WHAT LIBRARY SCHOOLS CAN DO FOR THE PROFESSION
For nearly thirty years an invigorating influence has come to library work through the library schools. During that time hundreds of young men and women, selected for personal and educational qualifications, have been given training in the mechanics of library work and have been placed in touch with the best library thought. As a result, fewer libraries have been converted into laboratories for experimental work in technique.
The library schools have been commended repeatedly by this association and their services are too obvious for comment. In considering, however, what they can do for the profession today, we shall assume the role of the devil's advocate and endeavor to point out how they may serve more fully in what they are doing and what they should do that perhaps is not being done. In the time available we can do little more than summarize.
The first library school was founded and conducted in connection with a university library and for several years at least, its curriculum showed the strong influence of university demands. The curricula of the later schools have been modified somewhat, but changes have been unimportant as compared to the traditions retained. These were carried from the pioneer school to those established later with certain general basic principles which doubtless always will be kept.
For several years a feeling has been sensed, although vaguely expressed that changes and modifications in library school courses were needed. There have been convictions that the schools were not as closely in touch with certain growing activities in library work as libraries themselves were with growing demands and new fields open to them. These convictions have been most pronounced in the schools themselves. As stated by one library school director,—"In some way, the library school should train its students to meet the vital demands that humanity makes upon all who come regularly in communication with people." The aim of the school seems more clearly realized than the means of attaining it, but efforts are seen in the shifts and changes in curricula. In preparing its students to meet the vital demands that humanity will make, it is evident the schools have concluded this can best be done by additions rather than eliminations from courses of study. The training conducted by the oldest school began with a three months' course which in the second year was increased to seven months and then to two years. Another school, typical of several, has never increased the time period over one year, but has so increased the work required that in eight and one-half months, including vacations and holidays, instruction and examinations are given in forty-three subjects, a minimum of three hundred and seventy-seven hours of practice work is required, and a trip of six hundred miles in ten days is taken when some fifteen to twenty libraries are inspected and reported on.
In these crowded courses of study, the schools should be expected by the profession to prevent its ideals from being smothered in the stress of technical work. The usual incentive to enter library work comes from a love of books but this love will avail little if it be unaccompanied by a consuming desire that the community also share it. Generalities and pseudo-sentiment concerning ideals have invited ridicule, but no librarian, however reticent or how unrecognized his actuating principles may be, can carry on his work successfully without following the vision which vitalizes his professional life. From 1876 to the present day, this association has cherished its aims and our schools can do no greater service than imparting those guiding principles that the means of work may not become the end.
No institution can create qualities lacking in a student and library schools will concern themselves mainly with the mechanics of library work, which is most difficult to obtain elsewhere. But this instruction may either strengthen or weaken indispensable qualities for librarianship and the profession reasonably can expect the schools to foster such. Three related qualities which should be developed in prospective librarians are: a sense of proportion in library work, initiative and judgment.
When we consider the importance of a proper sense of proportion, should we not congratulate ourselves that the schools are devoting less attention to a particular handwriting and other incidentals, the insistence on which always seemed to belittle the dignity of a great work. Legibility in a medical prescription is more important than on a catalog card, but medical colleges and library schools alike can concentrate their strength on more vital needs.
In expecting the schools to develop initiative and good judgment in a student, it is not suggested that students be encouraged to attempt changes in systems of classification, cataloging and other technical processes which have been perfected by the best library thought of two generations. In such a course as book selection, however, after general principles are presented, cannot students be thrown more fully on their own judgment and their practice work be confined to evaluating current publications? Their conclusions could then be verified by comparison with selections in the order department. A year's work confined to sitting in judgment on books from five to fifty years old, when these books are known to be desirable through their presence on the shelves, deadens initiative and judgment and makes routine of what should be one of the refreshing pleasures of the work.
One of the profession's needs today is more men—men whose abilities would qualify them for the highest positions in any work, and these the library schools should attract. While many of the most useful and talented library workers are women, the fact remains that the demand for good men far exceeds the supply, yet we find an astonishing shortage in the schools. Even the school most largely attended by men, reports a decrease since the year 1903. More than one school has attracted so few that the presence of a man is noteworthy and there seem to be schools connected with universities where hundreds of young men are preparing for professional life, that have yet to enroll one man student.
