difficulties using computers and that they ask for help. Rather than requesting direct support in finding a job, users demand for technical assistance and courses, aiming at developing their skills and job search strategies. According to some respondents, the greatest service offered by the library is the support in language learning. The study of the Italian language - they say - makes the use of materials in their native language even secondary. The areas of the Central Library, free and quiet, are more favourable to study than collective residences and night shelters. In addition, users read books or newspapers with the help of texts of Italian grammar, vocabularies, online dictionaries and translators, or other materials that compare Italian with other familiar languages. While the interviewees demanded for more teaching materials, dual-language books, and for personal assistance in the study, it is relevant that about half of them did not know about neither the conversation in Italian lessons organised by the volunteers of ATAS Association, nor the Multilingual Section (cf infra). The newspaper section (on the ground floor), which offers national and international publications, is also used by only a portion of the interviewees. They say that newspapers offer the additional advantage of improving their proficiency in Italian or other languages (respondents are often multilingual, knowing 2 to 8 languages). Regarding the theme of “innovative” activities (rest, consumption, games, conversation), the opinions of foreign patrons are diversified. Most of them support a “classical” conception

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of the library: a place characterised by silence and respect for individual concentration. Some of them express the need for new and “social” interests, advising to diversify the activities in the various areas, with clear indications. In any case, the priority is mutual respect: In the room... the big one... it’s important to be silent. Yes, yes, you should not talk. Sometimes, with friends, it’s bad, rude, when you meet friends, to ask to be quiet. You talk quietly and then, silence. There’s no good place [to talk], but you must be silent [...] Rules are important... for example, I always bring a battery, for the phone... Here you can’t charge, even if [others] do it. (Q6, a young patron)

As I mentioned, the way librarians imagine the public library is also crucial. The diverse ways in which the role of the library towards citizenship is imagined are basically those, already outlined, of the “cultural library”, aimed at the study and promotion of culture, and the “cultural-based library”, which reveals its primary function, as a public domain of knowledge and critical thinking, approaching the community as a whole and offering opportunities for redemption for those with less opportunities. However, even with heated debates, the image offered by librarians is characterised by ambivalence rather than conflict. Only a minority of the interviewees took an open and precise position with respect to the functions and the public of the library: the majority propose a more cautious and uncertain view of what the library should and should not be. Among their descriptions we can identify some typical repertoires. The first is undoubtedly that of the library as a place for the “education” development of the individual. It primarily reflects the more “traditional” and ancient idea of the library, but is occasionally moulded – when it comes to considering the “ordinary” audience and local cultural offer – to include any cultural work, from mainstream film to romance novel. The librarians using this type of repertoire desire to express their expertise in the more traditional library science, or in the promotion of cultural events. They tend to accept the introduction

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of new services (cafés, Wi-Fi, rooms for discussion), but only as complementary services. Moreover, while acknowledging the sensitivity of homelessness, they reject the idea of a “day-shelter library” open without distinction and they stress the necessity of a clear separation between the public library and social services. A second repertoire is that of the “library in crisis”, unable, despite any desire for control or political pressure, to identify a unique model. According to the interviewees who spoke in these terms, there is no reason to distinguish “improper” uses, except for illegal ones: it is normal that people experience public libraries as new “squares” (cf. Agnoli 2009), to meet, consume, play. These librarians address the economic problem of adjusting the offer with a strong pragmatism, stating that «it is right that only a few remain, if the old [users] do not want to come anymore». The last repertoire is that of librarians who stress their role as educators and promoters of social inclusion. According to them, the library should primarily «look at the weakest» and «promote the culture of tolerance». Some respondents attacked the practice of labelling as “improper uses” activities that respond to basic needs (resting, washing, eating, begging). They argue that it is essential to emphasise the decline in violent or illegal behaviours over the last decades (contrary to common perception) but they tend to underestimate the impact of recent events. We must recognise that all librarians reinterpret their role in a broad way, fulfilling their mission of assistance also through actions for which they do not feel properly trained. Some librarians who have expressed a “traditionalist” vision, for example, state that they occasionally provide help in filling out a curriculum or in the application for employment agencies. Furthermore, it should be remembered that a plurality of perspectives does not – and must not – constitute a problem in itself: difficulties arise from the fact that implicit and uncertain visions generate extremely concrete and explicit consequences, also fostering

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exclusion or conflict. This happens, for instance, between the definition of legitimate behaviours in the diverse spaces (in relation to ideal functions) and users’ habits.

Conflict inside: ideals, routines, gatekeeping While the library is a public domain with “low degree enforcement”, where the interdependency between space, librarians and patrons generate change and transformation, its material-cum-immaterial network aims at continuity and stability. Distinct perspectives, through their interactional and territorial stabilisation, led to conflicting use of space and services, and to voluntary and involuntary demarcations. In the Central Library of Trento these emerge by three main dimensions: the differing interpretations of some frames and sorts (Kärrholm 2007a) especially in specific reading rooms; the difficult balance between territorial circulation and occupation, affected by undesired routines; and, finally, the implementation of security measures. According to some respondents, the hostility towards some users does not lie in themselves, but in the fact that some behaviours would not be appropriate for some contexts. Some librarians have suggested a relocation of certain activities, for which no specific place is assigned: the use of smartphones to watch videos or listen to music, recharge mobile phones, chilling out, chatting. On the other hand, these “frames” are often the result of informal norms, divergent expectations, or rules that are not communicated in an explicit and easily accessible way. In this regard, the main “uncertain areas” are on the ground floor: the Sala Manzoni, the study rooms, and the Multilingual Section. Sala Manzoni is one of the real “hotspots”, at the centre of domestic and public debates on “improper uses” and the library. As claimed by some librarians, the hall represents the first spatial and symbolic access to the Library, offering the primary image of the service. It is described as permanently “occupied” by immigrants of any age, who sit all day long to

