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1 Reading for a better future – Dan Grace
Reading for a Better Future: Books For A Better Future (BFABF) and Sustainability
Literacy in a UK Public Library
Once a year, at the height of summer, the campaigning groups and concerned
organizations in our city set out their stalls at the annual Green Fair. In the
gardens of the venue, bands play on a small stage, cakes and vegan snacks
are sold at tables to raise money for various causes, and kids dart about in the
sunshine. Inside, stalls are piled high with petitions, letters to write, and leaflets
informing on a wide variety of campaigns local, national, and international.
Library colleagues and I set out our table and chatted with members of the
public. The day passed like many other outreach events, until, that is, I had a
conversation with one of our regular service users.
“What I'd really like is a book group where we could discuss some of these
ideas,” he said, indicating the range of books and magazines we'd brought
along. “Do you think there'd be much call for it?”
“Well, I'm interested, so we could certainly give it a try,” I replied.
Like many such projects, there was an element of serendipity to the beginnings of the
Books For A Better Future (BFABF) reading group. As a library worker, I have always had
a keen personal interest in the role of the public library in promoting sustainability literacy,
as defined by Stibbe and Luna (2009: 10) as “the skills, attitudes, competencies,
dispositions and values that are necessary for surviving and thriving in the declining
conditions of the world in ways which slow down that decline as far as possible.”
It is possible to identify two methods of approaching this promotion, passive and active.
Passive promotion primarily takes the form of infrastructural changes to the library service
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itself, e.g. considering recycling policies, energy use, or construction of new library
buildings. Active promotion is the pursuit of specific sustainability outreach programs as
part of the library's work, e.g. tours to highlight infrastructural changes; promotion of
selected areas of the collection; or working with groups such as the Transition Towns, a
movement to “inspire, encourage, connect, support and train communities as they self-
organise around the transition model, creating initiatives that rebuild resilience and reduce
CO2 emissions” (Grace, 2011: 15-17; Transition Network, 2012). Neither method is better
than the other; in fact both are necessary if we accept the basic premise that the library, as
a public institution, has a role to play in building more resilient communities.
The organization of the outreach session at the Green Fair represented my first attempt as
a library worker to move towards a more active promotion of sustainability literacy, and
from that chance conversation emerged the BFABF reading group, an attempt to further
that active agenda, now beginning its third year of existence.
Roles
“I think it is fantastic for the group to have a librarian involved…The main
importance of the librarian is, I think, being a contact point for new members, as
people looking to join a book club are most likely to start by asking at their local
library.”
BFABF member
As already stated, I had very specific aims in setting up the BFABF reading group. While
establishing the group was answering a need expressed by a member of the community, I
was also interested in finding ways to actively promote sustainability literacy in the
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community I serve. When I started the group, I had no clear idea how that might work in
practice. I couldn't find evidence of any other library services doing what we were
attempting. It was an experiment.
One of the hardest points to define when starting out with a new group such as this is the
roles of members and of the librarian. Everyone arrives with different expectations and
experiences. In order to better understand the views of those involved with the reading
group, I put together a short and simple survey, asking questions on a range of topics
including the role of the library worker, how individuals felt about their interactions with the
group, and how they saw the group developing. I promoted the survey at our meetings and
via our email list; however, there were only five responses from a possible 15 list
members. While this is a lower response than I would have liked, it accurately represented
the number of active group members at that current moment in time. Ideally I would have
liked to get feedback from those who had attended and not returned. However, with the
survey being voluntary, there was no way to ensure I got such feedback. All responses
were anonymous. In addition to the survey, I have taken notes and reflected upon our
meetings over the preceding two years, which has given me additional insight into how the
group is functioning.
Responses from a mix of group members, both old and new, indicate that they view that
the primary role of the library worker should be as a point of contact for those interested in
joining the group, and to facilitate access to books and other material. Next in importance
was the organization of meeting space for the group to use. One respondent favored a
more direct role for the library worker in selecting texts for reading.