Should we not expect the schools to supply more men? Can they not co-operate with the American library association in presenting the claims and rewards of librarianship to young men in the universities? Not only would such presentations interest both men and women, but they would help to dispel many existing mediaeval conceptions of library work which still survive. Our shortage in men cannot be due entirely to the financial returns in library work. The average salary of men in that work exceeds the average in several crowded professions, and yet our greatest rewards are not in money returns. Men may regard the school courses simply as means to an end, and if so, perhaps the means could be made to appeal more strongly to men. It is rash in these days to compare attributes of the masculine and feminine mind, but may we venture to say women, as a rule, have more patience and enjoyment than men in work requiring sustained attention to details. Do not library school courses, as now arranged, appeal largely to the house-wifely instincts and cannot courses be devised for men who never intend to fill library positions where the exercise of these instincts will ever play so important a part in their work as will problems of administration and questions of library policy. We shall admit that all students should have sufficient training in cataloging for instance, to know good or poor cataloging when met with. But personally I fail to see why a man destined for administrative work should necessarily have to do expert cataloging in order to appreciate it, any more than he would first have to write a book before his judgment in book selection for his library could be relied on.
During the last ten years the library has undergone phenomenal development in its relations with other educational and social forces. Today we must co-operate not only with the public school, but with the social settlement, the juvenile court, and various other special municipal activities. The profession should expect the schools to provide their students with a working knowledge of what the relations of a library to these activities should be, what methods employed bring best results and what some of the problems and possibilities are from such relations. And most important of all, the schools should be expected to provide candidates for library work with a proper appreciation at least of the importance of the library's public relations in general. No mastery of technique or high endeavor greatly avails if the library's public relations be not handled intelligently and skillfully. Rules and regulations are but the written creeds of institutions in the details of loaning books, but back of all of them are the great unwritten laws and principles of procedure, more important than all the printed regulations in existence. Great policies in public relations are being tried and tested today and light on them should be focused through the schools so prospective librarians can see ahead more clearly. Questions of relations with the public are confronting all who, in the words quoted before, have to meet the vital demands that come through constant communication with people. In the Public service magazine of April, 1912, under the heading "Public relations—the vital problem," the following is taken from the president's address before the Illinois Association of Gas Manufacturers:
"Slowly probably, but surely, the majority of owners and operators of public utilities are coming to the realization that the most important,—the most vital subject with which they have to deal in the management of their properties today, is that of public relations. It used to be that the man who could put the most gas in the holders at the lowest cost, or could generate the most power at the electric or street car plant, was the most important in the whole organization.
"It is different now. The basis of organization has changed and the man who has made a study of public relations—the man who can create and conserve the public good will is given the reins of control."
But should a man wish to make a particular study of the library's public relations before he is compelled to assume the responsibilities accompanying them, he may have difficulty. One school makes provision for special students, but on account of the extra work each additional student makes on the faculty, it is often impossible to enter. Admission depends on available desk room and on condition that the regular classes are not so large as to occupy the entire time of the faculty.
The theory at present seems to be,—give every student a little of everything he may need, as the process of forgetting what he will not use is easier than the work of acquiring it should he need it. We therefore see men destined for control of large libraries, women planning for positions as catalogers in university libraries, candidates for small public institutions, those who will specialize in bibliographical work—all of them differing in natural inclinations, special preliminary training and professional aims in library life, being introduced to forty-three phases of library work, with instruction in all of them varying from 2 to 101 hours, according to the subject, with at least 377 hours of practice work and a library trip—through all of which the student emerges in eight and one-half months, possibly somewhat bewildered by the process but groping for the ladder up which he is determined to climb.
Cannot the schools do the greatest service to the student and to the profession by abandoning the plan of putting all students through the same square hole? Instead of giving a little of everything, cannot the school give much of what the student will use and nothing of what he can dispense with or what can be got easily outside of the school? Cannot the courses be simplified somewhat to permit this? Entrance examinations are conducted early in June for admission to the school in September. Cannot a study of the history of libraries, the history of books and printing, the reading of library literature on publishing houses and other non-technical work be required of the student during the intervening three months? The literature would gladly be provided by libraries over the country and the three months' reading and intelligent observation in the library by the student before beginning his technical training would be advantageous. Three months' acquaintance and observation of the student by the librarian would make his recommendations valuable to the school.
