ABSTRACT
Community librarianship, as it was originally conceived, represented a challenge to traditional public librarianship. But the failure to fulfil its promise of delivering a rejuvenated, egalitarian and more relevant public library cannot be laid at the door of the library profession alone. For the purpose of this chapter the threefold notion of community given by the social historians Stephen Yeo and Eileen Yeo is particularly appropriate to the theoretical framework the authors have constructed. Their view of community 'as mutuality', 'as service' and 'as state' correspond helpfully with the configuration of community librarianship as a mode of community practice which in its purest form has addressed the needs of identifiable mutual, client groups through the policy formulation and practices of local state professionals who are motivated by an ethic of dutiful service to the disadvantaged. Postmodern forms of human behaviour can be organized into four basic categories: cultural, social, epistemological and economic.