As the group went through its first few meetings, I began to view my role as a facilitator,
and I hoped that over time I would be needed less and less in that capacity and would
instead become just another member of the group. As a direct result of the cuts currently
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being imposed on library services in the UK, the extent to which I have been able to carry
out group tasks during work time has varied. As an organization, the public library service I
work for no longer has the depth of staffing to allow individual workers time to pursue any
but the most essential tasks. Despite this, colleagues have been extremely supportive in
finding time during the working day in which I can carry out some of the administrative
tasks related to the group, such as maintaining the email list and updating listings on local
websites. More recently, the group's engagement with a project run by the Reading
Agency (a charity that encourages reading, often working in partnership with public
libraries), where book groups were asked to read and review shortlisted titles for the Royal
Society Winton Science Book Prize, has raised our profile among senior members of staff.
This has led to time being freed up for me to carry out more functions related to the group
during work time again.
It is a concern for me that the group be autonomous in its decisions and actions, that it be
able to function without my input. The capacity for autonomous action is central to building
resilient communities (Norris et al., 2008). This, to me, would be the measure to which it
has become sustainable, and group members have increased their sustainability literacy. I
have my idea of why the group was set up, but once established, it should be free to
explore ideas as it sees fit.
Ivan Illich encapsulates the dilemma I found myself in in his critique of the discourse
surrounding needs. Needs, he argues, are not simply defined by general consent, a
democratic process, but increasingly by professionals—that is, organized bodies of
specialists, who create, adjudicate, and implement needs as commodities according to the
logic of their own power (Illich, 2005: 16-17). To what extent was I attempting to define the
needs of the group through my own ideological and professional lenses?
Professionalism is a major discourse in librarianship, and as such provides the ideological
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underpinnings of our understanding of our role in relation to library users. Yet it can be
argued, following Illich (2005), that the logic by which this discourse operates is something
that intrudes into the world of libraries from outside and above (Grace, 2011: 59). By
behaving in a professional manner, I undermine the central premise of autonomy that is
integral to educating for sustainability literacy. In order to try to avoid such a pitfall, a
reflective approach must be adopted. This might be through journaling, or simply
discussing these issues as they arise with a sympathetic fellow worker. An awareness of
the power relationships involved is the beginning of avoiding the solidifying of such a
dynamic and the undermining of the whole purpose of the endeavor.
One problem that has arisen is the question of dominant voices in the group. There are
those who have more to say and are more confident than others in putting their views
across. The survey specifically asked whether the role of the library worker should
encompass chairing the discussions so as to mitigate this factor. There were no responses
in favor of this approach. The desire seems to be that any such tendencies must be
regulated by self-organization and not a single authoritative individual. Interestingly,
despite my concerns, all survey respondents stated that they felt they had adequate
capacity to express their views in the group sessions.
The group demographics, while reflecting a diversity of backgrounds, do not necessarily
reflect the total diversity of the city in which we live. The group currently has an even split
between male and female members (perhaps for the first time in its existence), ranges in
age from mid-20s to mid-60s, and includes members from Belgium, New Zealand, Ireland,
and Romania, as well as here in the UK. However, other minority and migrant communities
of our city are not represented. There may be many reasons for this. The level of
discussion can be quite high, with some technical language used that requires some effort
to follow, even for native English speakers such as myself. This level is set by the
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members themselves, and as such acts as a self-imposed bar to entry. The group is
interested in discussing these ideas in some detail, and that may not be easy or useful for
a new arrival or someone just gaining confidence in English. Also, the barriers that might
prevent someone new to our city from accessing public services also apply to their
capacity to join our group, despite attempts to reach out into the community at events such
as the Green Fair.
Purpose and Scale
“To be a model of sustainable group interaction.”
