No More the Hero: Lionel McColvin, Women Library Workers, and Impacts of Othering

Lionel McColvin has been hailed as the uncompromising leader of the public library sector. This paper challenges the glory in which much of McColvin's work still basks with a consideration of the significance of his work for women library workers. The impact of two important texts by McColvin in furthering discriminatory practices against women workers is investigated. McColvin sanctioned the practice of unequal pay for women workers and advocated the recruitment of men in preference to women for professional posts, thus perpetuating discriminatory treatment against women in the sector. Thus he contributed to a significant extent to the widespread acceptance of detrimental conditions in terms of pay, conditions of service, career development opportunities, and training faced by women library workers in the 1940s and 1950s. Such discriminatory employment practices were embodied in the lives of women workers, and the lived experience of unequal pay is discussed. I would like to thank Chris Baggs for his comments.