Untitled-6 A Critique of Customer and Commodity 309 309 n the twentieth century, librarianship has focused on the imperative of service as the first principle of the profes- sion. Academic librarians are certainly no less concerned with service than are any other information professionals. Over time, academic librarians have built col- lections and developed services such as interlibrary loans, document delivery, and library instruction in order to facili- tate the essential work of higher educa- tion. Although the service imperative has been expressed for a number of years (we need look no further than the five laws of librarianship articulated by S. R. Ranganathan), recent literature reflects an emphasis on customer service in librar- ies. To a considerable extent, customer service restates goals that libraries have long adhered to. For example, Suzanne Walters states that �If libraries are to sur- A Critique of Customer and Commodity John M. Budd For some good reasons, academic librarians see library users as cus- tomers, and library materials and access as commodities. However, there are some problems with the focus on consumerism and commodification. This paper examines a number of writings that advo- cate a customer service approach and the attendant view of library materials and access as commodities. The examination is informed by a substantial body of thought that addresses questions relating to cus- tomers and commodities in light of some cultural, social, and intellec- tual concerns. There are some problems, which are discussed in detail, with the popularly held notions of library users as customers and of library services as commodities. John M. Budd is an Associate Professor in the School of Information Science and Learning Technologies at the University of Missouri-Columbia; e-mail: libsjmb@showme.missouri.edu. vive and thrive, they must realize that they are there to meet the needs of their customers and communities. Libraries cannot afford to simply be warehouses for information.�1 Attention to the ser- vice that is emphasized by a customer service model is both necessary and cor- rect. Clearly stated service goals help li- brarians keep the imperative foremost in mind. The model can continuously re- mind all in academic libraries that there is an external purpose that drives the li- brary�the teaching, learning, and re- search that is at the heart of the college or university. Such an aid can be vital to the library�s achieving its purpose. Closely related to, and inherent in, a conception of customers and customer service is the view that the library trades in commodities. In a very real sense, such a view is accurate. There is no doubt that publishers and other information pro- 310 College & Research Libraries July 1997 ducers thrive by exchanging commodi- ties, and libraries are part of that ex- change through the acquisition of mate- rials and the payment for access to infor- mation. An entity such as a publisher seeks to maximize (or at least optimize) profit, and seeks to do so in part by sell- ing products to libraries. Also, libraries must work with purchasing offices in order to facilitate the trades in which the libraries are involved. Sherman Hayes and Don Brown have outlined the rela- tionships that libraries have with corpo- rations. They may be overstating the case when they say that �the library is a busi- ness, and will continue as a business for the foreseeable future,�2 but it is undeni- able that libraries must engage businesses such as publishers on the publishers� terms. However, the customer model extends the notion of libraries as handlers of commodities. Questions naturally arise as to the nature of the commodity and the relationships of the parties in- volved. The purpose of this paper is to explore some writings in the literature on customer service and related commod- ity exchange. These writings will be ana- lyzed in the context of a substantial body of thought that addresses the implica- tions of such a model. Customers and Customer Service Libraries have a history of concern re- garding use and users and have tried to structure services, collections, and access to meet user needs. It probably could be said that libraries could have had (and could now have) an even stronger focus on users and their needs. The question to be addressed is whether a customer service stance accomplishes the goal of meeting user needs without creating a set of conceptual and practical problems for libraries. To answer this essential ques- tion, we have to look closely at the writ- ings in the field on customers and cus- tomer service. An examination of these discourses can reveal the fundamental goals of the customer service approach and its overt or latent implications. At the heart of the examination is the realiza- tion that the language used to describe the stance adopted by libraries is not neu- tral; it may be culturally, politically, eco- nomically, and intellectually charged. In light of that realization, librarians have to wonder what it is they may be com- municating and what that may mean to those inside and outside the profession. Some of the writings on the subject articulate the purpose of a customer ser- vice orientation. Hernon and Altman tie the customer approach to service qual- ity and elaborate on how to create and evaluate quality (an