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use public computers, chat or simply use their mobile phones and Wi-Fi. Although some librarians say they explain to “local” patrons that the foreigners are not breaking any rules, many argue that the prevailing view is that of “invasion”, raising the question of the “legitimate” public of the library. In addition, we have noticed that in Sala Manzoni some librarians (and patrons) tend to denounce more easily the nuisances caused by immigrants. What happens seems to be a form of stigma and naturalisation of deviance: a telephone call or a noisy chat, when it comes to foreign patrons, are interpreted as “evidence” of a supposed inclination, rather than occasional misconduct (cf. Ch II, §2.2). On the one hand, the area serves as a public reading room, recalling – for many – the idea of a quiet and comfortable environment. On the other hand, the room also offers other services, including computer workstations and the main front-office area, with loan service, reference office and assistance for online services. The seating area, located between the offices, the digital media section and the open shelves (classified by area of interest), is perceived as a “waiting room” by most foreigners, to wait for friends or their turn at the computer workstations. As there are few computers, patrons prefer to wait nearby, either by engaging in minor activities or by using Wi-Fi, in order to supplement the short period of time allowed for the use of computers. The arrangement and design of the chairs and tables, placed on a typical “seating island”, also seems to suggest a spatial integration between movement and occupation (Kärrholm 2007a:1914), and therefore the idea of temporary (and uncomfortable) waiting positions, rather than an area for extended reading. The indoor landscape, which is also made noisy by the desks, also hosts a loft for group study, and a series of “exhibition desks”, with periodic proposals. Sometimes, the latter are the main source for our interviewees to choose their readings, as they are seldom accustomed to browsing the shelves or other sectors. In addition, few people are familiar with the online catalogue, the search workstations at the entrance, and

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the reference service. This aspect also involves regular users (who have been visiting the library for decades) and reflects the cross-problems of the promotion of services and sections, and the perception of symbolic barriers (cf. Agnoli 2009). In recent years, three study areas have been created on the ground floor specifically intended for users aged between 14 and 18 years: a loft in the Sala Manzoni for group study, a classroom along the main hallway and an area next to the Multilingual Section. In the latter, we met most of the interviewees. The room is often used by recent migrants, especially in the hours of lower affluence of young Italians. Above all, they look for a quiet place to study Italian individually or to charge their mobile phone. In the area, by contrast, the Internet connection is almost unusable. Those who do not use this space declare that they follow the signs or the instructions of the staff. The habitual presence of people aged over 18, is in fact allowed by the “open” and “discretionary” evaluation performed by librarians: however, this conduct might be functional to the control of the public. The room may also be used for its function of “crossroads” between the neighbouring rooms. However, we detected that it has the effect of limiting the circularity of users in the library space: while it stimulates the intersection between distinct types of users and activities, it also seems to inhibit the movement to the next Multilingual Section and the study rooms on the first floor, where users could access more resources. Concerning these last two areas, the key theme is that of “symbolic deterrence”, nourished by those frames and sorts that suggest the «explicit and implicit rules determining the kind of people and behaviours that are allowed inside» (Kärrholm 2007a:1915). The Multilingual Section is a recent area located on the ground floor of the Central Library and hosts material for reading and learning languages other than Italian. Periodically, the classroom also offers conversational activities in Italian for foreigners, or discussion in other languages for amateurs and students from all over the world. Despite this, the room

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was only known by about half of our interviewees, some have expressed a partial or incorrect idea about its function and, in general, the promotion of its use among foreigners seems challenging. Apparently, the mere translation of language materials is not sufficient to make the space attractive. Moreover, as expressed by some patrons, there is probably a gap between the “ideal” offer planned by the library, the linguistic interests of migrants and, above all, their sense of “belonging” to the new area, that may be less welcoming than it may seem. The first and second floors provide study areas and more specific services, such as the Historical Archive and the Microfilm Archive. The knowledge and use of these spaces is considerably lower. Only a minority of respondents said they had visited or used these areas and their services. Many, including habitués, have never visited the library in its entirety; some say that “above there are the students”; others mention the absence of services of interest, such as computer workstations. The ground floor, with more open and aesthetically modern rooms, seems to suggest an environment more “popular” and in direct contact with the urban context. The other spaces, which appear more traditional and austere, are combined with specific and conservational services, but are also characterised by forms of privatization of spaces, especially by university students. Immigrant patrons with a higher education or who were students in their home country are among the foreigners who visit the first floor. Some homeless Italians prefer, instead, to stay in the hallways; they seem less discouraged by other patrons and interested in areas of less visibility compared to the larger and more militarised environments on the ground floor. At the Trento library, the theme of control measures is of great resonance. Although these events are exceptional and decreasing over the years, there are cases of physical and verbal assault, theft, use and trafficking of drugs. Such behaviours require appropriate solutions without prejudice but are often emphasised by security narratives.

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The responses over the last decade have varied considerably. Among the most inclusive is the successful Hope campaign, which for some years has involved people with previous situations of personal disadvantage (e.g. migrants, former homeless), who are actively engaged in visiting the library and helping those most in need to know the services and the rules. The most oppressive measures, however, are the most evident and controversial: security guards in uniform, surveillance cameras, controlled access to restrooms. The presence of the guards, among the interviewees, is quite debated: while some librarians stress the efficiency of their intervention in identifying and reporting to the police some individuals, others denounce the imbalance between the militarisation of space (with the escalation of tensions) and the quite inattentive and reticent control. The opinion regarding the restrooms is equally varied. In order to ensure cleanliness and discourage drug consumption, access is guaranteed through video-intercoms and, therefore, through a visual and discretionary selection. During a recent overdose rescue (Trentino 2017), a woman was found in the restroom by the emergency services: the administrators highlighted the role of surveillance in the quick identification of the girl. Indeed, the inspection in the toilets also periodically provokes opposing responses, accompanied by damage and filth.