But school courses as at present outlined cannot be made sufficiently flexible to provide specific training for specific work. Therefore, cannot the schools divide the instructional field between them and concentrate their individual efforts on special lines. This division of work is done most successfully by libraries in large cities.
Such a division would have several advantages. A man loving responsibility and the management of affairs could secure a maximum of definite training for administrative work and a minimum of work less important in his professional career. A woman under appointment as head of a small public library, would receive a maximum of training for this work and a minimum in the methods and features of work in a college library. One of promise as a cataloger would receive a maximum of technical training made possible through a minimum of time and effort required in studying the problems of a children's librarian.
The objection can be raised that neither the school nor the student can determine his future work and therefore a minimum number of hours in as many as forty-three subjects is preferable as a foundation. But in these general courses as outlined today, there is a great preponderance of work in certain lines. In speaking of the time devoted to cataloging, one school director said, "There is, however, much reason for this, as a large number of the graduates become catalogers and many others enter positions where a knowledge of cataloging is essential."
We shall agree that an expert knowledge of cataloging is essential in many positions, but has not the large number of graduates from this school who have become catalogers, been due partly at least to the fact that twice the time in school was devoted to this work than to any other, the aggregate equaling the combined hours of seventeen other branches.
The fact that one's special training largely determines one's field of work, is seen in another library school where a maximum of children's work is made possible by a minimum in some other departments. The result is that of the 148 graduates of this school, 107 were, last year, engaged in children's work, principally as heads of departments. The remaining 41 graduates were represented in other fields of library work.
The division of the field between the various schools would have another advantage of the student. At present, a school's geographical location, or its entrance requirements largely decides a student in selecting a school. But would it not be better if the student's selection were based on what the school could offer in special lines of work.
It may be thought that a prospective student lacks the self-knowledge to determine his qualifications for special work. Many students have and more should have library experience before schools are entered and these will know their intentions and qualifications. Even if an occasional mistake were made, the student still would have instruction in the various lines of library work.
In the school referred to before, the 41 graduates who are not filling positions for which special training was given, are successfully occupying positions of honor and responsibility in other library fields.
Again, the law of supply and demand makes no exception to library work, and with a division of the field, a student could receive the fullest training in the work for which there was the greatest demand.
In conclusion, the profession should not expect the schools to turn out finished products. Librarianship is not merely a process. It is also a habit of mind—an attitude towards public affairs which seeks activity through the medium of books. But in inculcating the principles toward this attitude, the profession must rely and can rely with confidence on the schools.
The CHAIRMAN: The paper just presented, and other phases of the subject, will be discussed by Mr. William H. Brett of the Cleveland public library.
Mr. BRETT: My good friend Mr. Hadley has stated so clearly the problems, the purposes and the difficulties of the library school, and I am so heartily in accord with so much that he has said, that I regret that I must differ from some of his conclusions. In considering these questions we must bear in mind that a majority of the students are in schools giving only a one year's course, and only a minority are so fortunate as to be able to attend the schools giving courses of two or more years. Now, the problem and the difficulty in a one year school is to arrange a course of study which shall be best for students entering school with widely differing preparation, some with, others without, library experience, and with differing aptitudes, abilities, ambitions and plans for the future. To arrange a course which will best meet the needs of such an aggregation of students is a serious problem.
The criticisms on the work of the schools in the paper, seem to be mainly, first, that too much of the routine work, the technical work, is unnecessary for those who may be so fortunate in the future as to fill administrative or other important positions, in which they will not need to do such work, and that routine work of that sort tends to deaden those more important things, sense of proportion, initiative, judgment, ability to deal with the larger problems of life. While I fully agree as to the importance of these things, I believe there is little occasion to fear that a solid technical course will lessen these qualities in any one who is so fortunate as to have them in any eminent degree. It seems to me that those qualities are rather the gift of God to their fortunate possessors than the work of the library schools. My own conviction is that whether it be had in the first year of one of the larger schools, or in a school giving a one year course, a definite, solid basis of technical training is an absolutely essential foundation for good library work. I believe that any specialization in library work should be built on such a foundation, just as specialization in law, in medicine and in the technical professions, is based on a general professional training.
