Template for PhD Dissertation - Forskning

mastodont som Dewey, der ellers mest interesserede sig for rationaliseringer, men i en
tale på University of the State of New York i 1888 tog han bladet fra munden og
sammenlignede the storage library med the recreation library. Her sagde han bl.a.:
“The recreation type is a mental candy shop (...). It is wholly for use, but the
use is wholly for amusement. It could be illustrated by a school that taught
only games, or a hotel that in its dining-room served only sweetmeats. It
has, to be sure, some excellent books, but supplied to meet the taste of its
pleasure-seekers, as the confectioner gives those who wish it a bit of good
bread to eat with their ice-cream.
Surely every library ought to have an ambition to get and preserve books,
and surely some place should be found in every general collection for
fiction and humour. These ought, however, to be the embroidery, and not
the web. A circulating library, run as a business, will of course take on the
latter character, and supply whatever will be most readily taken by its
customers. But the library in which we are interested to-day combines the
good features of both these with others of its own, and is the institution that
deserves the name of people’s university. It might well copy that broad
legend from the seal of Cornell, ‘An institution where any person may find
instruction in any study.’ Perhaps we should more clearly recognise its
proper functions and be in less danger of confusing it with old ideas if we
called it not a ‘library,’ but a ‘people’s university.’” (Carrier, 1965, p. 90-
91)
Hver gang Dewey refererer til fiktion er ordvalget nedladende. Det er ’slik’, der bliver
læst af forlystelsessyge mennesker, som bare vil underholdes, og ingen kan være i tvivl
om, at Dewey ikke mener denne type litteratur har noget som helst at gøre med
oplysning eller dannelse – ej heller, selv om nogle af titlerne åbenbart er ’fremragende’
(hvad der til gengæld lyder meget lidt overbevisende i konteksten).
Heroverfor var skaberen af et af de andre store klassifikationssystemer, Charles A.
, afgjort mere positivt indstillet, men også for ham skulle læsningen af fiktion i
Cutter 20
20 Som Poole og Dewey blev også Cutter senere formand for ALA.
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