Heat, Humility, and Hubris: The Conundrum of the Fiske Report

The “Fiske Report” is the popular title for a study conducted in the late 1950s under the auspices of the University of California School of Librarianship with the financial support of the Fund for the Republic, a liberal philanthropic organization. The intended focus was the practice of book selection in school and public libraries, but the key concern that emerged from the study was the practice within the field of “self-censorship.” The period of study ranged from 1956 to 1958, with the final report published in 1959. A symposium in 1958 to investigate the social influences on libraries identified the primary cause of the censorious practices as the ubiquitous female gender of the librarians. Issues the research participants raised related to education for and development of professionalism within the field of practice received cursory attention, and the opportunity to engage the question of the social roles of librarianship remained unaddressed.