Public Library Response to Women and Their Changing Roles Revisited

Headnote

ABSTRACT

Updating research done in 1980, the authors survey the current status of programming for women in public libraries, concentrating on the largest U.S. public libraries. The designation of National Women's History Month was assumed to provide a legitimizing factor that libraries could use to develop women's programming. Many libraries have indeed developed programming for women during National Women's History Month, but many more have planned women's programming as part of their regular offering of programs. Women's programming has been strengthened by a greater visibility of the diverse needs and interests of women, funding for programs for women, and greatly expanded publishing activity that continually provides new titles on women's issues for public library collections. Women themselves have been a catalyst for programming as they have been avid users of public libraries and often the primary audience for library programs. Although librarians seem reluctant to identify their target audience by gender, they continue to develop programming that attracts more women than men.

INTRODUCTION

In 1980 we wrote an article for Reference & User Services Quarterly, then called RQ entitled "Public Library Response to Women and Their Changing Roles." In that time of wide-ranging social and personal activism we spoke as feminists and as librarians to library practitioners. Our goal was to encourage a greater public library focus on women and so called women's issues. To that end we chronicled programs, services, and collection development and identified patterns of practice. Slightly over a quarter century later, when the women's movement we remain part of is no longer a visibly active force in our society, we revisit the public library's response to women and their changing roles.

Today many women's issues have become subsumed under larger issues. Now the focus is on single parent families and the working poor, rather than on working women. Similarly the high cost of health care is a larger issue than specialized and appropriate care for women. Concern for displaced workers has replaced concern for displaced homemakers.

In the 1980s feminist bookstores were still springing up. Now, along with most independent bookstores, they are closed or closing. Consciousness raising groups are passé. Women are more likely to be in a book discussion group, many of which take place in public libraries....