We should have, I think, in our library training, the opportunity for specializing when the students are ready for it, but I believe that whatever position one is to occupy, whatever work in the library one may be fortunate enough to do, the solid, general training of one year in a library school is none too much as an introduction and basis. So that I believe that specialization in a one year course is not desirable, even if it were practicable, which it is not for at least two reasons: The time is too short and the expense too great. Such a suggestion reminds me of something which I heard President Eliot of Harvard say once upon a time at a meeting of school superintendents, on the subject of enriching and broadening the course in grammar schools. He argued in a very strong and interesting way for greater freedom for the brighter child to pass along more rapidly by means of special instruction. It was answered in various ways by the school men, but to me the answer was very clear, namely, that what Harvard university, with one instructor for eight or nine students, could do is not practicable in grade schools with one instructor for fifty students.
So any attempt to specialize in a one year course would require an increase of cost for instruction greater than the result would be likely to justify. An important co-operation has been at various times suggested and discussed as follows: If the courses of the one year schools could be so closely approximated to the first year's work in the larger schools that students having completed the one year's course might afterwards, if able to meet the requirements, complete their work, specializing, if they chose, in the second and third years' work of the larger schools, this would seem a perfectly feasible and desirable thing.
Another co-operation which I think would be of great value might be arranged with the colleges if they would give credit for work in the library school. A large part of the work in the library school, such as book selection, the subject headings, classifications, the use of reference books, and some other subjects, have a definite and high educational value, equal I believe, we may fairly say, to that of the average value of the college curriculum. If the college would be willing to give credit for a fair share of this work, the student might by some overtime work, graduate from college and from a library school giving one year courses, in four years, or by adding another year, from college and a two year library school. This would, of course, require co-operation through the course. In one instance such a co-operation has been planned and will be put into operation, the college proposing to give a credit of six-tenths of one year for one year's work in the library school. The initiative in that case came from the college. It is true as we all know that we are trying to secure for the service a preparation in college and in library school which is out of proportion to the salaries paid. This is the inevitable condition of a new profession. Adequate recognition will not be given to a profession until it has by long service demonstrated its importance, nor will individual members receive adequate salaries until they prove their efficiency. This is as true in the library as it is in business. In business salaries are usually based on the proven value of services already rendered. No young man in a mercantile house is likely to receive a salary in 1913 larger than he has shown his ability to earn in 1912. In other words, the man or the woman who grows in business relations must keep the work ahead of the salary. Keep the work away beyond the compensation and the compensation will follow it along even though it may not overtake it.
To bring about the best results the library schools should co-operate with each other and with the colleges to bring up and maintain high standards and to insist on a good, solid, general and technical foundation, upon which specialization may be built.
The CHAIRMAN: I am not sure but that there should have been a second paper, upon the subject of "What the library schools can not do for the profession." I wonder if it has ever occurred to you that a medical school confines a student for four years before he is permitted to go at large. I wonder if you have ever put to yourselves the question, how many medical students, in their first, or second, or third, or fourth year after graduation, you have been ready to employ in vital matters in your own family. I am quite sure that were any of the young ladies here seeking to employ a lawyer in a breech of promise suit against any of the young men, they would not go to the law graduate in the first year of his experience. It seems to me, therefore, that it is not surprising at all that we do not find in the library school graduate, during the early years of his actual work, all the business ability, the diplomatic qualities and the personality, book knowledge and tact that we might expect. We cannot do everything in one year, I think we all agree. What we do wish to know, and what we welcome very definitely, I am sure, from the standpoint of the schools, is that you let us know, in any way possible, what we can do that has not been done.
The discussion will be carried on further by Mr. Edwin H. Anderson, of the New York public library.
Mr. E. H. ANDERSON: I find myself in such general agreement with Mr. Hadley's excellent paper that I fear I can do little to stir up interest by discussion.
