UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Rethinking the Library Response to Black Literacy Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1023g7nx Author Erickson, Jesse Ryan Publication Date 2016 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Rethinking the Library Response to Black Literacy A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Information Studies by Jesse Ryan Erickson 2016 © Copyright by Jesse Ryan Erickson 2016 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Rethinking the Library Response to Black Literacy by Jesse Ryan Erickson Doctor of Philosophy in Information Studies University of California, Los Angeles, 2016 Professor Johanna R. Drucker, Chair This dissertation radically reframes the library and information discourse on the African American literacy gap. It argues that special collections libraries are research environments where humanistic knowledge is produced, and that the books they house can provide important insights about the nature of literacy that have been previously overlooked. The research employs a nascent ethnobibliographic methodology in the examination of a range of artifacts from the black press, as it effectively recasts these artifacts as individual nodes in a larger system of knowledge production. By engaging in ethnobibliographic analysis, the study attempts to both identify and explore the bibliocultural link that connects bibliographical materiality with the processes of racial identity construction. The study draws upon data collected from a group of four individual case studies to further situate the research in an argument that advances the idea of a perception gap over the notion of an achievement gap in the institutional response. ii The dissertation of Jesse Ryan Erickson is approved. Scot David Brown Beverly P. Lynch Ramesh Srinivasan Johanna R. Drucker, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2016 iii Dedication This dissertation is dedicated to the memory of Lawrence Clark Powell, whose love for books and reading inspired the dream of a book-centered library for a new generation, and to Miriam Matthews, whose courage and fortitude blazed a trail for future librarians of color in a quest to preserve our diverse culture histories. iv Table of Contents List of Figures vii Acknowledgements viii Biographical Sketch ix Chapter One: Introduction 1 1. I. Overview: A New Framework for an Aging Question 1 1. II. Statement of the Problem: A Persistent Crisis in Black Literacy? 2 1. III. Approach: NLS and Multi-modality in Information Systems 25 1. IV. Research Questions 42 1. V. Applications: The Significance of the Study 43 Chapter Two: Review of the Literature 45 2. I. History: The Beginnings of Bibliographic Method 45 2. II. Theory: Epistemological Foundations of Bibliographic Method and its Scientization 62 2. III. Further Developments: Challenges and Revivals 76 2. IV. Trajectory: The Postmodern Turn and Beyond 86 Chapter Three: Method 98 3. I. Methodological Framework 98 3. II. 1. Method Design: Multisite Case Study 101 3. II. 2. Method Design: The Ethnobibliographic Database and its Qualitative Data 109 3. II. 3. Method Design: The Database Model for Ethnobibliographic Method 112 3. III. Subjectivity, Distance, and Reflexivity in Ethnobibligraphic Method 131 3. IV. Limitations to the Method: Structural and Conceptual 138 Chapter Four: Findings for Access and Encounter 141 4. I. 1. Access: The Research Space and its Local Environment 141 4. I. 2. Access: Daily Operations for Public Reception 153 v 4. I. 3. Access: Confronting Implicit Bias as “Custodians” of Knowledge 155 4. I. 4. Access: Racial Distribution in Ethnocentric Research Spaces 164 4. II. 1. Encounter: Events and Programs as Library Outreach 166 4. II. 2. Encounter: The Insularity of Academic Events in Research Spaces 175 Chapter Five: Findings for Representation and Organization 178 5. I. 1. Representation: The Early Black Press and the Rise of the Humanizing Text 178 5. I. 2. Representation: The Period of the Revolutionary Black Press 194 5. I. 3. Representation: Black Press Books for the Hip Hop Generation 209 5. I. 4. Representation: The Hegemonic Eurocentrism of the “Ideal Book” 220 5. II. 1. Organization: Library Catalogs as Access Points to the Black Press 231 5. II. 2. Organization: Counter-cataloging Textual Hybridity 241 Chapter Six: Findings for Collections and Performativity 250 6. I. Collections: The Collectors and their Bibliophilic Legacies 250 6. II. 1. Performativity: African American Vernacular English and Hip Hop Literacies 262 6. II. 2. Performativity: African American Vernacular English and Library Literacy Practices 273 6. II. 3. Performativity: Role Reversal in Literacy