elusive entity).3 Oth- ers advocate quality as the purpose of the academic library. For example, Millsun- Martula and Menon state that: Many libraries, particularly aca- demic libraries, have established li- aison outreach programs in an at- tempt to get to know users better while also providing them with a greater amount of information about library programs and services on a more consistent basis. . . . However, an element of quality service is still absent. That element is the incor- poration of users� personal needs and expectations into the develop- ment of the service. This requires librarians to establish an ongoing relationship with their customers in order to learn what their needs are. Staff become active listeners who then are able to process customer input on a continuous basis.4 The advocacy of a well-established re- lationship with the members of the library�s community is aimed at accom- It probably could be said that libraries could have had (and could now have) an even stronger focus on users and their needs. A Critique of Customer and Commodity 311 plishing the goal of meeting user needs. In a similar vein, Stoffle, Renaud, and Veldof write that: The most fundamental change that has to occur among library employ- ees is a switch from a focus on things and organizing library work around things to a focus on custom- ers and their needs. Libraries must move from defining quality by the size of the inputs�and especially from valuing staff and collection size as �goods� in and of them- selves. . . . All services and activi- ties must be viewed through the eyes of the customers, letting cus- tomers determine quality by whether their needs have been sat- isfied.5 A shift from inputs to outcomes has been urged by others over the past several years. There is little (if anything) in these two statements that academic librarians would dispute. However, there is one problematic as- pect that inheres in both assertions. In focusing attention on customer expecta- tions and determinations of quality, it is assumed that library users have the wherewithal to determine expectations and quality. It is an open question whether a member of the academic com- munity knows (or even should know) what to expect from an organization as complex as a library. Knowable expecta- tions could vary from the simple (an un- dergraduate student wanting access to required course readings) to the very complicated (a faculty member wanting an exhaustive corpus of recorded knowl- edge on a multidisciplinary topic, and wanting that corpus categorized and pri- oritized by relevance to her topic). On the other hand, a student or faculty member who has no awareness of the content and services available or possible will be un- able to formulate normative expectations. If the library is to be constructed, in both a cognitive and practical sense, by cus- tomers, as Stoffle, Renaud, and Veldof say it should be, where do the limits for the library exist and how are they deter- mined? In another context, Robinson says the public library should be the McDonald�s of information service. 6 Similarly, Woodsworth wishes the library could be more like her local hardware store.7 Is the academic library really to be conceived of as a retail outlet like McDonald�s or a hardware store? These visions seem based on the notion that the library has a product that is as readily definable as the above examples and that �customers� know what they want and what the library has to offer. In fact, such a notion is central to the customer being able to determine quality and satisfaction. Further, and much more important, the notion that equates what the library offers with the products of McDonald�s and a hardware store objectifies, or reifies, the intellectual aims of the aca- demic community. Although there is a frequent rhetorical insistence on the needs of individuals, the individuals get lost in the process of identifying people as customers. Weingand attempts to of- fer a rationale for use of the word cus- tomer: �The word customer, which implies payment for a product or service, is a better reflection of what actually tran- spires between the library and people in the community. With this term the my- thology of the �free� library is dispelled, and a more accurate metaphor for ser- vice is substituted.�8 Weingand provides little, if any, evidence for the rhetoric of customer service being a more accurate description of the relationship between the library and its community. She does, however, present a more telling rationale for the shift in perspective: Librarians who flinch at the word customer are operating out of an outmoded paradigm. This older paradigm portrays the library as a �public good,� with as high a rank- 312 College & Research Libraries July 1997 ing on the �goodness� scale as the national flag, parenthood, and apple pie. As a public good, the li- brary �should� receive public sup- port. However, today�s library is in increasingly tight competition for declining resources, and unless it adopts and masters the language and techniques of its competitors, it faces a future of declining sup- port and significance.9 She is not alone in adopting such a ra- tionale. Wehmeyer, Auchter, and Hirshon state that the purpose of a customer ser- vice plan is to �develop a core of satis- fied customers, to offset the challenges from both internal and external competi- tors, and to enable the library to build budgeting allies on campus.