His point that in the first library school the influence of the university library was too marked and that university demands have had too much influence on the curricula of all schools, seems to me well taken. It is only natural that it should be so; but since most of the schools are now directly connected with, or closely related to, public libraries, I think their courses of instruction are more and more losing the marks of university influence. This influence should still hold with the schools connected with universities. But these schools, it seems to me, should frankly specialize and prepare students for university library work.
Mr. Hadley very properly emphasizes the need for more men students in the schools. I am sure all the existing schools are glad to have as many good men as they can get. The difficulty seems to be to find enough men of the right sort who are sufficiently interested in library work to take a course of formal training for it. If the schools could, as Mr. Hadley suggests, coöperate with the American Library Association in presenting the claims and rewards of librarianship to young men in the universities, I think the results would justify the effort. I would suggest therefore that the A. L. A. Committee on professional training consider this suggestion and arrange to act upon it as soon as possible. There is a crying demand for more men from the schools. The only remedy for the present condition is to induce more men of the right sort to enter the schools. Mr. Hadley has suggested one method of accomplishing this. Another and more direct method is for librarians themselves to call to the attention of young men of the right sort the opportunities which the schools open to them for professional library work. I think the heads of the schools will agree with me when I say that in general their best students are those who are sent to them by librarians. Now if these same librarians would make a special point of urging upon educated young men the advantages of the school training, both the schools and the profession would profit by it. Nothing is so effective as personal suggestion and explanation; and a librarian who likes his work should have little difficulty in arousing the interest of university men of his acquaintance who are not attracted by the older professions.
Mr. Hadley seems to think that much of the instruction in the schools at present is wasted upon one "destined" for administrative work. The difficulty is to tell when a man or a woman is destined for work of this sort. The inclination for it is not always accompanied by the necessary qualifications. How are we to determine who is destined for administrative work and who for work of another sort? A student might enter a library school expecting to prepare for administrative duties and find after a term's study that he preferred, or was better fitted for, some other kind of work. Personally I can say that few of the things I studied at the library school have proved useless to me in administrative work.
Mr. Hadley makes one suggestion which has often been under discussion in library school alumni associations, and which I happen to know was very seriously considered by the faculty of one library school some five years ago. This suggestion is that the schools provide courses of instruction in general library administration for those who look forward to administrative positions. Most of the schools have lectures each year from librarians of various sorts of libraries—large, small, public, university, etc.,—in which they are asked to tell in general terms how their libraries are administered. The question is, can the schools go further than this? Is there a science of administration which can be taught? The qualities needed for administrative work, library or other, are the gift of the gods, not of the schools. The schools can give the students a firsthand knowledge of the various phases of library work, and this is important. But they cannot give breadth of view to a mind naturally narrow; nor can they endow the student with personal force and poise, tact, savoir-faire, sympathy, a sense of justice,—in a word with gumption. Now a course of formal instruction in administrative gumption is one that no librarian with any gumption would attempt to give. The whole school of life is devoted to this course, and few degrees are conferred. He would be a god-like instructor indeed who could impart to his students the gifts of the gods as developed and perfected by the great school of experience. Anything less than the thunders of Sinai would be an inadequate introduction to such a course. What I am trying to emphasize is that the essential qualities for administrative work are too general and intangible to be taught formally in any kind of school. The schools cannot give their students a knowledge and love of books; these, for the most part, they must bring with them. Neither can they give them a knowledge of life. Are they not, therefore, by the very nature of the case, restricted to teaching chiefly the technique, I had almost said the mechanics, of library work? A knowledge of the technique is necessary to the administrator; but the ability to make the best use of this technique is a natural endowment developed by experience and environment through the course of years. Have we any right to expect a library school to provide more than a small part of that experience and environment? Are we not asking of the library schools what no other profession expects from its special schools? Do we get our bankers from business colleges, or the managers and presidents of our railroads from schools of engineering?
Some one has said that knowledge is the material with which wisdom builds. The library schools can impart a knowledge of library methods. They can hardly teach the wise use of those methods. They can suggest and illustrate it; but courses of instruction in administrative wisdom are, I fear, an iridescent dream.
