Library Synergy
Metadata
Highlights
- San Francisco was a hotbed of social activity in 1967. From the city’s 65,000-person anti-war demonstration held concomitantly with the Spring Mobilization Committee’s New York City protest, to the influx of thousands of people for the “Summer of Love” activities, the Bay community manifested social change. Celeste West, Synergy’s first editor, commented on the relationship between San Francisco’s transformation and the local library scene. She described the city as “a trend-mecca—whether it be communal living, campus riots, gay liberation, independent film making … you name it and we’ve got it.” But what San Francisco had, she argued, was not reflected in library collections unless somebody took the time to pull together “the elusive printed material.” Thus, Synergy began examining the nature of library card catalogs, indexes, and selecting tools because its staff believed that such tools were mostly “rear-view mirrors” that provided little or no bibliographic access to the public’s current information needs.
- But Synergy stood for more than just information access. Under West’s direction, it called on librarians to become “pivotal agents to enforce” the Library Bill of Rights, to support a free press, and to develop a new professional attitude by shifting from “conserving and organizing” information to “generating or promoting it.” Synergy defined an alternative library culture that worried less about the library as a keeper of the cultural record, and more about the library as an active agent for change.
title: “Library Synergy”
author: “boot-boyz.biz”
url: ”https://boot-boyz.biz/products/library-synergy”
date: 2023-12-19
source: hypothesis
tags: media/articles
Library Synergy
Metadata
Highlights
- San Francisco was a hotbed of social activity in 1967. From the city’s 65,000-person anti-war demonstration held concomitantly with the Spring Mobilization Committee’s New York City protest, to the influx of thousands of people for the “Summer of Love” activities, the Bay community manifested social change. Celeste West, Synergy’s first editor, commented on the relationship between San Francisco’s transformation and the local library scene. She described the city as “a trend-mecca—whether it be communal living, campus riots, gay liberation, independent film making … you name it and we’ve got it.” But what San Francisco had, she argued, was not reflected in library collections unless somebody took the time to pull together “the elusive printed material.” Thus, Synergy began examining the nature of library card catalogs, indexes, and selecting tools because its staff believed that such tools were mostly “rear-view mirrors” that provided little or no bibliographic access to the public’s current information needs.
- But Synergy stood for more than just information access. Under West’s direction, it called on librarians to become “pivotal agents to enforce” the Library Bill of Rights, to support a free press, and to develop a new professional attitude by shifting from “conserving and organizing” information to “generating or promoting it.” Synergy defined an alternative library culture that worried less about the library as a keeper of the cultural record, and more about the library as an active agent for change.