Full bibliography

Public libraries are often thought of as inherently democratic institutions where the provision of informational resources supports social inclusion and civic participation. Inspired by a recent citywide conflict over potential library closures in Toronto, Canada, this dissertation investigates a more contested history than conventional interpretations have often permitted by revealing a series of conflicts over public library buildings, budgets, and governance across more than a century. The main argument is that understanding this history requires an account of the overall work done to make and remake these spaces into what they are today, as a way of understanding of what these spaces may soon become. This argument illustrates how the perceived worth of providing public library service, whether or not it is accounted for in monetary terms, can be seen as socially constructed and politically contested. To make this argument, I draw mainly from feminist theorizations of work, which broaden this category to encompass productive waged labour along with paid and unpaid reproductive labour coded as ‘nonwork’ or ‘unproductive’, and geographers’ insights on the contested social production of space. In so doing, this dissertation aims for a critical re-thinking of what these spaces mean for daily urban life.