3.3.

Ambivalence of thresholds and ineffective dichotomies

“Improper use”: Modern? Annoying? Criminal? As pointed out by Sbraccia and Vianello (2010:103), «the practices of the institutional control of deviance and the security rhetoric that constitute and reaffirm their common sense boundaries are configured around a logic of distinction. A basically binary logic that is centred on simple polarisations». The case of the Trento library is not immune to such forms of simplification. In addition to the classic distinctions between foreigners and natives,

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illegal and regular migrants, marginal and integrated, the key dichotomy is that between “proper” and “improper”. Our research reports a more complex scenario than it might appear from a first impression: the foreign patrons who regularly visit the library are not always newcomers; some of them focus on the most controversial activities, others on a more varied or exclusively “institutional” use. Moreover, the idea that their primary interests are linked exclusively to job search or basic human needs also appears to be limited. We have also addressed the limit of an uncritical and dichotomous demarcation of uses, trying to express how the very theme of the “problematic nature” of certain behaviours is the reflection of different complex spheres that, although overlapping, must be distinguished from each other, since they identify distinct types of acceptability thresholds (cf. Ch II, § 2.2) A first dimension is that of the general debate on the mission of the library, which involves the contrast between activities conceived as coherent or not coherent with a peculiar vision of the library, whether it is “traditional” or progressively open to new functions. From this point of view, the thresholds of acceptability are defined on a matter of “suitability”, maintaining a marked ambivalence. For example, the use of computer workstations and WiFi can be formally part of the library’s services, as much as the lending of books or the consultation of the Archives, but they raise difficulties in certain environments. Even more emblematic is the case of those activities considered “complementary”, such as the use of power sockets or restrooms. Particularly specific and debated activities, such as sleeping or job search or sheltering from adverse weather conditions, pose even more uncertain thresholds. At the opposite end of the scale, we can identify clearly “institutional” activities: studying Italian language, reading newspapers, borrowing books. Ideally, this distinction can be applied to all users equally, but in practice there are clear boundaries. In this regard, I would like to recall what I have written about those approaches

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focused on “problem behaviours”, which require an analysis of the processes of stigmatization (cf. Ch II, §2.2). In this respect, two other dimensions are necessary: that of “legality” and that of “displeasure”. By the first I mean the distinction between “legitimate” and “illegitimate” behaviours, based on the laws or norms of the library. I have already commented on the importance of this classification. On the one hand, it recalls the importance of primary criminalisation processes, i.e. the penalisation of specific behaviours, such as those linked to the survival of homeless people. On the other hand, it emphasises the issue of secondary criminalisation, i.e. the unequal application of norms. We observed, for example, that there is greater tolerance in the case of students than with marginalised groups: the use of electricity or digital devices, when it comes to students, is considered as acceptable exception, since this group, while studying, conforms to – and in turn reconfirms – the image of the library as a place of education.

Perception, visibility, criminalisation However, the theme of secondary criminalization is also connected to the dimension of “displeasure”, which identifies what is “acceptable” or “problematic” on the basis of “civility” or, more often, of “appearance”. I have illustrated how the theme of visibility is crucial in the perception and narration of some spaces of the Central Library, such as the Sala Manzoni: visibility, given by the long permanence of some patrons or by particularly stigmatizing personal characters (colour of the skin, hygienic condition), fosters the overestimation of “problematic” users but, above all, results in a form of labelling. These processes, as I have said, are influenced by the wider social context, but also by more rooted trends. I am referring to the stigmatisation of the

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most disadvantaged patrons, according to the long-standing mechanism that identifies a natural link between appearance, marginality, and deviant behaviour. There is a justified need to assess the fact that the most disadvantaged users can legitimately use the library primarily for specific services. Likewise, it is plausible that these services may be questioned, with the aim of establishing how the library can best respond to both these specific and more “institutional” needs, such as language learning or job search. All this, however, must take place through a greater awareness of the role of prejudice and the gap between implicit and ambivalent expectations and a diversified experience of use.

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Conclusion

It is easy to lay the blame off on “some weirdo” who found his or her way into the library, but the face of the person who escalated rhetoric into a bitter argument or similar unpleasant incident may sometimes be seen in the dusty, cracked mirror in the staff lounge. B. A. Shuman (1989:18)

This research focused on the topics of exclusion in the public space, analysing the specific context of the public library. My argument is that the issue of marginalised patrons cannot be addressed only by appealing to the values of equity. It should involve deeper considerations on the responsibilities of the institution itself, identifying how the idea of public is understood and who define what are the “problems”. The elements explored in this work constitute a relevant framework for an improved understanding and evaluation of the dynamics of stigmatisation and limitation of free access in public spaces. The management of spaces such as the public library as collective goods, while referring to an ideal of common (cf. Brighenti 2010), never equally reflects the society as a whole, but rather the implicit or explicit interests of some members. The outcome is precisely the unresolved ambivalence in the relationship with the most marginalised and disadvantaged subjects of the population, often still excluded, criminalised or in any case perceived as “nonpublic” or “problematic public” in several ways. In this respect, the public library is only one of those micro-events in which the forms of the social dialectic are realised. It is a question of addressing the issue of conflict and equality in the context of the public domain,