The CHAIRMAN: This subject is open to discussion if there is any one who feels moved to contribute to our wisdom.
Mrs. ELMENDORF: Mr. Chairman, may I put in one straw from the outside world to show that other technical concerns are taking up this point of view also. One of the great universities is about to establish a technical school. They have called to the aid of the faculty three men very high in the technical world, all of them having attained great practical success. Those three men have agreed in recommending to the faculty that they reduce the technical hours in the schools, as compared to other technical schools, and devote more time to the humanities.
Dr. BOSTWICK: May I say just a word from the standpoint of one who is interested in the product of the library school, as making use of that product? I do not think this point has been alluded to at all this morning, which is my excuse for intruding it upon you for a moment.
I want to emphasize the value of library schools as selectors, which it seems to me is very great, transcending even, perhaps, their great value as trainers. I know a great many persons who use library school students, who, if they were asked why they preferred one library school to another, would say it was not because the training in that school was so much better, or because the instructors in that school were so much better, but simply because they always got better people from that library school. Why? Because those persons, who exist in great numbers, who are congenitally unfit to become librarians, are not allowed to get into such schools, and, if they do, they are not allowed to graduate. Consequently, if you choose graduates of those particular schools you are always sure of getting good persons. Therefore, I regard the selective function of a library school as extremely valuable. No matter how good the training you give, no matter how good the instructors you have, if you allow people in your schools who are unfitted for library work, your product will be worth little.
Miss RATHBONE: The cap that Mr. Hadley has constructed, fits so well that I could not forbear putting it on. I want to assure you all, however, that its conical shape is not the result of inheritance but of evolution. The curriculum of the particular school I have the honor to be associated with has been a growth, and a growth very largely made up from suggestions, the solicited suggestions, of its own graduates who have worked in the library field. Subjects have been added, others have been omitted, others have been reduced in time given to them, according as our students have found in their practical work that they needed things they did not get, or that certain things that we gave them were not of the greatest practical value. Again and again we have sent out circular letters, and have requested in personal interviews, the frankest possible criticism from our graduates of the preparation that they received in the school. I have seen a great many such letters, and have talked with a great many people. I must confess, however, that I have never yet had the criticism from any of the graduates that too much time was devoted in the school curriculum to cataloging. That criticism may come, and when it does we shall be glad to meet it, but I have not yet happened to receive it.
One other point I want to make, and that is that I think the libraries depend upon library schools for general assistants. That is one reason why a one year school, I think, should give all of its students experience in all of the different departments of library work, because, though after they go out into the field, some become catalogers, some children's librarians, some reference librarians, and a few, administrators of large libraries, the average graduate that goes out, three-fourths of our product certainly goes at first into a public library as a general assistant. The heads of such libraries want assistants who can go one week into the children's room; who, if a shortage occurs in the reference room, can be put there; and if in the meantime the work has piled up in the cataloging department, can be transferred from the children's room, or the reference department, to that department. I think that kind of all-round instruction, and the flexibility that results from it, is one of the most valuable assets that the trained librarian can take with him into general library work.
Dr. HILL: Mr. Chairman, in the first place, I would like to ask Mr. Brett if he will give us the name of the college which is allowing the library course to be taken as part of the rating.
Mr. BRETT: It is the College for Women of the Western Reserve university of Cleveland, and the school that co-operates with it is the Western Reserve library school.
Dr. HILL: In the second place, Mr. Chairman, the note in Mr. Hadley's paper which attracted and arrested my attention, related to men, naturally. Now, I want to say that as mere men we are not afraid of anything, we are not afraid that we are going to be crowded out of the library profession by our women friends, but we are looking around to see that we do not get crowded too much; and this subject of bringing into the profession more men and better men—although I would say to the ladies that there are a good many good men among us still available,—was taken up by the American Library Institute last fall, and presented very clearly by Dr. Dewey. He said in a paper which was submitted to the Institute that it was the duty of the American Library Association to interest the universities so that the work of our association might be brought to the attention of the students, and that we ought to arrange to have lectures given by librarians at the various universities. I became interested in this subject and last winter, talking with a president of one of the Eastern universities, asked if such lectures would be acceptable. He said that he would be very glad as president of that university to extend an invitation to the library association to send representatives there to place before students the advantages of the library profession, and to carry on a course which would enable interested students to direct their work along library lines. He said, further, that he had no doubt but what every college and university in the land would welcome such co-operation. Such being the feeling of the president of one university, it seems to me that it is time for the committee named by Mr. Anderson to take some active measure to have the country divided in such way that librarians in the neighborhood of the various universities will arrange to lecture before the students. I think the matter should be given immediate attention.
