Danish Libraries between ‘Wende’ and ‘Zeitenwende’

1 Introduction

During the more than 30 years between German reunification and the Russian invasion of Ukraine great changes have taken place in the Danish library sector. None of these changes are directly related to the far-reaching changes signified by the terms ‘Wende’ and ‘Zeitenwende’. On a personal level many, including myself, now see the Fall of the Iron Curtain as the beginning of a Thirty Years’ Peace in Europe, to use the recent expression of historian Timothy Garton Ash.^[1] At a professional level, the result of the ‘Wende’ was many new contacts with colleagues in the former Eastern Bloc states and in some cases joint projects. The political changes, the expansion of the European Union, and recently the admission of new members to NATO and war in Central Europe, are of course important. But factors behind library development are of a different kind. In this essay I will give my view on this.

2 The Danish Library Sector

The library sector has witnessed quite dramatic changes in the period dealt with here. One recent mark of the changes is the dissolution in 2023 of the association of librarians and information professionals because of declining membership. Also, in 1989, you could take a degree in librarianship, but that is no longer possible. The internationally recognized Danish School of Librarianship was shut down and became part of Copenhagen University in 2013, and today it is no longer possible to take a degree in librarianship. This may seem a quite radical change, but it is not perceived as a big problem, at least in the short term. There are still many library employees with ‘classical’ library competencies. However, there is a growing understanding that in the longer-term library employees with academic degrees in arts, science, or social science will need some form of library specific postgraduate courses and that it will be up to the libraries to organize them. It should be noted that libraries are still an object of research, Copenhagen University’s Department of Communication being the most extensive research environment.^[2]

Quite a few of the trends in Danish library development you can find in other countries, too. However, two facts are notable: the degree of digitization and the reduction in the number of library organizations and the subsequent organization of shared solutions.

3 Consolidation

As mentioned, the keyword through these changes has been consolidation. Is that political lingo for budget reductions? In this case, it is not. The budgets of research libraries have been fluctuating as have the budgets of other government agencies and institutions, reflecting the overall economic situation and the will of the political majority. In some cases of public sector mergers, you have seen the ministry take efficiency gains up front. This has not been the case here. There have been no budget cuts, because of the changes outlined above. Efficiency has been in focus and still is. But a strong motive behind the mergers has been the view that small public organizations are not viable in the longer term, because of the many competencies needed to operate, administrative, financial, legal, and technological. As regards research libraries, the major goal has been to secure the basis for the development of new library services to higher education and research, making the most of synergies between tasks, collections, and staff competencies. The reduction of duplication, benefits from economies of scale, while at the same time increasing impact, are seen as parts of the same ‘project’. Of course, there have been discussions along the way, among library professionals and among the interested public. There have been a few protests, against closure of a library branch or closure of a departmental library but, in general, the reaction to the many changes in the Danish library sector has been subdued. In other sectors the reaction to change has been more widespread and vociferous, e.g., students protesting reduction in the number of years you can receive grants from the State Education Fund. But most voters have approved of the course followed by changing government coalitions.

One word emerges when you ask why this is so, at least if you ask Danish social scientists. The word is ‘trust’. Political scientist Gert Tinggaard Svendsen says “control is good, but trust is cheaper”. He explains that trust, among citizens and between citizens and authorities, is probably what makes relatively smooth social transformations possible. But trust is the result of other factors: “a non-corrupt welfare state reliably providing common goods through education, redistribution and equality will engender trust” and “In welfare states, effective public institutions that limit corruption and wrongdoing and promotes education, in turn giving citizens a better understanding of their society, presumably also creates a framework that fosters trust”.^[5] Gert Tinggaard Svendsen is not blind to the fact that the control approach is slowly gaining ground and if that goes too far, it will create another kind of society. That has not happened yet, and he finishes his book with this fanfare:

If we Danes want our welfare state to survive in the long term, it is crucial that the country’s government, cultural institutions, families and schools uphold essential behavioural norms and rules. These included keeping our word, and being honest, fair and equal before the law. It is just as crucial that all able-bodied citizens pitch in, and that we commend those who contribute and keep their word while chastising those who don’t. This will help Denmark maintain the solid foundation of trust on which our welfare state rests.^[6]

It may sound idealised, but I think this statement points to important factors behind the fact that changes in the library sector have happened quite peacefully: the motives behind the changes have been set out honestly, the process has been characterised by a fair balancing of considerations, professional, financial, political, and the implementation has not been characterized by excessive control from higher levels of authority. It would be an exaggeration to say that this approach is always used in the development of the Danish public sector. There are neo-liberals who see government as the problem, not part of the solution. But from ‘Wende’ to ‘Zeitenwende’ there has been a broad political consensus about the need for an up-to-date and citizen-oriented public sector and a general understanding that this requires a high degree of professional latitude.

The international security situation is now radically different from that after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and like other governments the Danish Government has started a massive investment in defence. At the same time, considerable new investments in welfare, especially health care, have been started. So far, these investments have not been financed by reductions in other sectors and research libraries have been compensated for the effects of inflation, like other government institutions. This is possible due to economic growth, which changing governments see as the effect of globalization.

4 Globalization and the Competition State

Since the 1980s, Danish governments have embraced globalization, the argument being that as a small country Denmark must be an economy open for international investment and with international trade and division of labour. That is necessary to generate the prosperity needed to preserve and develop welfare – which has been and is the mainstream political goal. There have been and are political forces critical of at least some aspects of globalization such as immigration and EU harmonization of regulations, but these forces have not been strong enough to change the course of successive governments, centre-right or centre-left. The ‘Cartoon-Crisis’ in 2005–2006 when a caricature of the prophet Muhammad sparked violent anti-Danish reaction across the Muslim world was a reminder that globalization has its negative aspects: you cannot separate domestic and foreign politics. But the major political parties saw the crisis more as a lesson on what to do and what not to do in such a situation, and not as a reason to make decisive changes in the globalization strategy.

Ultimately, globalization is the key to understanding what has happened in Danish research libraries! To explain that I will use the concept of ‘the competition state’ developed by Danish political scientist Ove K. Pedersen. He defines the competition state as follows: “It emerges when the national welfare states – their tasks, organization and governance arrangements – are reformed in a stable and permanent manner with the explicit goal of enhancing the nation’s competitiveness by establishing comparative advantages for national industries and services”.^[7]

To put it briefly: investment in digitization and a focus on the development of an efficient and up-to-date public sector are some of the means with which successive Danish governments have worked to make Denmark an attractive place in which to invest and work. In public discussion, the concept ‘competition state’ has been presented as a neo-liberal ideal (or dystopia) of society as a war of everyone against everyone else. That is not the case. Ove K. Pedersen formed the concept to understand the rational basis for the profound changes in Danish society during the last decades. He formed the concept in a conscious confrontation with the view that the many changes – labour market regulation, infrastructure, far-reaching digitization and so on – constitute a betrayal of the welfare state. Ove K. Pedersen defends the view that the competition state is the way the (changing) political majority has rescued the welfare state from its impasse in the 1970s (rising taxes, declining productivity) and that this has had greater effect on Danish society (including libraries!) than the Fall of the Wall, financial crisis, COVID-19, and war in Ukraine.^[8]

5 Conclusion

Many historical presentations of a sector of society or a profession have been produced by a member of the profession. That is also true of library history. The American library historian Wayne Wiegand once characterized American library history as marked by blind spots and tunnel vision.^[9] There are relevant aspects you do not see, perhaps because they are not related to the profession, and with tunnel vision you only see what is directly visible: you do not see the wider picture. It is still a relevant admonition to avoid tunnel vision and blind spots, and in describing and explaining the significant changes in Danish libraries, you need to look beyond the big political events, however much they have occupied us as citizens.