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which is emblematic for its ambivalences: the equality of the common against the segmentation of the public (order), the collective well-being against the private interest conveyed by the security narratives, equity as the protection of minorities against the criminalisation of marginality. The answer to these ambivalences can only be interpretative, deconstructive, and critical. Concerning the forms of exclusion identified in the public library, two dimensions must be taken into consideration: the interactional processes that define and structure “proper” and “deviant” behaviours, and the way in which they are framed in wider urban and social contexts. With regard to the interactional processes, I have stressed the importance of long-term cultural references and of the meaning-making, rooted in specific historical development and characterised by ambivalence. This is particularly crucial because the issue of the problematic relationship between public library and disadvantaged users is too often framed in medium or short-term historical changes, and in limited spatial and cultural contexts, without accounting the link between these and other long-term processes and transnational transmissions. Despite the emergency narratives and recurring public concerns, the public library has a long tradition linked to “improper uses” and their repression, rooted in a precise historical ambivalence. This is linked to the development of the institution, through the Anglo-Saxon formulation of the “popular library”, as an instrument of control of the subordinate classes, rather than a process of democratisation and emancipation “from the bottom”. The relationship with the most disadvantaged classes is made even more complex by a heterogeneous evolution in the different nation-states, where the Public Library model was combined to varying degrees with the more elitist image of the “conservation” library. Therefore, it is opportune to critically analyse these connections and – while not denying the inclusive effect nurtured by the “Library Faith” – to frame the contemporary debates on the

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most marginalised users within these ideological ambivalences. The crisis of the contemporary role of the public library is often and legitimately framed by the challenges introduced with the diffusion of digital resources, with the pressure of market logics on meritorious services, and the search for new forms of sociality and personal development. Even the discussion of these themes, however, cannot ignore the elements I stressed, as they remain (more or less implicitly) in the problematic definition of the public-recipient and in the search for a (impossible) coherent ideal model able to outline the social mission and relevance of libraries. In addition to the theme of long-term meanings, the second way in which I emphasised the relevance of meanings and interpretations is by highlighting their role as semiautonomous variables in the formulation of micro-politics of exclusion. Firstly, with this idea I am referring to the need to approach the social definition of expected and deviant behaviours with an interpretative approach. The effect of such definitions in the processes of labelling and selective criminalisation is based on stabilised meanings that should be deconstructed: for instance, the link – emblematic in the history of the public library – between social marginality and morality. Secondly, I mean the way in which the expectations of conduct and the relationship between human and non-human subjects are locally structured and stabilised, that is, the way in which legitimate forms of relations are defined within specific thresholds of acceptability (and monitored by specific measures of control). As recalled by Sbraccia and Vianello (2010:66), the attention to the definition of deviant behaviours (the circumstances of criminalisation) also highlights the question of the distribution of power within a social group. Hence, the return to the second great dimension that I stressed: the wider urban and social context in which the public library is situated.

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As I suggested in the beginning of this section, there is a strong connection between the logic of segmentation of public space and the combined effects of local policies. Among all, the double relationship between the public library and the liberal logic of safety and urban blight stands out again. The return of political security rhetoric, questioning the ownership of public spaces, can provide a fertile framework for micro-policies of exclusion in the public library. Public issues are socially constructed, and they are a litmus test to understand the dynamics of the community in its complexity. This reflection leads me to consider the difficulty of going beyond the stage of legitimisation of the problem (cf. Williamson 2000), especially at the local level, given the strong relations between the micro-meso level (of agency) and the macro context of institutional framework. It seems difficult to overcome this impasse without addressing the ambivalences and conflicting narratives within the library in a long durée and an extended lens. Concerning the broader sociological reflection, I hope that the critical analysis of this type of context – which I tried to undertake here – can contribute to strengthen the interest in the meaning-making processes, consolidating the agenda of contemporary cultural sociology and the critical sociology of deviance.

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References Note: Except for the texts whose English edition is specified, all quotations in the thesis have been translated by the candidate.

