CO-OPERATION OF LIBRARIES WITH LIBRARY SCHOOLS
Before beginning to talk of the ways in which libraries might co-operate to better advantage with library schools, it is but fair to acknowledge gratefully that many libraries are already co-operating with us in a way that often must tax severely their time and patience. In behalf of the Drexel Institute library school, I thank most heartily those libraries that, regardless of the inconvenience to themselves, allow our students to go to them for the practice work that is so valuable to half-fledged librarians. And in voicing the gratitude of Drexel, I feel that I am giving utterance to the feelings of every other school that sends out its students in the same way.
We can give our students but two weeks practice work outside of Philadelphia, because our school year is so short. Perhaps it would be well to lengthen the year by two weeks, in order that the term of work might be lengthened.
There are three things that it seems to me the schools may properly ask of the libraries: advance practice work; direct criticism; a living wage for assistants.
(1) Advance practice work—I mean by this work done in libraries prior to any study of library science. As a rule, the student with a little practical experience gets far more from a library course than one not so equipped. Directors of schools often advise work in advance, but, as far as I know, few schools require it. Pratt Institute begins with practical work in the Pratt library. The difficulties in the way of requiring this work are many. It would bear heavily upon the libraries; it would be an added expense to students living at a distance from good libraries; it would not necessarily prove the applicant's fitness or unfitness for library work, as she might fail at the kind of work she was set to do, and yet be capable of success on some other line.
Yet, on the whole, this would be a better test of fitness than all the questions we directors hurl at kindly and well-meaning friends or former instructors of our would-be students. Don't we ask too many questions as to personality from those whose answers often carry little weight? Why should we not accept all who measure up to a certain physical and mental standard, without troubling our heads so much as to whether they are ideally fit for library work? It would bring us more in line with the professional schools. Moreover, there are almost as many kinds of library work as there are of people!
The chance to work in a real library before beginning the course of study would often clarify the student's ideas about library work, even more than it would clarify the director's ideas about the would-be student. We would have, perhaps, fewer applicants who are not very strong but who "love books."
Sometimes I have wondered whether it would not be well to abandon entrance examinations and require instead a health certificate from a physician, a certificate that six months' satisfactory work had been done in his library from a librarian, and a statement that the applicant had read the English Bible through at least three times (this last for its influence on English prose style!).
(2) Direct criticism.
"Indirect criticism" was perhaps the toughest thing in the advanced cataloging course in my honored Alma Mater, and indirect criticism is one of the most trying things that we teachers of library science have to undergo. Librarians can help us by giving us their criticism of our methods and of our students at first-hand.
We have had more or less direct criticism—we would like more.
We have been told (a) That our graduates are not so valuable to certain libraries as their own apprentices. Of course they are not, at first, but they should be more valuable later. (b) That they are wedded to library school methods. I believe there is less justice in this criticism than there was some years ago. (c) That our schools are not "laid out and conducted in accordance with recommendations from experts in pedagogy." We plead guilty. (d) That the schools "almost inevitably tend to exalt technique and routine." I do not think that we mean to do this. We know that culture and gumption are more important than any amount of knowledge of technique and routine, but we expect our students to finish their cultural studies (so far as such studies can be finished) before coming to us, and we can not teach gumption. It is heaven-born. We exist largely for the purpose of teaching technique and routine but never for one moment do we mean to exalt them over the weightier matters of the law.
I have gone a little out of the way to answer these few direct criticisms. Some of us have profited by them. Give us more.
We would like direct rather than indirect criticism of our graduates. Unfavorable comments on training in general, or on the training of a particular school, do not take the place of direct criticism of individuals. Librarians would be doing a kindness by writing to the school from which they had a trained assistant who was lacking in ways that reflected on her training and stating plainly what the defects were, so that the school might profit by the knowledge.
Then, too, librarians would often save themselves trouble by co-operating with the schools to the extent of writing for the record of a graduate whom they think of engaging. Many do this, but not all. A librarian or trustee may select an assistant at a conference on account of her good looks and pleasant manners, and when he finds out (it is usually a "he" who makes this error of judgment) that she is not all his fancy painted her, he blames the school that trained her. The school could have told him perhaps, if asked, wherein she was lacking.
(3) A living wage. This is the most important of the three points in which we wish for co-operation. It is getting to be a serious question as to whether women of ability can afford to go into library work. We do not expect luxuries, but to do good work we must keep fit. We need rooms that admit plenty of fresh air and we need nourishing food. We are obliged to dress fairly well. We ought to go to library meetings, and trustees do not usually pay the way of the assistants with the smaller salaries. Recreation is a necessity if we are to keep sane. But how can we afford to travel, or even to see a play or to buy a book, on the salaries many of us get?
I was asked a few weeks ago to supply a college library with a cataloger who must be a library school graduate knowing French and German and the salary offered was $40 a month. If a woman ate poor food, she might be able to save enough out of $40 to pay for her washing—only she couldn't afford to buy any clothes to be washed. She could never see a play, hear an orchestra, or buy a book.
A good cook, on the other hand, would have no difficulty in getting $30 or $35 a month and maintenance, which would be equivalent to a salary of at least $50 or $55 a month. Moreover, the cook would not be expected to dress as well as the cataloger (though, as a matter of fact, her Sunday clothes would probably be more costly) or to attend conventions.
The case I have mentioned is by no means an isolated one. A good-looking girl with pleasant manners, who could understand French, German, Spanish and Italian over the telephone, was asked for by a large city library that proposed to pay about $45 a month. Another college library recently wanted a college and library school graduate with experience and various other qualifications for $720 a year. Now if an experienced woman with such an education can't get more than $720 a year in library work, the sooner she leaves it for something else the better. A special library belonging to a leading institution in a large city was looking for a woman to reclassify and catalog its collection, but seemed unwilling to pay even $50 a month.
This is not intended as a diatribe against the librarian employer. The trustees and the taxpayers need education along the line of library salaries. Libraries need larger appropriations for salaries. We have passed through a period where method was exalted, we seem to be passing through a period where a fine building is the prime necessity. But after all, a library means primarily plenty of books that are worth while and assistants that know enough to get them into the hands of the right people. And we can not cultivate efficient assistants on less than a living wage.
Do not misunderstand me. I do not mean to imply that a green library school graduate should leap at once into a high-salaried position. Yet the comparison sometimes made with the doctor or lawyer, who are so long in gaining a foot-hold, seems to me unfair. Lawyers and doctors who are good for much, make big money after a while. It is the exceptional librarian who ever gets a large salary. Therefore it is not fair to expect her to spend so many years earning little or nothing as does the doctor or lawyer.
I have spoken particularly of salaries for women. Salaries for men in library work are usually too low, but I have dwelt on the women's salaries because women are discriminated against, not alone in libraries, but in most kinds of work done by women.
The working-woman of today asks no favor because she is a woman. She does ask equal pay with men for equally good work.
I do not mean to over-emphasize the money side of library work, even though I think the "missionary" side of it has been over-emphasized. Why is a shelf-lister any more of a missionary than a bookkeeper in John Wanamaker's store? Why is any librarian any more of a missionary than the editor of a great daily, or than a busy surgeon, or many other folks that might be mentioned? We librarians serve those who know more than we, who are better than we—we are "just folks" like all the rest, equally worthy, if we give good measure in our work, of a living wage.
We of the schools ask of the libraries we try to serve that they send us criticisms of our graduates, that they try them out, and that they pay them, if found efficient, that living wage without which the best work is impossible.
Discussion of both papers followed, after which was read the