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Kajian Dalam Bidang Ilmu Perpustakaan dan Informasi: Filosofi, Teori, dan Praktik

Abstract

Librarian and librarianship role development endeavors will not be possible
by only depending on routine activities or conventional, mainstream programs
such as collecting, disseminating collections, or building library information
systems. It is of a great importance for librarians to critically deconstruct their
librarianship role to allow for the emergence of new ideas, roles, and opportunities
more relevant to community’s needs and current development. More than merely
gaining knowledge and understanding a multitude of critical theories, when
librarians are faced with the pressure to deconstruct their long-established role
and routine activities, it is critical for them to perform reconstruction, that is,
how they come to be involved in critical practices with critical thought tradition.
The thoughts of Post-structuralists like Derrida and Foucault set a foundation for
one’s development to be involved in critical librarianship practices. Without the
awareness and willingness to think critically, the improvement programs designed
will likely to fail to offer meaningful alternatives. To break out of prevailing routine
activities and dominant programs, the awareness to think critically becomes
indispensable. This is necessary, in that deconstruction and reconstruction efforts
will result in progressive changes meaningful to the community.

Keywords: deconstruction, reconstruction, critical perspective, librarianship,
library

I. INTRODUCTION
In no less than a decade, Indonesia has seen multiple efforts to improve
the service quality of its libraries, both national and regional, at schools or
other educational institutions. Efforts to boost library performance are made by
not only increasing and updating library collections, providing mobile library
services, and establishing TBMs (Taman Bacaan Masyarakat) as community
reading gardens in various locations, but also adding digital collections and
improving the quality of library services needed by users (Lusiana, Yanto,
Anwar, & Komala, 2019; Putra & Salim, 2019; Toong Tjiek, 2006).
Within certain contexts, library services today are admittedly
demonstrating a significant improvement. In some higher education
libraries, for instance, it is clearly visible that both the types and quality
of the library services developed become better (Usman Noor, 2018). The
libraries of some state and private higher education institutions are of high
quality, and some even compete with the libraries of prominent overseas
universities (Amalia, 2016). The reading space in many libraries is seeing
improvement not only in the comfort but also in the facilities provided, such
as computer and Wi-Fi services, among other things. Additionally, many
public libraries have offered a wide variety of services to the community

26 Decontruction And Recontruction of The Roles of Librarians ...