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Istat. 2017. BES 2017. Il benessere equo e sostenibile in Italia. [Equitable and Sustainable Wellbeing in Italy] Retrieved: June 6, 2018 (https: //www.istat.it/it/files//2017/12/Bes_2017.pdf) ItaliaOggi. 2017. Qualità della vita 2017 [Quality of life 2017]. Retrieved: June 6, 2018 (https: //static.italiaoggi.it/content_upload/doc/2011/11/201111161422577463/qualitadellavita2017.p df) Krull, Ryan. 2017. “What’s a Library to Do? On Homelessness and Public Spaces”, The Millions. Retrieved: December 30, 2017 https: //themillions.com/2017/10/whats-a-library-to-do-onhomelessness-and-public-spaces.html La Voce del Trentino. 2017. “Senza tetto dentro la biblioteca Comunale di Trento, una situazione indescrivibile” [Homeless in the Trento Municipal Library, an unspeakable situation] La Voce del Trentino (January 12). Retrieved: June 24, 2018 (http: //archivio.lavocedeltrentino.it/2017/01/12/senza-tetto-dentro-la-biblioteca-comunale-trentosituazione-indescrivibile/) Lilienthal, M. Stephen. 2011. “The Problem Is Not the Homeless”, Library Journal. Retrieved: September 22, 2017 http: //lj.libraryjournal.com/2011/06/managing-libraries/the-problem-isnot-the-homeless/ LJ Staff. 2002. “Responding to Homeless, Tacoma PL Limits Packages”, Library Journal. Retrieved: September 22, 2017 http: //lj.libraryjournal.com/2002/05/ljarchives/responding-to-homelesstacoma-pl-limits-packages/ LJ Staff. 2003a. “Dallas Cracking Down on Homeless in Libraries”, Library Journal. Retrieved: September 22, 2017 http: //lj.libraryjournal.com/2003/10/ljarchives/dallas-cracking-down-onhomeless-in-libraries/ LJ Staff. 2003b. “Homeless & Transients at Seattle PL Need a New Haven”, Library Journal. Retrieved: September 22, 2017 http: //lj.libraryjournal.com/2003/04/ljarchives/homelesstransients-at-seattle-pl-need-a-new-haven/ LJ Staff. 2006a. “IN Library Limits Borrowing by Homeless, Then Reverses Policy”, Library Journal. Retrieved: September 22, 2017 http: //lj.libraryjournal.com/2006/06/ljarchives/inlibrary-limits-borrowing-by-homeless-then-reverses-policy/ LJ Staff. 2006b. “Worcester, MA, Library Sued Over Policy Toward Homeless”, Library Journal. Retrieved: September 22, 2017 http: //lj.libraryjournal.com/2006/07/ljarchives/worcester-malibrary-sued-over-policy-toward-homeless/ LJ Staff. 2007. “SLC Library’s Ward Reflects on Public Libraries and the Homeless”, Library Journal. Retrieved: September 22, 2017 http: //lj.libraryjournal.com/2007/04/publicservices/slc-librarys-ward-reflects-on-public-libraries-and-the-homeless/ LJ Staff. 2007. “Worcester Library, City Settle Homeless Suit; Will Host Conference”, Library Journal. Retrieved: September 22, 2017 http: //lj.libraryjournal.com/2007/01/ljarchives/worcester-library-city-settle-homeless-suit-willhost-conference/ Mars A. 2013. “Library Service to the Homeless”, Library Journal. Retrieved: September 22, 2017 http: //publiclibrariesonline.org/2013/04/library-service-to-the-homeless/ Maschio, Nicola. 2017. “Trento, i negozianti rilanciano l’allarme sicurezza e degrado” [Trento, shopkeepers relaunch the alarm on security and urban blight], L’Adige.it (January 26). Retrieved: March 26, 2018 (http: //www.ladige.it/news/cronaca/2017/01/26/negozianti-centrotrento-insistono-allarme-sicurezza-rischio-degrado).

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Mastrodonato, Luigi, Giuseppe Sambataro. 2016. “Come la città più vivibile d’Italia è diventata ossessionata dal ‘degrado’” [How Italy’s most liveable city has become obsessed with “blight”] Vice (March 11). Retrieved: March 26, 2018 (https: //www.vice.com/it/article/53mzzd/trentopsicosi-decoro-degrado-citta-italiane-2016) N. A. 2017. “How Libraries Are Adapting to Help Homeless Find Jobs, Health Services”, HuffPost. Retrieved: December 30, 2017 https: //www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/24/nashville-libraryhomeless_n_6746162.html Newall, Mike. 2017. “As national media descend, the heroin catastrophe at Philly library worsens”, The Inquirer. Retrieved: January 5, 2018 http: //www.philly.com/philly/columnists/mike_newall/narcan-nbc-media-heroin-kensingtonmcpherson-square-library-20170602.html Oder, Norman. 2008a. “In Vancouver, More Debate About the Homeless in Libraries”, Library Journal. Retrieved: September 22, 2017 http: //lj.libraryjournal.com/2008/06/publicservices/in-vancouver-more-debate-about-the-homeless-in-libraries/ Oder, Norman. 2008b. “LJ Talks to Chip Ward”, Library Journal. Retrieved: September 22, 2017 http: //lj.libraryjournal.com/2008/05/public-services/lj-talks-to-chip-ward/ Peet, Lisa. 2014. “Edmonton Public Library Adds Homeless Outreach to Five New Branches”, Library Journal. Retrieved: September 22, 2017 http: //lj.libraryjournal.com/2014/12/publicservices/edmonton-public-library-adds-homeless-outreach-to-five-new-branches/ Pidd, Helen. 2015. “Manchester council bans homeless people from using library”, The Guardian. Retrieved: January 10, 2018https: //www.theguardian.com/uk-news/thenortherner/2015/may/06/manchester-council-bans-homeless-people-from-using-library Potet, Frédéric. 2015. “France’s libraries discovering a new lease of life beyond just books”, The Guardian. Retrieved: January 8, 2018 https: //www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/02/france-libraries-social-workshops-meeting-hub Price, Gary. 2015. “Colorado: ‘Denver Public Library’s New On-Site Social Worker Settling into Job’”, Library Journal. Retrieved: January 8, 2018 http: //www.infodocket.com/2015/06/04/colorado-denver-public-librarys-new-on-site-socialworker-settling-into-job/ Spena, Anna. 2016. “Tra gli scaffali delle biblioteche nessuno si sente straniero” Vita. Retrieved: September 22, 2017 http: //www.vita.it/it/article/2016/03/28/tra-gli-scaffali-delle-bibliotechenessuno-si-sente-straniero/138801/ Thorhauge, Jens. 2003. “Danish Strategies in Public Library Services to Ethnic Minorities”, IFLA Journal, 9(4): 308-312. doi: 10.1177/034003520302900407 Trentino. 2017. “Trento, overdose nella biblioteca di via Roma” [Trento, overdose in the library of Roma street], Trentino (July 5). Retrieved: June 8, 2018 (http://www.giornaletrentino.it/cronaca/trento/trento-overdose-nella-biblioteca-di-via-roma1.573940) UNESCO. 1994. “Public Library Manifesto” Retrieved: //unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0011/001121/112122eo.pdf