�10 In addition to an ahistorical bent (that is, ignoring the many statements on ser- vice and cooperation in the literature of librarianship), there is, lurking just be- neath the surface of the rationales by Weingand and by Wehmeyer, Auchter, and Hirshon, a substantial shift of the economy of the library. Specifically, there is a shift in the kind of value envisioned for the library and its services. Although the traditional discourse on libraries, and even some of the discourse related to customer service, embraces use as a value of libraries (that is, a human purpose or utility underlying the thing), the dis- course typified by the examples just given is centered on the exchange value of libraries and their services. Another example is provided in the public library environment by Walters, who states that �good service will result in customers voting for bond elections, contributing private dollars, and volunteering to sup- port libraries. Poor customer service will result in lost elections and lost funding. It is as simple as that. Good customer service pays.�11 Customer service is worth something material to the li- brary�namely, enhancement of the library�s standing within the larger insti- tution and, thus, its material resources. The customer, or consumer, becomes a genuine source of material gain for the library. As Hawkes observes, �In con- sumer societies of the late twentieth cen- tury, exchange-value (a purely symbolic form) has become more real, more ob- jective, than use-value (a material phe- nomenon). Objects are conceived, de- signed and produced for the purpose of making money by selling them, rather than for reasons of practical util- ity.�12 Stated another way, the library�s service, rather than being an end (in the sense of meeting the needs of the aca- demic community), becomes a means (of garnering a larger piece of the budget- ary pie). As such, there is an apparent contradiction in customer service dis- course: although attention is to be fo- cused on customers and their satisfac- tion, the desired end is really the mate- rial success of the library. Such a shift in the perception of re- sources seems almost inevitable given the need for material resources as a means to reach the end of meeting user needs. What becomes especially problematic is the possibility of an accompanying shift in the vision of the library�s purpose. The discourse on customers and customer service exhibits a tendency not to refer the individual to the totality; that is, there is a failure to place the individual phe- nomenon within the context of the whole. This tendency is evident in the repeated calls for identification of who the customers are. In a college or univer- sity, the response to such a call should be expressed as a tautology: the customers are the members of the academic com- munity, and the members of the aca- demic community are the customers. If the answer is anything other than this The customer, or consumer, be- comes a genuine source of material gain for the library. A Critique of Customer and Commodity 313 tautology, there is an apparent effort to privilege some community members at the expense of others. Stoffle, Renaud, and Veldof urge that librarians �must be sure that their work, activities, and tasks add value to the customer, and must be prepared to give up less-valued activi- ties and institute new services and pro- grams in very short time cycles.�13 If some services are to be discontinued be- cause they are less valued than others, the question that follows is: Less valued by whom? In a culture defined by the increase of material resources as an end, the answer seems evident�the privi- leged customers will be those who, in some way, contribute to the instrumen- tal end of the library. Schiller says: �This is a very basic shift indeed. In the reallo- cation of information resources now oc- curring . . ., one principle prevails. It is the market criterion�the ability to pay. This determines who will receive and who will be excluded from the benefits of the information-lubricated economy.�14 The economic implications of use of the word customer as applied to library users indicates that advocates of the cus- tomer approach are applying a particu- lar kind of categorization to library us- ers. It already has been stated that the cus- tomer or consumer sometimes is seen as a source of material gain for the library and that such a view involves a lack of connection of the individual to the whole. This kind of categorization exemplifies what Lakoff calls a metonymic model. This means that a part (the economic persona of the customer) of a larger category (li- brary users) stands for the category as a whole. Lakoff offers a set of characteris- tics that may typify the metonymic model: There is a �target� concept A to be understood for some purpose in some context. There is a conceptual structure containing both A and another con- cept B. B is either a part of A or closely associated with it in that conceptual structure. Typically, a choice of B will uniquely determine A, within that conceptual structure. Compared to A, B is either easier to understand, easier to remember, easier to recognize, or more imme- diately useful for the given purpose in the given