Miss KELSO: Mr. Chairman, I have made a study also this last winter, not with college presidents, but with certain members of the graduating class of Columbia university and Harvard university. In the dogma expressed here it seems to me you treat the university graduate, who has had four years' earnest study, as if he were in kilts, and the girl in short skirts. Those men and women have wrested from the college tradition the right to say what they are going to do, in their junior, if not their sophomore year, and to come out after their graduation from economical and sociological courses and to be presented to the curriculum you have, is little short of absurd. Go to the professors at the head of the economics departments of our universities, men or women, and they will tell you that their students have known for two years what they were going to be. I know several undergraduates that, before their graduation, had opportunities of national importance, as executive secretaries, to go in and organize a national office. To ask those fellows, who have been taking volunteer practice work, as numbers of them do, in health department work, in tuberculosis and a thousand and one things, to go and take up this library school curriculum,—they will not. Bring an undergraduate who is in his senior year to talk to you; go to the professor at the head of one of these departments and ask him to send you a young woman or a young man to talk to you about what the aims of their classes and fraternities have been.
I do believe there is a way out, and that is to admit frankly that the library schools can select, as Dr. Hill has well said, and send students to the libraries for the trying-out process, and above all to have the library association show very much more interest and attention to what the library schools are doing. And I can say to you, as an old librarian, that you are reaping what it seemed to me was a whirlwind sowed some years ago. For a long time past, and when we first had the schools, we shut the door on the possible entrance of politics into libraries,—a very serious menace, as we all know. We all rushed forward and talked about the library school, and if a community had a man or woman who could fill the place, who had special literary ability, had been well educated and was proved to have some executive ability, we all roared, "You're lost if you don't take some one who has gone through a library school training." You know we did. And the poor old committee succumbed and got a library school candidate. We cannot prepare librarians unless we relate them to the great field of human endeavor and social affairs to which the library belongs, if it is used in a proper way, and we must find other means in the library association to evolve some system to afford the trying-out process.
Mr. WALTER: Although we get at the matter from different points of view, I am quite certain that Miss Rathbone, Miss Kelso and I are in exact accord on some points. One is in the recognition of the real responsibility for the curricula of library schools. The library school courses are what they are because the libraries want them so. Miss Kelso may probably not be quite so familiar with the special demands of libraries as those who are on library school faculties are. A great demand exists at present along two lines. The most frequent demand, I think, is for college or university graduates, who are masters of every branch of library technic, and who possess as well a wide and extensive knowledge of all subjects, which will make them valuable in varied lines of work and in different departments; in other words, universal specialists. This demand comes repeatedly from the smaller libraries and not infrequently from the larger ones. The library school is forced in many ways to make a concession to that demand and to teach many things rather than a few specialties. I am not sure that the concession is always as great or as harmful as has been asserted, and one reason why I am not so sure of this is because I have been studying the curricula of several schools of philanthropy (whose practical character has just been commended) in order to make some improvements in a proposed course in the institution with which I am connected, and the differences in the general plans of the two kinds of schools are so far from being radical that we have been able to take over many of their specialized ideas and put them in our curriculum, with so little change that I defy you to find where the joints are.
Another demand is for real specialists to put in charge of special departments of large libraries. I believe that demand is growing. But you must remember, if you are going to have them, that two things are necessary. If you want specialists trained in different subjects, you must give them time to get their training and you must pay them enough to attract them and to keep them when you get them.