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Appendix

A. Original quotes from interviews

Q1: «Voglio dire, se qualcuno pensa che è un problema che uno sta lì seduto tutto il giorno, non è un mio problema […] e di sicuro non sarò io a spostare quella persona… Questo è un tema parecchio delicato… tutto considerato, io sono accogliente tendo ad esserlo. Tendo piuttosto ad essere più rigida con quelli che insistono, reclamano, esigono»; Q2: «La biblioteca non può fermarsi al dire “io una volta ero fatta così e così rimango”, perché non è giusto. È un’istituzione che deve seguire il suo tempo, no? Deve però salvare quelli che sono i suoi capisaldi d’origine […] che definiscono il luogo come un luogo di cultura… Il termine cultura ha varie sfaccettature… la cultura però non è “apro per scaldarti”». Q3: «Prima volta sono venuto con amici, sì, gente. Loro però non vengono più. Loro stanno in piazza. Ma meglio qui, qui nessuno disturba, in strada persone cattive e polizia» Q4: «Mi piace la biblioteca...è un luogo culturale, di cultura, dove aggiornarsi [...] è circa 20 anni che vengo in biblioteca, cambia sempre in 20 anni. La nuova parte [sezione multilingue] sembra bella... [...] Le lingue sono ok, ma è importante conoscere l’italiano. Prima la lingua del posto, perché è importante, la cosa più importante, per socializzarsi, integrarsi. [...] La biblioteca è aperta nel senso che è accogliente, culturale. Ma è accogliente se uno è in gamba, se uno dimostra di che ha voglia, allora fa bella strada» Q5: «Io vengo qui a leggere da molti anni [...] ma ci sono quelli che puzzano. Non va bene. Non è cosa bella. Vengono qui tanti a non fare niente e puzzano tanto» Q6: «In sala…quella grande…è importante stare in silenzio. Sì, sì, non si deve parlare. A volte, con gli amici, è brutto, scortese, quando si incontrano amici, chiedere di stare zitti. Parli piano e poco, poi silenzio. Non c’è posto comodo [per parlare], ma si deve stare zitti […] Le regole sono importanti… per esempio io mi porto sempre la batteria, per il telefono… Qui non si può caricare, anche se [altri] lo fanno»

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B. Original interview outline (patrons)

Introduzione e accordo comunicativo D0a (incontro): “Sono uno/a studente/ssa universitario/a e sto aiutando la biblioteca a conoscere al meglio come alcune persone vivono la biblioteca di Trento, vorresti aiutarmi rispondendo a qualche domanda sulla tua esperienza? ... Possiamo farla qui (nell’altra stanza) e durerà circa 30 minuti...” D0b (intro) “...Prima di tutto, grazie ancora. Con questa intervista ti chiedo, appunto, di raccontarmi le tue esperienze in biblioteca... Non ci sono quindi risposte giuste o sbagliate, ma soltanto il modo in cui vivi la biblioteca... Io cercherò soltanto di suggerire, ogni tanto e se sarà necessario, qualche aspetto sul quale concentrare la nostra attenzione. Quanto più mi aiuterai a conoscere nello specifico le tue abitudini, piuttosto che in generale, come sono ‘di solito’, tanto più mi sarà di aiuto. Non avere paura se qualcosa non sarà chiaro e ricorda che quello che ci diremo verrà usato in modo da proteggere la tua privacy, anche, se lo desideri, in completo anonimato. [Raccolta del consenso alla registrazione e al trattamento dei dati] Allora, se sei d’accordo, possiamo cominciare...” Note: Presentarsi e presentare il modo in cui verranno utilizzati i racconti, ovvero il tema attorno a cui ruota l’intervista, decidendo quanto nel dettaglio si voglia far conoscere (in primo luogo presentare la ricerca in termini generali, sull’utenza); Chiedere il consenso orale (o scritto) e presentare il registratore come un normale strumento, che aiuta a compensare alle nostre incapacità di prendere appunti di tutto e dare adeguatamente attenzione a ciò che viene detto (valutare la possibilità di non registrare); Prendere appunti e note etnografiche durante l’intervista; Tenere a mente la traccia, ma avere un riferimento scritto; Possibilità, in alcune occasioni, di introdurre qualcosa su di noi (per aprire).

Utilizzo della biblioteca D1. Mi descriveresti le zone della biblioteca che conosci? Nota: tenere conto del luogo di incontro e tutte le aree formalizzate/strutturate e quelle percepite/simboliche. D1.1 (cornice): “Per cominciare vorrei che mi raccontassi l’ultima giornata (che hai passato) qui in biblioteca, da quando sei arrivato a quando sei andato via... (ricorda che più mi offrirai dettagli e più mi sarai d’aiuto)”

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Nota: propongo di ancorare la narrazione nello spazio e nel tempo, decidendo poi e adeguatamente circa la possibilità di inserire specificazioni (es. conoscere situazioni diverse). La dom. è generale ma apre a molte informazioni, senza fra l’altro proporre giudizi sulle possibili attività. Cercare di non suggerire. Tenere a mente il desiderio di esplorare anche le rappresentazioni, significati e identità attribuiti al ‘mondo biblioteca’. Possibili sotto-domande: D1a. “Mi racconteresti che cosa c’è di simile e di diverso tra la giornata che mi hai raccontato e altre occasioni?” D1b. “Ci sono altri momenti in cui vieni in biblioteca? Per qualche attività particolare? “ (D1c. “Cosa significa per te la biblioteca/venire in biblioteca?”) Problema: possibile idealizzazione/stereotipizzazione della risposta

