'Commonsense' Academic Reference Service: Neoliberal Discourse in LIS Articles, 1975-2014

摘要

Since the 1970s, advocates of neoliberalism have influenced American higher education to adopt a business model focused on quantifiable metrics. Market-driven solutions have become the new "common sense." Yet these forces are largely invisible to academic librarians. Although some scholarship exists on the effect of neoliberal policies on libraries, little focuses on academic reference services. This exploratory content analysis examines discourse in reference-related articles in Journal of Academic Librarianship from the 1970s to the present, studying the incidence and continued use of neoliberal terms and concepts by authors in the field of library and information studies. Findings reveal that the discourse of neoliberalism is apparent in articles from JAL during the period studied. While there was no remarkable climb in usage for any one term, the later articles were significantly more likely to contain multiple terms-"bundles"-from the neoliberal vocabulary.