A review by marcantel
Questioning Library Neutrality: Essays from Progressive Librarian by Alison Lewis

3.0

Culling from the pages of Progressive Librarian journal, this collection of articles are united in their stance against library neutrality, a particular take on academic objectivity which holds that libraries should be agnostic towards the social value of library material in the selection process. Librarians generally hold to the notion that by remaining "objective" in the selection process, they are giving equal voice to all parties. What these Progressive Librarian's Guild members argue is that the library selection process is already unfairly weighted due to the inclusion of special interests (wholesalers, vendors, and other capitalists) in the selection process. Librarians who rely too heavily on vendors are already exhibiting bias against small & independent publishers, or against particular voices which the vendors themselves are biased against (and hence do not carry, or at least do not advertise). While I agree with the sentiments of the authors, the articles themselves read like typical library literature, and were not reworked to focus in on the theme of the book. Hence, the book is a bit lacking cohesion. Still, as a sampling of what one might find in the pages of Progressive Librarian this is a good collection.