Conoscenza della biblioteca D2 (cornice): “Ora vorrei mi raccontassi come hai iniziato a venire in biblioteca...” Possibili sotto-domande: D2a. “Come hai conosciuto... [inserire aspetto]?” D2b. “Mi racconti di più su come... [inserire aspetto. Es. sentito parlare della biblioteca]?” D2b. “Hai mai sentito... [inserire servizio che ci interessa]?” Nota: alcuni dei servizi esistenti da promuovere Corsi di italiano Aula nuova ‘multilingue’ Materiali multimediali, anche in altre lingue MLOL – biblioteca digitale Periodici Prestiti inter-sede e inter-bibliotecari

Possibilità: valutazione, desideri e proposte D3 (cornice): “Immagina di avere la possibilità di fare cambiamenti, grandi o piccoli, come cambieresti tu questa o altre biblioteche?” Nota: aprire a un tipo di domande più valutative e che aprono a possibili cambiamenti. Proiettare nel futuro o nella fantasia, per eliminare suggerimenti o forzature. Cercare di non suggerire, ma considerare alcuni rilanci. In alcuni casi, portare ad esempio, per confronto, alcune idee altrui o inventate. Possibili sotto-domande: D3a. “Come ti piacerebbe... [inserire servizio]?”

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D3b. “Prima dicevi... [inserire eventuale problema menzionato da lui] ...” D3c. “Un’altra persona mi diceva che... [inserire] ...cosa ne pensi?” D3d. “Alcune persone... [inserire azione] ...” Nota: alcuni aspetti che potrebbero essere o sono stati proposti dagli intervistati Più testi in lingua straniera Più autori stranieri ‘originali’ nella sezione multilingue Più incontri/scambi culturali D4 (opinione): “Mi piacerebbe sapere cosa pensi riguardo ad alcune idee...” Nota: aprire ad alcune domande su proposte specifiche che possiamo voler sondare. Alcuni aspetti che potrebbero essere proposti dalla biblioteca: Periodici in lingua in aula nuova Nuove acquisizioni con ‘esperti’ Servizio di sostegno allo studio e ricerca lavoro, in collaborazione con altre istituzioni

Spazio ponte (eventuale) DX (dettaglio): “Vorrei tornare su un punto interessante...” Nota: domande che riprendono punti interessanti accennati o proposta di valutazione su comportamenti e opinioni non ancora trattati. DXb. “Prima dicevi... [inserire] ...” D3c. “Un’altra persona mi diceva che... [inserire] ...cosa ne pensi?” DXd. “Alcune persone... [inserire] ...”

Sul narratore-intervistato D5 (domande informative): “Ora vorrei chiederti delle cose diverse, alcune informazioni su di te/mi racconteresti un po’ di te, chi sei...” Nota: ricordare tutela dei dati! Attenzione a non dilungarsi troppo! Possibili sotto-domande: D5a. [Precedenti esperienze di biblioteca nel Paese di origine o altro contesto] D5b. [Provenienza] D5c. [Età] D5d. [Occupazione– dato sensibile per richiedenti recenti] D5e [‘Tipo’ migrante] D5f. [Reti sociali e familiari] D5g. [Luogo di vita e condizioni/coinquilini]

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D5h. [Titolo di studio] D5i. [aspettative future]

Congedo D6: “C’è qualcos’altro che vorresti dire, o chiedere? ...” (D7: “Vorrei chiederti: conosci qualcuno che usa la biblioteca e potrebbe aiutarmi rispondendo a queste domande? Mi sarebbe molto d’aiuto”) “Abbiamo finito, ti ringrazio ancora molto...” Dedicare spazio finale; Ringraziare! Accogliere eventuale invito a prolungare il tempo assieme o altro incontro, per la ricerca in sé e per il contatto umano. Prendere eventuale contatto e accordi. Chiedere per altri contatti.

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C. Original interview outline (librarians)

Introduzione e accordo comunicativo D0 (intro) “...Prima di tutto, grazie ancora della disponibilità. Con questa intervista le chiedo, come sa, di raccontarmi le sue esperienze in biblioteca riguardo due importanti temi della nostra ricerca: l’utenza straniera e gli usi che possiamo definire impropri... Registrerò la conversazione, in modo da tenere bene nota di ciò che ci diremo. La registrazione rimarrà solo a me e i miei colleghi e verrà usata in modo da proteggere la sua privacy. A questo proposito vorrei chiederle di prendere visione di questa informativa [proporre modulo per autorizzazione] Si tratta di una chiacchierata molto aperta, senza tante domande: quello che mi piacerebbe conoscere sono le sue esperienze e opinioni, nel modo più completo possibile ☺ Per questo la invito a non preoccuparsi di ciò che può apparire non importante, ma di affrontare anche i dettagli, se lo desidera. Inoltre non ci sono cose giuste o sbagliate... Io cercherò soltanto di suggerire, ogni tanto e se sarà necessario, qualche aspetto sul quale concentrare la nostra attenzione, ma sarà lei a guidarmi ☺ Quanto più mi aiuterà a conoscere le cose nello specifico, piuttosto che in generale, come sono ‘di solito’, tanto più mi sarà di aiuto. Allora, se è d’accordo, possiamo cominciare...” Note: Chiedere il consenso scritto e considerare il registratore come un normale strumento, che aiuta a compensare alle nostre incapacità di prendere appunti di tutto e dare adeguatamente attenzione a ciò che viene detto (valutare la possibilità di non registrare); Prendere appunti e note etnografiche durante l’intervista e stilare la scheda finale; Tenere a mente la traccia, ma avere un riferimento scritto;