In an engineering school you have lengthy courses full of engineering technic, because you demand engineers. No good school would cut out that technic simply because you needed an engineering student in your technology department and couldn't afford to wait or to pay for a graduate. Why should we have to stop doing what experience, and the experience of years, has proved necessary, what most of the people who go out of the library schools say is necessary—why should we cut out general subjects simply because of a temporary or limited demand for short-cut semi-specialists? You do not give time to prepare specialists. You are prone to send in a letter on Saturday saying you must have a man in charge of a special department next Tuesday, that he must be a graduate of one of the best technical schools of the country and that he must also have a thorough knowledge of library technic. At present I do not believe there is enough demand for those people to attract many of them, because, these specialists, in most cases, are obliged to come into general library work and to keep in general work until the special positions for which they are particularly fitted become vacant or are created.
I believe thoroughly in the missionary spirit. I believe every librarian ought to have in him the spirit of St. Francis, to enable him, if need be, to go barefoot and get along with almost no food at all, but I do not believe in the right of the public to demand that he work for a salary so small that he must wear the habit and eat the food of St. Francis. If you expect to find these exceptional men you must pay for them and have places ready for them. You cannot expect the impossible. The question of technic is a serious one but it is not going to be solved entirely by omissions and short-cuts.
I might also say that the institution with which I happen to be connected depends very largely, so far as the changes in its curriculum are concerned, on the suggestions of the people who have gone out from the school and who are working in libraries, and it often plans its courses in accordance with what they suggest, as the result of their own experiences. What is more,—and I am not speaking for ourselves only, for similar conditions exist in other schools—in this way we have (among others) the experience of more than thirty men and women who are at the head of libraries in cities of the United States in either the first or the second class.
Mr. JOSEPHSON: It may well be that the present library schools cannot train both librarians and assistants; and perhaps, in consequence, we must have two kinds of school, one school for assistants and one for librarians. However that may be, either school must teach bibliography, and by that I mean the knowledge of the records of books and the art of describing books, so that the one who reads the description may know what the book is. Description includes, of course, not only cataloging but classification and annotation as well.
I would like to supplement Mr. Strohm's paper in one particular. I think it would be well if chief librarians would do something to encourage the continuation of professional studies among the members of their staffs, particularly among the younger members, both those who come from library schools and those who do not. We cannot expect them to study too hard after a full day's work, but I think in most cases we would find that such encouragement would be appreciated. The assistants who are ambitious to go forward would be willing to spend a couple of hours a week on further studies, and it might not be entirely out of the way for the library to allow some time for such work.
Mr. GEORGE: It seems to me that in our discussion today a means of practical relief has been missed by each of the speakers, and that is that the ordinary, customary method of universities be adopted by these library schools, and instead of attempting in a year's time to issue a diploma of doubtful value at best, as representing anything in particular, they should adopt the certificate plan, and allow their course to extend over a sufficient time to guarantee something; have their courses divided up in such a way that a certificate will represent something definite to those of us who want to use library school students. It seems to me in that way we can get some practical value from the schools and get efficient aids and assistants in the library service. The great difficulty about the whole thing is that most library school graduates lack a sufficient background and there is not time in one year's course, naturally, for them to acquire anything of that kind, or an experience that can be of practical value to us. I merely throw this out as a practical hint, because I have been waiting for it to come from some of the speakers. By having a certificate covering part of the ground, either cataloging or some other branch of library service undoubtedly we would be perfectly willing to recognize that as an authoritative guarantee from the schools, rather than a diploma that, as I say, is doubtful at best as representing anything, because of the varying courses and requirements of the different schools.
At the conclusion of this discussion the session adjourned.
FOURTH GENERAL SESSION
(Monday, July 1, 9:30 a. m.)
Dominion Day Program
Dr. James W. Robertson, C.M.G., took the chair, on behalf of the Ottawa local committee, and called the meeting to order.
The CHAIRMAN: Your president has in her genial and successful way insisted that the acting chairman of the local committee should preside on this occasion.
Of most men one might say when they are forty-five they are middle-aged and mature. This is the forty-fifth anniversary of the birth of this Dominion; and Canada is still but a youth, a sturdy, growing, promising youth among the nations. She is a people of great heritages, of lofty aspirations and of fine ideals, and she has in Sir Wilfrid Laurier a son worthy of herself. He will speak to us this morning.