context [emphasis added]. A metonymic model is a model of how A and B are related in a con- ceptual structure; the relationship is specified by a function from B to A.15 The customer approach can be taken to be analogous to concept B. That con- cept suits particular purposes�namely, categorizing the library user as an eco- nomic being. As has been seen, there are many instances in which such a catego- rization is useful, perhaps even necessary. One aspect of the metonymic model, though, is that the narrower concept tends to determine the broader one; that the categorization of customer tends to determine how the library user is seen. Again, questions arise: Is every interac- tion between a library and a member of the academic community that of business and customer? Is a library user a purely economic being? Is it desirable for the li- brary to place the relationship between itself and the user primarily on material and instrumental grounds? This critique is founded on negative answers to these questions. Customers and Choice A hallmark of the customer approach is the belief that the customer is free to choose. The first (and probably most Is every interaction between a library and a member of the academic community that of business and customer? 314 College & Research Libraries July 1997 important) choice available to the cus- tomer is a binary one�to use the library or not. This level of choice is addressed by Weingand. She presents what she calls some looks at reality through the customer �s eyes: �If the library is not open when I can use it, I�ll find my in- formation elsewhere,� and �I really need these materials; if this library can�t get them, I�ll try another library or order them from the bookstore.�16 Such a view, placed in the academic environment, is echoed by Cline and Sinott, who state that: some large academic departments have bypassed the library as an agent to provide selective dissemi- nation services, supporting with de- partmental funds the acquisition of the necessary machine-readable tapes and the maintenance of staff to operate the system. This depart- mental initiative is one example of a more general phenomenon: aca- demic libraries are finding it more and more difficult to keep up with the information needs of their us- ers and the technologies that facili- tate information transfer.17 The latter part of their statement is un- doubtedly accurate, but it is questionable whether academic departments can still afford to maintain effective information services from their departmental bud- gets. Some, such as Emery, highlight the im- portance of marketing initiatives in li- braries as a mechanism to help custom- ers choose from among the services of- fered by the library.18 Either implicitly or explicitly, these and other writers empha- size the relationship between choice and potential benefit. The benefits offered by libraries sometimes are expressed in eco- nomic terms, including savings in time and effort, consolidation of services, and potential material gain. As will become evident soon in the discussion of infor- mation and library services as commodi- ties, the choices available to customers are assumed to be largely rational ones. The preceding statement suggests that the assumptions underlying the view of choices of customers in libraries adhere to those of rational choice theory. The assumptions are frequently stated by ra- tional choice theorists and are summa- rized by Green and Shapiro: �rational action involves utility maximization . . . ; certain consistency requirements must be part of the definition of rationality . . . ; each individual maximizes the expected value of his own payoff . . . ; the relevant maximizing agents are individuals . . . ; [and] their models apply equally to all persons under study� [italics in origi- nal].19 Green and Shapiro pay special at- tention to rational choice theory as ap- plied to political science and, in their cri- tique of the theory, maintain that the mis- takes inherent in it �stem from a method- driven rather than a problem-driven ap- proach to research, in which practitioners are more eager to vindicate one or an- other universalist model than to under- stand and explain political outcomes.�20 It appears that the adherents of the cus- tomer approach seek to apply a similarly universalist model to library service. Underlying the customer and cus- tomer service stance is particular empha- sis on the assumption of utility maximi- zation. For the customer to be able to determine the quality of a library and its services, that customer will, it is thought, apply standards based on a combination of cost minimization and gain. To accom- plish this, he or she will have to be in a position to be aware of some a priori standards for benefit and cost. These are not easily determined, though, especially in advance. If a library user is informed (in the truest sense of the word) because of what the library has to offer, that in- forming is difficult or impossible to de- termine beforehand. In short, the crite- ria of benefit and cost are ambiguous in at least two ways: (1) library users may A Critique of Customer and Commodity 315 assess the two criteria very differently, even when the apparent need and out- come are very similar; and (2) an indi- vidual user may assess the criteria dif- ferently at different times