BFABF member
People come to projects such as this with very different ideas of how it might work and
what it might achieve, as well as different levels of education and understanding of the
issues likely to be discussed. In response to my survey, group members indicated that
their primary reason for joining the group was intellectual—to encounter new ideas—
shortly followed by social, and then, finally, practical. This progression is reinforced by
responses to a question asking what the purpose of the group is. The most votes went to
the options “discuss books” and “encounter new ideas.” Only one respondent identified
with the concept of ”increasing sustainability literacy” as a primary purpose of the group.
This poses an important question: if the group is to encourage positive change, surely it
needs to go beyond the simple discussion of books and new ideas? The extent to which
action is encouraged and taken by members of the group is hard to gauge, although the
majority of respondents to the survey indicated that being a member of BFABF had
impacted their daily lives. Discussions at meetings do touch on local protests and
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meetings, as well as personal goals such as reduction of carbon emissions. Many of those
in the group have links with local and national campaigning groups, e.g. Quakers, trade
unions, UKUncut (a group concerned with tax evasion and avoidance by large
corporations), Transition Towns, and the Green Party. As such, the group serves as a
place to have discussions adjacent to these activities, to find a greater clarity in our
involvement with these other activities, and to introduce new ideas that might influence
them.
Over the last two years, we have had individuals come and go from the group, with a core
membership of around four or five. Meetings have seen as many as seven or eight
members present, or as few as one. Gaining new members has mainly come about
through word of mouth, posters and bookmarks advertising the group, and posts to various
websites and lists amenable to the material read and discussed. It would have been
interesting to have more feedback from those who had left the group to set against the
methods with which they were recruited to the project, to see which were the most
successful.
Early on in the process, we established that there was an optimum number of individuals,
approximately three to six, that would work for a constructive conversation in our once-
monthly, one-and-a-half-hour-long meetings. Beyond that size, it is hard for all members to
have their say and for a qualitatively beneficial discussion to take place. It is interesting to
note that in his wide-ranging study of social organization, Sale (1980: 343-351) identifies—
albeit with regard to the slightly different situation of committees—five as the optimal group
number being “good for decision-making, because of course it is odd and because it is
large enough so that no one feels isolated when taking a stand (divisions are more often
three-two) and small enough so that participants can shift roles and points of view without
onus.” While this may seem unrelated to a group whose primary decision-making function
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is simply what to read next, it reflects that we are working at a manageable, human scale
in our attempt to engender long-term positive social change. Ideally, the BFABF reading
group would form one of several nodes in a network of like-minded groups. As stated
earlier, while we link in with campaigning groups across our city through individual actions,
such a network is yet to take shape in any formal way. Our most recent meetings have
included discussion of the idea of sometimes using a more workshop-like structure to try to
address practical ideas related to the theories we discuss.
For the most part, survey respondents indicated that the group had met their expectations.
One negative point that arose was the lack of enough copies in the library system of some
titles chosen for discussion. This scarcity has led to experiments with what and how we
read. The group has moved from title-based reading, where everyone reads the same
book, to topic-based reading, where a topic is chosen and all members read around it, with
a few suggested texts. This was a direct response to the lack of freely-available copies of
the type of book our group wished to discuss. The success of this second approach has
been limited, and ideally there would be enough of a single title to go around each month.
Also, we have experimented with watching documentaries accessible free online, making
library computers available for those who do not have Internet access at home. There has
been very little progress in pressuring the library to obtain titles for the group, primarily due
to the current state of funding for libraries in the UK. One reading set, of Richard Sennet's
The Craftsman, was bought, but subsequent requests have not been successful.
Of the myriad topics covered by the group's reading, members felt that they had become
most informed on ideas around alternative economics. The extent to which this represents
a bias in the collection of the public library or is more a reflection of the current state of
affairs is hard to discern. Other subjects covered have included sustainability, radical
politics, psychology, and genetics. The books and topics chosen for reading were made by
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consensus at the end of each meeting. Working in a small group with similar interests
makes such a process relatively easy. See Box 1. for a sample of books read by the
group.
