Developing the library: Between efficiency, accountability and forms of recognition

The purpose of this article is to examine and critique the dominant new public management (NPM)‐mode of thinking in library development.

The authors examine the Danish Library Act from 2000 and a library policy from the municipal library of Aarhus in Denmark in order to show how they respectively display new public management thinking and handle pathologies of recognition.

The Danish Library Act from 2000 reflects an economic discourse which makes it hard for libraries to develop any normatively grounded agenda. The library policy from the municipal library of Aarhus reveals that it intends to deal with handling recognition but actually does the opposite.

The context surrounding libraries and library development is becoming more political than ever. User groups are more diverse than ever and some do not even feel as being part of society. If libraries are to cope with this situation, they must try to work with the concept of recognition as an explicit part of their library activity. Otherwise libraries stand in danger of being considered a party closed to all but a selected few which would then contribute to a lack of recognition for those who are not being invited to the party. The forms of recognition can thus be used to structure library policies and library development

The analyses provided in this article show that libraries should be aware of how they describe and see their activities and practices.