because of a complex set of social, intellectual, and af- fective reasons (in opposition to the fifth assumption of rational choice theory). Even the �rational� in rational choice theory is ambiguous given the variations in human behavior, conceptions of ratio- nality, and assessments of choice and the possibilities associated with it. The problems with the theory do not end there. If rational choice is to have application, there should be at least the assumption that individuals are free to choose and, moreover, that their choices are constrained only by the limits of ra- tionality. This is a decidedly questionable assumption, and it has been addressed by several thinkers, including Bunge: �The assumption that agents are com- pletely free to choose ignores the con- straints, compulsions, and traditions of various sorts that shape individual ac- tion. The theory overlooks the fact that one and the same individual behaves dif- ferently in different social systems, just as a molecule in a liquid body behaves differently at the bottom and at the sur- face.�21 Although Bunge�s last statement is itself somewhat reductionist, his criti- cism of the assumption holds. To be a bit more specific, the freedom to choose is constrained by the choices available. If, as Stoffle, Renaud, and Veldof maintain, libraries should abandon �less-valued� activities, the library user �s choice is lim- ited to the services provided by the li- brary. Herein is one of a number of con- tradictions in customer service thinking. Weingand and others warn that if librar- ies are not providing something a cus- tomer wants, the customer will go else- where. However, if the library is struc- turing its services and activities accord- ing to what is valued by some, the cus- tomer base is essentially defined by the library. The openness touted by the cus- tomer approach is, it seems, a fiction. It would be equally mistaken to assert claims of openness with regard to McDonald�s or a hardware store; they target their activities at very specific cus- tomers and their precise needs. The fact that they do not serve some members of society does not bother them in the least. Should the academic library adopt a simi- lar stance? It cannot if it is to claim to serve the academic community. Information and Commodities If the view of library users as customers is to obtain, the offerings of the library must be seen as commodities. Frohmann maintains that the dominant stance in li- brary and information science, which he terms the cognitive viewpoint, �consoli- dates on academic terrain those power relations which constitute information as a commodity, and persons as surveyable information consumers, within market economy conditions.�22 As is true of the emphasis on customers and customer service, there is some necessity to seeing information as a commodity. Academic libraries must try to garner sufficient re- sources to pay for books, journal sub- scriptions, electronic sources, and access. A price is put on these entities by the producers, and libraries have to weigh relative costs of materials and access against the needs of their communities. The realization of the financial transac- tions that are inevitable between librar- ies and information producers is the ba- sis of some economic analyses of aspects of library operations.23 As is the case with most research, some assumptions underlie economic analy- ses. These assumptions tend to stretch the commodification of information, to em- phasize the commodity and ignore the The openness touted by the customer approach is, it seems, a fiction. 316 College & Research Libraries July 1997 informing quality, the intellectual value of information. As Marx recognized a century and a half ago: Commodities come into the world in the shape of use-values, articles, or goods, such as iron, linen, corn, etc. This is their plain, homely, bodily form. They are, however, commodities, only because they are something two-fold, both objects of utility, and, at the same time, de- positories of value. They manifest themselves therefore as commodi- ties, or have the form of commodi- ties, only in so far as they have two forms, a physical or natural form, and a value-form.24 The economic analyses at times attend to such an extent to the exchange value of information commodities that the use value is forgotten. For instance, Lewis looks at journal pricing in terms of library demand (the demand for the commodity by librar- ies) and personal demand (the demand for the commodity by individuals), and speaks of benefits as they relate to the prices li- braries are charged for subscriptions.25 Although pricing is tied to production costs and potential markets (and choices exercised within those markets), there also are matters of content that affect sub- scription behavior. Also, in their analy- sis of personnel costs and productivity, Kingma and McCombs assume that all cataloging is equally valuable and all in- formation is of equal value to users.26 Commodification of information has an inevitable effect. Information ceases to be seen as something that informs� something that has or conveys mean- ing�and, instead, is seen only as an ob- ject with an established exchange value. The effect is articulated by Lukacs: The commodity can only be under- stood in its undistorted essence when it becomes the universal