Lessons and Hopes
“It has been a great experience to be involved. I particularly value meeting
people that I wouldn't have met otherwise - probably the most important aspect
for me is hearing other people's ideas, whilst understanding (something of) their
background. This helps me form my own assessments of the books / passages
/ ideas we've come across, and I really value it.”
BFABF member
Four out of the five respondents to the survey said that involvement in the group had an
impact on their day-to-day lives. Often this was in small and hard to describe ways, the
causal relationship between being a member of the BFABF reading group and changes in
lifestyle being hard to determine. Perhaps looking for large-scale differences in our lives
and communities is to misunderstand the purpose of the project; instead it might be said
that “the learning is the change” (Phillips, 2009: 210). The discussions we have at our
meetings are impassioned, and attitudes towards each other have evolved as we have
come to understand one another better. We are individuals already committed, to varying
degrees, to changing the world for the better, halting ecological destruction, and creating a
more positive future. In addition to serving as a place to discuss ideas and move our own
practices forward, our aims include forming more significant links with like-minded
organizations and hopefully establishing other, similar groups in our city, perhaps in
10 Reading for a better future – Dan Grace
conjunction with other community libraries and library workers.
Any attempt at educating for sustainability can positively influence the institution in which it
takes place (Phillips, 2009). While support from the public library service has been limited,
it still provides the space for the group, and it approved the initial outlay of my time to
establish the group. It can only be hoped that the value of sustainability literacy programs
will increase in the eyes of local authorities, as the incidence of high-profile climate-related
incidents increases. To make this happen, the library worker involved with the program
must attempt to raise the profile of the group within the local authority and encourage the
group towards actions that will positively impact local resilience. However, should a library
authority not be supportive of these efforts, a group like BFABF can still be established and
maintained, provided there a few dedicated individuals willing to ensure its success.
The hope for the future is what it has always been, that however small our achievements
with the BFABF reading group, it might provide the seed for further actions and, ultimately,
a better future for us all.
Box 1 – Examples of books read by the group
Heat - George Monbiot
The Revenge of Gaia - James Lovelock
How to Be Free - Tom Hodgkinson
Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air - David McKay
The Age of Absurdity - Michael Foley
The Craftsman - Richard Sennett
The Spirit Level - Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett
The Black Swan - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Work - Crimethinc
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True Wealth - Juliet Schor
Life Rules - Ellen LaConte
The Shock Doctrine - Naomi Klein
Whole Earth Discipline - Stewart Brand
My Beautiful Genome – Lone Frank
12 Reading for a better future – Dan Grace
References
Grace, Daniel (2011). The role of the public library in promoting community resilience: an
autoethnographic study. (Unpublished master's thesis). University of Sheffield, Sheffield.
Retrieved from - http://dagda.shef.ac.uk/dispub/dissertations/2010-
11/External/DGrace_090125616.pdf
Illich, Ivan (2005). “Disabling Professions”. In: Illich, Ivan et al. Disabling Professions, pp.
11-41. London: Marion Boyars.
Norris, Fran H., Stevens, Susan P., Pfefferbaum, Betty, Wyche, Karen F. and Pfefferbaum.,
Rose L. (2008). “Community Resilience as a Metaphor, Theory, Set of Capacities, and
Strategy for Disaster Readiness”. American Journal of Community Psychology [online], 41
(1-2), 127-150. Retrieved from - http://www.springerlink.com/content/1421626545438270/
Phillips, Anne (2009). “Institutional transformation”. In: Stibbe, Arran (ed.), The Handbook
of Sustainability Literacy: Skills for a changing world, pp. 209-214. Totnes: Green Books.
Sale, Kirkpatrick (1980). Human Scale. New York: Coward, McCann and Geoghegan.
Stibbe, Arran & Luna, Heather (2009). “Introduction”. In: Stibbe, Arran (ed.), The Handbook
of Sustainability Literacy: Skills for a changing world, pp. 9-18. Totnes: Green Books.
Transition Network (2012). “About Transition Network”. Retrieved from -
http://www.transitionnetwork.org/about
