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This book appealed to me on many levels: it discusses libraries, sociology, libraries as a within social science, economics, and it was just over 100 pages. Kathleen de la Peña McCook summarizes the book in the preface, which is a godsend for the reader. It is good to know what you are getting into before you read a book like this. The text may be short but the concepts are huge.

Although a treatise on the history and current state of public libraries, D’Angelo does not mention libraries a... (show more)

This book appealed to me on many levels: it discusses libraries, sociology, libraries as a within social science, economics, and it was just over 100 pages. Kathleen de la Peña McCook summarizes the book in the preface, which is a godsend for the reader. It is good to know what you are getting into before you read a book like this. The text may be short but the concepts are huge.

Although a treatise on the history and current state of public libraries, D’Angelo does not mention libraries all that often. What he talks about instead are the foundations that allowed the public library to come into existence and the path the public library has taken after the development and increasing dominance of capitalism based on mass culture and market engineering.

Basically, democracy as a form of government requires acknowledgement of a public good and a striving to attain what is best for most of the people. In order to determine what is good for the public, we need education. In order to obtain education so that people may participate in the democratic process, we need civil education and public libraries.

Public libraries met the needs of educating the public, and this was their main focus until the rise of popular culture in the 1950s. As mass consumption and consumer capitalism became the norm, attentions began to shift. Entertainment was given precedence and information took the place of education. We are left with infotainment, a non-critical approach to receiving information but not necessarily knowledge.

Despite the dreariness and the occasional over-assumptions, this was a wonderful read. I enjoyed seeing all of those old, familiar names bandied about. Reacquainting myself with and doing my best to digest their big sociological concepts gave me pause and made me remember what I’m doing here in the first place. Although the book essentially (and eventually) breaks down to public libraries, I would recommend this to anyone who wants to know more about democracy and what capitalism has done to it. I highly recommend this to librarians as a refresher and a reminder of our social responsibilities. (show less)

The book's begining seems to encompass most of it, and streches almost all the way to page 200. Then the spin is not strong enough, not nearly surprising enough, and the ending simply too cliche. The writer seemed to think we should be intimately familiar with the main character and had her in way too many side notes and side references, and the style of "my dear journal" was ruined by too many references to obscure american culture trivias.
The other characters are all rather flat... (show more)

The book's begining seems to encompass most of it, and streches almost all the way to page 200. Then the spin is not strong enough, not nearly surprising enough, and the ending simply too cliche. The writer seemed to think we should be intimately familiar with the main character and had her in way too many side notes and side references, and the style of "my dear journal" was ruined by too many references to obscure american culture trivias.
The other characters are all rather flat and uniteresting, and when they do have a little spice, it's once more a cliche and sticky romantic romance material.
The idea is interesting, and refreshing, but the outcome is dull and boring, with a begining that cruises slowly over as many pages as possible, then gives a full-gas neutral to give the middle, spin, untiing, ending, etc. all in a quick race that leaves you wanting not your money but your time back. (show less)