over time. By exploring the way librarians have justified their policies
in terms of the public interest, this study sheds light on the complex
background of policy alternatives that seem to spring from contempo-
rary situations.

The study is divided into three major sections. After a prologue de-
scribes the origins of the first major public library in 1853 and the con-
cept of freedom it embodied, Part I, "Missionaries of the Book: 1876-
1900," explores the early years of library development and the first
professional culture, which embodied the values of populism, neutral-
ity, and censorship. It traces the first literary disputes and censorship
controversies and describes the impact of the 1890s depression on li-
brarians' sense of mission and direction. Part II, "Structures of Ambiv-
alence: 1900-1922," covers the period in which censorship as a profes-
sional value was reflected in closed-shelf policies that attempted to
resolve competing demands for restriction and for controversial books.
The erosion of the value of censorship and the special problems that
arose in World War I are delineated here. Part III, "From Secular to Sa-
cred: 1923-1939," discusses the emergence of an ideology of freedom
as a value central to the goals of libraries.

In line with the sociological and structural approach of this study,
the shift in ideology is traced against a backdrop of major social and
literary change: the moral crusades of the late nineteenth century; the
challenge of literary naturalism; the peculiar mix of political liberalism
and moral conservatism of the Progressive years; the book-burning cru-
sades of World War I; the Boston bannings and nativist eruptions of
the 1920s; the revolutionary impact on all professions of the Depres-
sion, Soviet communism, and German Nazism. Underlying these
changes were processes of secularization and of nationalization--the
emergence of a national economy and communications network. ¹

Within this context, the ideals of censorship and freedom are treated
as part of an occupational ideology that was affected by these broader
social forces. Ideology is defined in Talcott Parsons' terms as a system
of truth-claims (empirical statements) and values in terms of which a
group explains and justifies its existence. This definition allows for the
possibility that ideologies may be, but are not necessarily, masks for
economic self-interest. They may also be genuine statements of com-
mitment. ²

The distinction between genuine ideals and "ideological" rationali-
zations is especially important in analyzing professional ideologies. So-
ciologists do not agree on whether "profession" is a theoretically dis-
tinct type of occupation. Presumably, its unique characteristics are:
specialized expertise based on university training in a body of theoretical
knowledge; an ethical or public interest orientation that is distinguished
from the profit motive of business and from the narrow group interest

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