cat- egory of society as a whole. Only in this context does the reification produced by commodity relations assume decisive importance both for the objective evolution of soci- ety and for the stance adopted by men towards it. Only then does the commodity become crucial for the subjugation of men�s consciousness to the forms in which this reification finds expression and for their at- tempts to comprehend the process or to rebel against its disastrous ef- fects and liberate themselves from servitude to the �second nature� so created.27 Therefore, the information as commod- ity is not different, at least in some ex- pressions, from other commodities. In- formation as commodity is removed from information as meaning, as a mean- ingful communication process. It be- comes nothing more than an object that has a price attached to it. This manifes- tation of objectification and reification of information as thing is what Marx re- ferred to as the �fetishism� of commodi- ties. Reification of information is not un- common in library literature. Some examples of reification are pro- vided by some prominent authors in the field. It is embodied in the items that Hernon and Altman urge libraries to measure as reflections of their contribu- tions to the academic mission: The percentage of courses using the reserve reading room; The percentage of students en- rolled in those courses who actu- ally checked out reserve materials; The percentage of courses requir- ing term papers based on materials from the library; The number of students involved in those courses; The percentage of students who checked out library materials; The percentage of faculty who checked out library materials; A Critique of Customer and Commodity 317 The percentage of courses using reading packets based on materials photocopied from the library�s col- lection; The number of articles and books published by faculty members; and The number of references cited in faculty publications from mate- rials contained in the collection.28 These measures have no direct connec- tion to learning, research, or intellectual activity in general. Rather, they deal with the handling of things, objects. Getz is even more explicit in objectifying library operations. He posits that all of academic library management is predicated on the treatment of the products and activities of libraries as things, especially eco- nomic things. Getz says: �An analyst states objectives for the library in terms of benefits gained for costs incurred, decision by decision. The criterion for success is whether a change in library operation has increased the value of li- brary services to the people who pay for them, net of the costs they incur.�29 His entire program is based on a notion of exchange value (and rational choice). What the library offers is worth some- thing to the user; that is, the user is will- ing to expend something (usually time) in order to get something that is worth more than what is expended. Exchange value is the foundation of quality in Getz�s conception: The �better� library yields services that are more valuable than they cost, indeed, as much more valu- able as possible. The library that does this best is an efficient library. Efficiency is a more demanding standard than simply effectiveness. An effective library is one that makes a difference. If longer hours attract more users, hours are effec- tive in this regard. To determine whether the extra hours of service increase efficiency, however, the added value of the extra use must be shown to be worth the cost of providing the extra hours.30 Commodification of information is not without its critics, in the library and other fields. Approaching the matter from a socio- logical perspective, Schoonmaker observes that the process of commodification is one of the characteristics of advanced capitalism. The commodification of information appears to be enhanced and accelerated by the pro- liferation of electronic media. She writes: �Rather than introducing a qualitatively dif- ferent type of information society, micro- electronics technologies have made it technically possible to extend the process of commmodification into digital forms of production and exchange.�31 Electronic media emphasize the flow of the com- modity of information from producers to expanding markets. It is clear that reification is inherent in the flow of the commodity. Dennis adopts an even more critical stance as he examines the conflicts arising over power and knowledge. He makes the point that both information and the individual are objectified as a logic of consumption becomes dominant. He raises the very important point that �A marketplace of ideas (images, speech) is not the same as ideas (images, speech) in the marketplace.�32 Along with commodification comes identification with the process of commodifying. If the library is a part of trading in commodi- ties, it will likely come to see itself as part of the production/consumption cycle. Such a view emphasizes yet further the reification of information as commodity. Given this transformation, we should pay particular attention to Schiller �s warning: If the library is a part of trading in commodities, it will likely come to see itself as part of the production/ consumption cycle. 