Instruction at the Amistad Research Center 277 Chapter Seven: Conclusion 281 7. I. Contextualization of Spatiality 281 7. II. Bibliocultural Synthesis 289 7. III. Adaptation as a Response to Black Literacy in the Library 294 Appendix A: Tables and Graphs 301 Appendix B: Descriptive Bibliographic Entries for Representation 306 References 326 vi List of Figures Figure 1. The Administrative Cycle of Knowledge Production 38 Figure 2. The Four Levels of Access 120 Figure 3. The Three Levels of Encounter 121 Figure 4. The Four Levels of Representation 126 Figure 5. The Two Levels of Organization 128 Figure 6. The Four Levels of Collections 129 Figure 7. The Four Levels of Performativity 130 Figure 8. Environmental Dissonance in Access 146 Figure 9. Frontispiece for Chords and Discords Depicting Walter Everett Hawkins 190 Figure 10. The Final Issue of Nkombo Magazine 207 Figure 11. Engraved Title Page in Morris’s Golden Legend 224 Figure 12. The William Andrews Clark Jr. Bookplate 253 Figure 13. Holding Cell at the Mayme A. Clayton Library and Museum 286 Figure 14. Ethnobibliographic Model of Bibliocultural Co-emergence 293 vii Acknowledgements I would like to acknowledge, first, the exceptional staff of professional, non-professional, and volunteer employees at the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library in Los Angeles, the Amistad Research Center in New Orleans, the Mayme A. Clayton Library and Museum in Culver City, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem. Their openness to a new and unfamiliar research method allowed me to pursue uncharted academic territories and break new ground in the study of bibliography. I would especially like to thank Nina Schneider at the Clark Library and former director of the Amistad, Lee Hampton, for taking a special interest in my research and offering their time and expertise to assist my work. I should also thank the Amistad Research Center, in particular, for granting me copyright permission for my use of an image from Nkombo magazine. Furthermore, I must gratefully acknowledge the support I received from the Bernard H. Breslauer fund for my time spent conducting onsite research. And last, but certainly not least, I must extend my eternal gratitude to my advisor, Professor Johanna Drucker, whose persistent guidance, dedication, and encouragement made this work possible. viii Biographical Sketch Jesse Ryan Erickson is a bibliographer and researcher in the field of special collections librarianship. He received his certification in descriptive bibliography in 2009 from the California Rare Book School under the tutelage of Bruce Whiteman. In 2010, he graduated summa cum laude from the University of California, Los Angeles, receiving his Bachelor of Arts in History with departmental honors in recognition of his senior thesis on the bibliographic history of the Malleus Maleficarum. He earned his Master of Library and Information Science in 2014, specializing in book history and librarianship. In 2014, he also completed a full index for the Medieval and Renaissance Manuscript Collection located in the Department of Special Collections at UCLA’s Charles E. Young Research Library. Past publications include a published version of his senior thesis, “The History of Malleus Maleficarum: A Bibliographic Study” and, more recently, the article “Revolution in Black: Black American Alternative Press and Popular Culture at the End of the Twentieth Century” which was printed in the 2011 issue of Publishing History. Other publications include his reviews for Humanism and Libraries: An Essay on the Philosophy of Librarianship by André Cossette and Modern Print Activism in the United States edited by Rachel Schreiber. His current research is situated in the areas of ethnobibliography and print culture studies. ix Chapter One: Introduction “In learning to read, I owe almost as much to the bitter opposition of my master, as to the kindly aid of my mistress.” Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass 1. I. Overview: A New Framework for an Aging Question For years now, the library, as an institution, has taken steps to address the strong perception that there is a crisis in black literacy. This crisis refers to the current statistical gap in literacy rates among African Americans, and especially, young African American males, when compared with the rates of their white peers. The library has already developed well-defined best practices for dealing with the promotion of the acquisition of basic literacy skills—even if it has done so in a largely normative manner. Throughout its more recent institutional history, that is, primarily since its professionalization as a field at the close of the nineteenth