Librarianship in Mexico: a discipline in crisis. Crítica Bibliotecológica: Revista de las Ciencias de Información Documental (Library and Information Science Critique: Journal of the Sciences of Information Recorded in Documents), 1 (1), jul-dic, pp. 104-111.

摘要

Library Science in Mexico is a discipline at crisis. On one hand, in the search for integration into theinformation society its Study Program changes towards a more administrative and technical model ofeducation; on the other hand, as our introductory example shows, the lack of a humanistic education forlibrarians, is leaving them in a very unethical position since they do not have what is needed to understandthe political and social relevance of knowledge production and transmission. A positivist perspective ofreality has invaded classrooms, conferences, publications and research. There is no critical or theoreticalthinking in Mexican librarianship at all nowadays and this determines an apathetic and passiveperformance from librarians, especially in public libraries since these public spaces are open to the social,economical and political characteristics of the place they were built on. More over, the mission of publiclibraries as social change agents does not accomplish due to the fact that they are not offering anyobjective alternative to mass media standardization of public opinion. And as TV and media-baseddemocracy spreads throughout the whole country, librarians seem oblivious to this situation. It is becauseof this, that we believe it is necessary for librarians to get a theoretical and humanistic education whilethey are in school in order to be prepared and committed with their social role.