318 College & Research Libraries July 1997 In recent years, libraries are increas- ingly being put into the position of adjunct to and facilitator for the commercial information industry. Despite an initial reluctance to be- come involved in commercial prac- tices�i.e., charging users for infor- mation, relying on private vendors for data bases, contracting out func- tions to private firms, etc.�librar- ies now almost routinely adopt such practices. Meanwhile, the dis- tinction between a library and a commercial enterprise narrows. The library�s options to preserve its vital social role also diminish.33 Discussion One of the most important things to keep in mind with regard to customers and commodities is that the language librar- ians use to describe their purpose and activities inevitably will define, even if they do not initially reflect, thought. For instance, even though Brown says that �it is useful to understand more about the service interaction and what it is that makes �buying� and evaluating a service (such as reference service) different for the customer than �buying� and evaluat- ing a material product,� she proceeds to speak of consumption and retail analogy to describe reference work in academic libraries.34 The language employed is a powerful shaping force, and that force, in this context, is tied to the discourse of consumption. Baudrillard says that �con- sumption is the virtual totality of all ob- jects and messages constituted in a more or less coherent discourse. Consumption, in so far as it is meaningful, is a systematic act of the manipulation of signs [italics in original].�35 Signs, in the Saussurean lin- guistic sense, are composed of the total- ity of the signifier and the signified. The focus on the customer approach and in- formation as commodity embodies a shift from primary attention on the sig- nified to attention centered on the signifier. The signified is the content, con- cept, or idea; the signifier is an expres- sion, a sound-image, or form. In other words, the transformation is one from substance to form. In another sense, the transformation moves from semantics (meaning) to rhetoric (expression). Emery writes that ��Without consumers, the marketer of economic goods and services does not have a market.� Similarly, without read- ers the library lacks its raison d�être. Though in one case an individual may be called a �consumer � and in the other a �reader,� the difference is purely seman- tic.�36 In actuality, Emery is dismissing the semantic and championing the rhe- torical. In the more thoughtful connec- tions of library purpose to capital, a kind of schizophrenia reigns. The schizoid ten- dency is evident in the conflict that Repo struggles with. Although he advocates economic analysis of information, he re- peatedly reminds the reader (and him- self) of the use value of information (�The value of information is fully explicated in its use.�37) In less thoughtful treatments certainty governs. For example, in urg- ing the customer approach, Weingand advocates the �paradigm� of consumer- ism as superior to the view of the library as a public good (noted above). It seems to matter little that the language adopted is a usurpation of ideas that either do not apply or apply imperfectly to the library�s situation. Weingand�s statement is not value neu- tral. In fact, it is an exemplar of the Foucauldian will to truth and knowledge which, as Foucault observes, �like the other systems of exclusion, relies on insti- tutional support: it is both reinforced and accompanied by whole strata of prac- tices,� and is �profoundly accompanied by the manner in which knowledge is employed in a society, the way it is ex- ploited, divided and, in some ways, attrib- uted. . . . [T]his will to knowledge, thus reliant upon institutional support and dis- tribution, tends to exercise a sort of pres- A Critique of Customer and Commodity 319 sure, a power of constraint upon other forms of discourse.� 38 The impact on knowledge is profound and debilitating. The effect is best expressed by Lyotard: The nature of knowledge cannot survive unchanged within this con- text of general transformation. . . . The relationship of the suppliers and users of knowledge to the knowledge they supply and use is now tending, and will increasingly tend, to assume the form already taken by the relationship of com- modity producers and consumers to the commodities they produce and consume�that is, the form of value. Knowledge is and will be produced in order to be sold, it is and will be consumed in order to be valorized in a new production: in both cases, the goal is exchange. Knowledge ceases to be an end in itself, it loses its �use-value.�39 Finally, the discourse on customer and commodity in the academic library takes on the characteristics of ideology. Specifi- cally, it is ideological in that it asserts a dominance over other discourses, and does so through distortion of context that all but eliminates any teleological sense. As Hawkes points out, two aspects of ideology��instinctive deferral to �the facts� as they are immediately repre- sented to us, and blind faith in instru- mental science�are the most dangerous effects of commodity fetishism. In order for a thing to become a commodity, the coercive power of human reason must be exerted over the thing-in-itself: we must represent it as what it is not, and then take the representations for the re- ality.