Due to contemporary threats to democracy, the topic is highly prominent in news and social discourse. The Library and Information Science (LIS) field writes about democracy frequently and it is a core concept underwriting many common library practices, but it lacks a working definition of modern democracy. This article supplies a minimal definition of democracy specifically for LIS, and expands the concept to encompass a more empirically accurate concept of library roles in democratic societies that includes the sociology of democracy where libraries arguable play a more significant role.
There is an unpacking of library assumptions about operating in democratic societies, an empirical survey of the conditions of modern democracy, and a baseline theoretical description of democratic functioning as it currently exists.
A minimal definition of modern democracy situates library practices – and in some ways minimizes them. However, the role of culture – the sociology that democracy presumes – comes to prominence when the civil society role of libraries and the conditions of successful democratic functioning are examined.
There is now a minimal definition of democracy for LIS with this effort, but it needs expansion. In that sense, LIS is a leading example of the undertheorized role of the sociology that democracy presumes.
