A liberal education, however, is not sufficient in itself to make a business librarian, unless that education has included the second requisite in the list of qualifications, namely, education in approved methods of library science, according to the standards taught by accredited library schools.
What is meant by library science, and why is it necessary that a business librarian should be trained in it, in order to do adequately the work of the business library? Library science is the standardization of the most approved methods of doing library work, based on the results of many years of study and practical experiment by librarians of large ability who have given their full time and energies to the task. In brief, methods of library work have been standardized by library experts and reduced to a practical, economical, effective science.
If this be the case, what possible justification can be found for business firms who waste time and money, in addition to getting no adequate results, in devising original methods for doing their library work? Trade periodicals, for several years, have published a number of articles treating of original methods adopted by various firms for filing and indexing their printed information. These original schemes reveal many weaknesses and discrepancies and also that many business men are entirely ignorant of the fact that library science has already produced much more excellent ways of working. No man is competent to work with any principle of science, much less modify it, until he is first master of it.
The structure of the business library must be built on the solid foundation of established library science, and there is no fact which business men need to realize more, than that library science as taught in professional library schools is not a simple code summed up in a few text books to be readily mastered by a novice and improved upon at will, but, on the contrary, that it covers a wide range of material, and must be studied by the use of many books devoted to classification, cataloging, reference work and other related subjects. True, there are primers of library science, but as well give a novice a primer on the steam engine and expect him therefore to be adequately equipped to run a power plant, as to put a novice with a library primer in charge of a business library with its highly specialized needs. A business organization would not think of engaging either a stenographer or a bookkeeper who is not trained to do his particular work; how much more, therefore, should a business librarian measure up to recognized standards of library training in order to perform adequately the difficult and important work which he is called upon to do.
The argument for the employment of a trained librarian can be briefly summed up in five words: the trained librarian knows how.
The trained librarian knows how to get and how to use sources of general information, how to keep up with the latest data on business subjects, how to use quickly and accurately the facilities of large city libraries, how to use all kinds of printed indexes, how to classify, catalog, and index material according to standard practice, so that no time or money is wasted in experimenting with inadequate systems, and last but not least, knows how to have a place for everything and everything in its place, so that desired information is immediately available.
As has been intimated, some college graduates cannot grade up to business library requirements, so also, some library school graduates are not suited for business library work, and rarely is a library school graduate, who has not been seasoned first by some thorough library experience, before coming into business library work, fitted for the task. Some trained librarians get so obsessed with the red tape and detail of their library training that they never dare to be original in modifying and adapting their fundamental library principles to new conditions and business problems, and therefore cannot create the type of service which is essential for business.
Some of the advocates of business libraries, having seen library trained people who have "fallen down on the job," speak slightingly of library training, and go to the other extreme, saying that the successful business librarian is born and not made. This is not true, because no innate qualification ever carries with it the ability to succeed in the absence of the proper training. "Both the heritage and the training of the faculties must go hand in hand to insure success." Trained librarians should be estimated by business men in the same manner as they estimate other skilled workers. When an engineer, or in fact any professional man, fails on a piece of work, his employers do not condemn engineering or professional schools as a whole, but try another trained man on the job. If a business man has made a wrong estimate in selecting his librarian, he should not quarrel with library training, but get a higher grade librarian.
The failure of some business librarians who have had both college education and training in library science is due not to inadequate knowledge but to lack of personal qualifications, and while personal qualifications alone will not make a successful business librarian, neither will a college education and training in library science make a successful business librarian without certain innate mental and social traits.