�40 Ultimately, librarians need to take care with the language they adopt, and with the facility with which they use it to shape concepts. That the language of consumerism and commodification dominates beyond the sphere of librar- ies is not sufficient reason to accept it uncritically. The library�s language, and practice, should flow from as clear an idea of purpose as possible. And librar- ians should examine purpose indepen- dently from the pressures of capitalism and consumption. Notes 1. Suzanne Walters, Customer Service: A How-to-Do-It Manual for Librarians (New York: Neal- Schuman, 1994), 1. 2. Sherman Hayes and Don Brown, �The Library As a Business: Mapping the Pervasiveness of Financial Relationships in Today�s Library,� Library Trends 42 (winter 1994): 405. 3. Peter Hernon and Ellen Altman, Service Quality in Academic Libraries (Norwood, N.J.: Ablex, 1996). 4. Christopher Millson-Martula and Vanaja Menon, �Customer Expectations: Concepts and Reality for Academic Library Services,� College & Research Libraries 56 (Jan. 1995): 34. 5. Carla J. Stoffle, Robert Renaud, and Jerilyn R. Veldof, �Choosing Our Futures,� College & Research Libraries 57 (May 1996): 220. 6. Charles Robinson, �Can We Save the Public�s Library?� Library Journal 114 (Sept. 1989): 147�52. 7. Anne Woodsworth, �Service à la Your Neighborhood Store,� Library Journal 121 (Aug. 1996): 49. 8. Darlene E. Weingand, Customer Service Excellence: A Concise Guide for Librarians (Chicago: ALA, 1997), 2. 9. Ibid., 3. 10. Susan Wehmeyer, Dorothy Auchter, and Arnold Hirshon, �Saying What We Will Do, and Doing What We Say: Implementing a Customer Service Plan,� Journal of Academic Librarianship 22 (May 1996): 179. 11. Walters, Customer Service, 1. 12. David Hawkes, Ideology (London: Routledge, 1996), 169. 13. Stoffle, Renaud, and Veldof, �Choosing Our Futures,� 220. 320 College & Research Libraries July 1997 14. Herbert I. Schiller, Culture Inc.: The Corporate Takeover of Public Expression (New York: Ox- ford Univ. Pr., 1989), 75. 15. George Lakoff, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal about the Mind (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Pr., 1987): 84�85. 16. Weingand, Customer Service Excellence, 115. 17. Hugh F. Cline and Loraine T. Sinnott, The Electronic Library: The Impact of Automation on Academic Libraries (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1983), 6. 18. Charles D. Emery, Buyers and Borrowers: The Application of Consumer Theory to the Study of Library Use (New York: Haworth Pr., 1993). 19. Donald P. Green and Ian Shapiro, Pathologies of Rational Choice Theory: A Critique of Applica- tions in Political Science (New Haven, Conn.: Yale Univ. Pr., 1994), 14�17. 20. Ibid., 33. 21. Mario Bunge, Finding Philosophy in Social Science (New Haven, Conn.: Yale Univ. Pr., 1996), 365. On pages 382�84, Bunge presents a summary of what he sees as the fatal flaws of rational choice theory. 22. Bernd Frohmann, �The Power of Images: A Discourse Analysis of the Cognitive View- point,� Journal of Documentation 48 (Dec. 1992): 368. 23. See, for instance, David W. Lewis, �Economics of the Scholarly Journal,� College & Research Libraries 50 (Nov. 1989): 674�88; Michael A. Stoller, Robert Christopherson, and Michael Miranda, �The Economics of Professional Journal Pricing,� College & Research Libraries 57 (Jan. 1996): 9�21; Bruce R. Kingma and Philip B. Eppard, �Journal Price Escalation and the Market for Information: The Librarian�s Solution,� College & Research Libraries 53 (Nov. 1992): 523�35. 24. Karl Marx, Capital: A New Abridgement (New York: Oxford Univ. Pr., 1995), 22. 25. Lewis, �Economics of the Scholarly Journal.� 26. Bruce R. Kingma and Gillian M. McCombs, �The Opportunity Costs of Faculty Status for Academic Librarians,� College & Research Libraries 56 (May 1995): 258�64. 27. Georg Lukacs, History and Class Consciousness: Studies in Marxist Dialectics, trans. Rodney Livingstone (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Pr., 1971), 86. 28. Hernon and Altman, Service Quality in Academic Libraries, 1�2. 29. Malcolm Getz, �Analysis and Library Management,� in Academic Libraries: Research Per- spectives, eds. Mary Jo Lynch and Arthur Young (Chicago: ALA, 1990), 192. 30. Ibid., 194. 31. Sara Schoonmaker, �Trading On-Line: Information Flows in Advanced Capitalism,� Infor- mation Society 9 (Jan.�Feb. 1993): 47. 32. Dion Dennis, �License and Commodification: The Birth of an Information Oligarchy,� Hu- manity and Society 17 (Feb. 1993): 64. 33. Schiller, Culture Inc., 80. 34. Janet Dagenais Brown, �Using Quality Concepts to Improve Reference Services,� College & Research Libraries 55 (May 1994): 213. 35. Jean Baudrillard, Jean Baudrillard: Selected Writings, ed. Mark Poster (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford Univ. Pr., 1988), 22. 36. Emery, Buyers and Borrowers, 20. 37. Aatto J. Repo, �The Value of Information: Approaches in Economics, Accounting, and Man- agement Science,� Journal of the American Society for Information Science 40 (Mar. 1989): 82. 38. Michel Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge and the Discourse on Language, trans. A. M. Sheridan Smith (New York: Pantheon Books, 1972), 219. 39. Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, trans. Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Pr., 1984), 4�5. 40. Hawkes, Ideology, 138.