ACRL College & Research Libraries News

College & Research Libraries News

ACADEMIC STATUS

As the academic status debate grows in intensity, the replies to the Academic Status Committee’s request for responses grow in number.

In attendance at a meeting held November 24 at Brandeis were:

Helen M. Brown, Librarian, Wellesley College;

Robert H. Deily, Associate for Library Services, Central Headquarters Staff, State University of New York;

Rupert E. Gilroy, Assistant Director of the Library, Brandeis University;

Frank N. Jones, Chief Librarian, Southeastern Massachusetts University, North Dartmouth;

Joseph S. Komidar, University Librarian, Tufts University;

John Laucas, Director of Libraries, Boston University;

Basil Mitchell, Associate for Library Services, Central Administration, State University of New York;

John P. McDonald, Director, University of Connecticut Libraries;

Roland H. Moody, Director of Libraries, Northeastern University;

Louis Sasso, Assistant to the Director, Boston Public Library;

David R. Watkins, Director of the Library, Brandeis University.

They reached consensus on the following points regarding the Standards… : and communicated them to Mr. Stuart Forth, chairman of the Academic Status Committee.

1. It is essential that the Committee define the role of the librarian and his professional staff in the academic community as distinct from the faculty. This would help clarify several instances in the nine recommendations made by the Committee where this distinction is not made clear. For instance, the group would disagree with the obligatory assignment of faculty ranks and titles to librarians.
2. The document is too specific to be generally applicable because of the many differences in the form of government in the various institutions of higher learning.
3. The report should be persuasive in tone rather than mandatory if it is to convince those who hold the final authority in these matters; namely, the faculty of each institution.
4. The standards should be separated from the proposed means of implementation. Once standards have been agreed upon, then the means of implementation can be considered.
5. The group was in general agreement that point 7 on library governance is not satisfactory. It was their considered opinion that the proposal of the use of the academic department as a model of library organization is questionable.

The following letter from Mr. Alυin Skipsna, librarian of Skidmore College, was also directed to Mr. Forth and is reprinted with his permission at the request of the writer.

Dear Mr. Forth:

It is with dismay bordering on incredulity that I read in CRL News, February 1971, that “two master’s degrees … shall be the minimal educational requirement for tenure for all librarians appointed after the adoption of these standards by the ACRL.”^e

Far from being “truly a vote of confidence in the profession” as claimed by Beverly Johnson in the accompanying article, the proposed standards constitute an officially sanctioned declaration that librarianship is not in itself a profession. Curiously, Miss Johnson refers to fine arts and engineering faculties as examples of disciplines where “Ph.D. is not necessarily the terminal degree,” but is seemingly oblivious to the fact that members of those professions are not out lobbying for the need of additional master’s degrees. That dubious distinction is reserved for the inferiority complex-ridden library profession.

Pondering as to the reasons for this strange proposal, one cannot escape the impression that here is an outgrowth of local experiences in appeasing angry faculty gods. Miss Johnson’s article reinforces that impression when she writes “we were able to gain the faculty’s acceptance by offering (sic) as part of our ‘credentials’ … a second master’s degree,” and “In the California state colleges … * * the success of the librarians’ case with the faculty,” etc., etc. Another how-we-did-it approach combined with a deplorable willingness to sell short the profession as a whole.

I hope that it is unnecessary to state that I am not arguing against additional degrees. A doctorate in library science has been and should continue to be important means of professional advancement. Some large university systems require a second master’s degree for appointment. Other institutions evaluate additional degrees in granting tenure and promotions, but to make such degrees a condition of tenure is pernicious. The clause that the requirement would apply only to “all librarians appointed after the adoption of these standards by ACRL” would still deprive in a cavalier fashion a substantial number of academic librarians of occupational mobility.

* Revision in the Proposed Standards for Faculty Status.

* * Cf. ALA Report, “Status of California State College Librarians,” American Libraries (Jan. 1970) which (commenting on the twenty-year struggle to achieve faculty status in the California state colleges) states that “among the states to which the nation customarily looks for educational leadership California is most backward in this respect [i.e. faculty status for librarians].”

For the sake of perspective I would like to state that I am writing from an institution where librarians have faculty status. This includes a 9/10-month year, faculty rank and salary scale, as well as tenure, promotions, and sabbaticals. The library is considered a faculty department and the librarian functions as a departmental chairman. The principle has been established that the customary terminal degree for librarians is the M.L.S. This was achieved without any “offering.”

What I am saying in a nutshell is that nobody will honor a profession that does not honor itself. Thank you.—Alvin Skipsna. ■■