Sul narratore (1): ruolo e spazi D1 (cornice): “Prima di dedicarsi soprattutto a chi viene in biblioteca, mi piacerebbe mi parlasse un po’ del suo lavoro, in modo che io possa seguirla meglio nei suoi racconti: per cominciare, mi racconti dello spazio in cui lavora ...se le può essere d’aiuto può far finta che io debba raccontarlo in un documentario... Temi: Accompagnare a una narrazione ampia (accompagnare al particolare) Mansioni in biblioteca, ritmi e luoghi Primi possibili racconti spontanei

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Aspetti/Possibili domande: D1a. “le chiedo ora di raccontarmi com’è il suo lavoro, cercando di far riferimento ai luoghi e agli elementi che mi ha detto... se vuole può raccontarmi la sua ultima giornata di lavoro” D1b. “Mi racconterebbe di più su... [lo spazio/ le sue mansioni]” D1c. “Mi racconterebbe di più sul suo contatto con gli utenti (tutti)?” D1d. “Ci sono altri momenti in cui si trova in sala Manzoni/Primo piano? (e fuori dall’orario di lavoro?)”

Utenti stranieri “Vorrei ora spostare l’attenzione proprio ai due temi su cui stiamo lavorando -gli utenti stranieri e gli usi ‘cosiddetti impropri’...” D2: “Mi piacerebbe iniziare dal tema dei cittadini stranieri... Qual è la sua esperienza? Le ricordo che quanto più mi aiuterà a conoscere le cose nello specifico, piuttosto che in generale, tanto più mi sarà di aiuto...” Temi: Vissuto rispetto all’utenza straniera: sensazioni e osservazione Opinioni circa l’entità del “fenomeno” e l’andamento nel tempo Percezioni dell’impatto: come e se questa utenza contribuisce all’evoluzione della biblioteca Es. il calo dell’utenza? Opinione in merito ai passati e nuovi possibili comportamenti “della biblioteca” Aspetti/Possibili domande: D2a. “Mi parlerebbe di com’è mentre lavori (per quanto riguarda gli stranieri)?” D2b. “Come si è evoluto, attraverso gli anni, l’utilizzo della biblioteca da parte degli utenti stranieri?” D2c. “Cosa ne pensa del ruolo dell’utenza straniera rispetto all’evoluzione della biblioteca?” D2d. “Mi racconterebbe qual è il ruolo della biblioteca nei confronti degli stranieri? Per esempio, ho sentito parlare del progetto ‘Hope’... D2e. “Mi racconta quale dovrebbe essere il ruolo della biblioteca nei confronti degli stranieri?

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Usi “impropri” D3 (cornice): “Mi piacerebbe parlare ora dal tema degli “usi impropri/atipici”, o “non tradizionali” ... Innanzitutto, di cosa parliamo secondo lei quando consideriamo questo tema? [Importante: ragionare sull’etichetta e usare eventuale altra loro definizione] Temi: Percezione e definizione degli usi Vissuto rispetto agli “usi impropri”: sensazioni e osservazione Opinioni circa l’entità del “fenomeno” e l’andamento nel tempo Percezioni dell’impatto: come e se “usi atipici” contribuiscono all’evoluzione della biblioteca Es. il calo dell’utenza? Opinione in merito ai passati e nuovi possibili comportamenti “della biblioteca” Aspetti/Possibili domande: D3a. “Si potrebbe pensare a usi “propri” e “impropri” ... Me ne può parlare? D3b. “Mi parlerebbe di com’è mentre lavora (per quanto riguarda questo tema)?” D3c. “Come si è evoluto, attraverso gli anni, l’esperienza degli “usi impropri”?” D3d. “Cosa ne pensa del ruolo di questi “usi atipici” rispetto all’evoluzione della biblioteca?” Qualcuno sostiene che la biblioteca avrebbe ‘funzioni' diverse, o che essi contribuiscano, magari indirettamente, a cambiare la biblioteca, per esempio scoraggiandone l’uso da parte di altre persone... D3e. “Mi racconterebbe qual è il ruolo della biblioteca nei confronti di questo tema? D3f. “Mi racconta quale dovrebbe essere il ruolo della biblioteca nei confronti degli “usi non tradizionali”? Cambiare?... O accompagnare verso usi “propri” ... Oppure...?

Spazio ponte (eventuale) DX (dettaglio): “Vorrei tornare su un punto interessante...” Nota: domande che riprendono punti interessanti accennati o proposta di valutazione su comportamenti e opinioni non ancora trattati. DXa. “Prima dicevi... [inserire] ...” DXb. “Un’altra persona mi diceva che... [inserire] ...cosa ne pensi?” DXc. “Alcune persone... [inserire] ...”

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Sul narratore (2): immaginario, motivazioni, percorso D4 (cornice): “Vorrei ora tornare ancora su di lei e il suo lavoro... Spostando quindi la nostra attenzione, vorrei che mi raccontasse come è divenuto/a un impiegato/a in biblioteca...” Temi: Percorso di arrivo al lavoro in biblioteca Motivazioni Rappresentazioni simboliche e immaginario della biblioteca Aspetti/Possibili domande: D4a. “Cos’è per lei la biblioteca?” D4b. “Cosa significa per lei venire in biblioteca?” D4c. “Cosa dovrebbe essere, per lei, la biblioteca?” D4d. “Come vede/le piacerebbe vedere la biblioteca fra alcuni anni?” D4e. [Altre esperienze di biblioteca]

Congedo D6: “C’è qualcos’altro che vorresti dire, o chiedere? ...” D5 (domande informative): “Ora vorrei chiederti delle cose diverse, alcune informazioni più specifiche su di te/mi racconterebbe un po’ di lei...” Aspetti/Possibili domande: D5d . . . “Abbiamo finito, la ringrazio ancora molto...” Dedicare spazio finale. Accogliere eventuale invito a prolungare il tempo assieme o altro incontro.

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