Regulating Readers: The Social Origins of the Readers' Advisor in the United States

In this article I argue that the readers' advisory service was a product of social forces operating in the context of early twentieth century capitalism. The work of French regulation theorists provides a framework for analyzing these forces using the concepts of regime of accumulation and mode of regulation. It suggests that American capitalism during this time was engaged in a process of defining a new mode of regulation capable of ensuring labor discipline and forging a market for consumer products among the public. The readers' advisory service, in its efforts to develop a professional expertise for librarians, can be shown to be an experiment in contributing to the fulfillment of the needs imposed by the new mode of regulation. This experiment was conducted through the development of processes involving the legitimization of new ways of living, the "humanization" of books, the association of free time with the consumption of commodities, and the voluntary imposition of a system of discipline on patrons who availed themselves of the service.