ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries 80/C&RL News Letters M ore on the faculty status debate To the Editor: Brava to Beth Shapiro ( “The myths surround­ ing faculty status for librarians,” November 1993) for having the courage to speak out against faculty status for librarians, which is a snare and a delusion. If librarians want to be faculty, they should get Ph.D.s and teach and do origi­ nal research and publish scholarly articles: that’s what faculty do. I’ve never been able to under­ stand the craving for faculty status. In any club where the Ph.D. is the minimum requirement for full membership, most librarians will always be second-class members— if taken seriously at all. (I am assuming that Harvard is still not unique in requiring doctorates o f most o f its tenured faculty.) Why not spend some of this energy helping to establish librarianship as a “profession”— with its own separate integrity and validity? At my university I don’t see doctors, lawyers, or clergy affecting to be faculty; they are secure within their own professions. Librarianship will never gain the respect it deserves (but still lacks) while so many otherwise intelligent people distort the value o f our considerable contribution to the missions o f our institutions with claims o f being faculty.— M alcolm C. Hamilton, university personnel librarian, Har­ vard University To the Editor: Beth Shapiro attempts to identify “the myths surrounding faculty status for librarians.” Shar­ ing our opinions can be an endless process, but I disagree wholeheartedly with her opin­ ion that “the work we do is fundamentally dif­ ferent from that of the teaching faculty.” My own experience in both school and academic libraries is that the role and educational objec­ tives o f the teacher and the librarian are very close— if not the same. And while research may not be “essential” for some academic librarians, it is for many others. Isn’t this true in all disci­ plines? And, since when has ACRL or any other group o f librarians focused “exclusively on de­ veloping a research agenda”? The other myths destroyed by Shapiro are largely straw men, in my view, having little to do with the essential role librarians have in the educational process. When she says “academic libraries exist to support the educational and research mission of the university,” she is not describing my experience in five libraries. Rather, these libraries were more central to the mission o f the universities than any single aca­ demic department. Thanks for listening.— Don Lanier, health sciences librarian, University o f Illinois College o f Medicine at Rockford Bl or research ? To the Editor: In response to Steve McKinzie’s article, “Bib­ liographic instruction or research: What’s in a name?” 0une 1993), some seek new truth or correction of old error in the laboratory, in so­ cial observation, or in introspection: this is (one kind of) research. If documents result, others may seek truth or error correction by analysis o f them: this is (another kind of) research too. Since the second (kind of) research is neces­ sarily based on documents it is best called “docu­ mentary research.” Since the first (kind of) re­ search may not arise from contact with a document, but does necessarily seek the truth about the state o f affairs o f some (ontic or on­ tological) region or aspect o f the world, it is best distinguished from documentary research by being called “worldly research.” What is taught in library-based “biblio­ graphic instruction” (BI) can only be documen­ tary research. Still, BI teaches access to and utilization of both primary and secondary docu­ ments: the dichotomies primary/secondary (which applies only to documents, not to the research that underlies them) and worldly/docu- mentary do not map on to each other, so that BI does not, in teaching documentation, teach the actual process o f the underlying research, especially in regard to worldly research. BI should teach not merely “how to use the library," but rather how to do any kind o f docu­ mentation, whether worldly (secondary) or documentary (primary and secondary). It should teach not only documentation in any narrow sense but that as an element o f the whole bib­ liographical region. But it should not even at­ tempt to teach worldly research (because it in principle cannot), unless librarians can teach philosophy itself as well as philosophical bibli­ ography, chemistry as well as chemical bibli- (Letters cont. on page 83) February 1994/83 The graphic designs w e used worked very well for brochures, bookmarks, and buttons, but were not effective for communicating our message on posters. The messages “Don’t eat or drink in the library” and “Don’t make noise in the library” appeared in small print at the bottom o f the posters. The small print was in­ tended to provoke interest and encourage the viewer to take a closer look. One reason that people were not drawn to read the small print may have been because o f the height at which many posters had to be hung. Recommendations The group recommends the following actions to others who want to institute a similar cam­ paign in their library: 1) Have a code o f conduct in place before you begin the campaign. Both patrons and em­ ployees must know what is expected of them. 2) Closely examine the kinds o f problems most common in your library and where they occur. 3) Devise a plan to sell your campaign. Cal­ culate your costs and explore free sources of assistance. Check to see if a class can help. 4) Time the campaign so that things are in place at the beginning o f the fall semester. 5) Be prepared to rethink your position on food, drink, and noise issues. Achieving group consensus requires some compromise. 6) Gain administrative and staff commitment to the campaign. Signs alone w on’t change behavior. ■ (Indiana co n t.from page 75) o f the IU Department o f Afro-American Stud­ ies. For more information call (812) 855-8547. Although the aforementioned African Ameri­ can Studies collections are each housed in three different locations on the IU Bloomington cam­ pus, fundraising efforts are underway to build a new facility which could accommodate all three archives. About $2.5 million in private do­ nations must be raised to match state funding for the new building which will be named the Neal Marshall Black Culture Center. The new center is named after the first African American alumnus of IU, Marcellus Neal, 1895, and the first African American alumna of IU, Frances Marshall, 1919. To make a donation to the Neal Marshall Center, write to the IU Foundation, P.O. Box 500, Showalter House, Bloomington, IN 47402, or call (812) 855-8311. ■ (Censorship co n t.fro m page 78) heightened awareness o f the importance o f preparation for a censorship challenge. The whole process took one and a half months, but it seemed to drag out longer, perhaps pro­ longed by a sense o f insecurity or not knowing what to expect next. Censorship incidents can take a tremendous toll on a community, as evidenced in Cum­ berland County, North Carolina, where the pres­ ence o f Daddy’s Roommate and Heather Has Two Mommies (Alyson, 1989) on library shelves has delayed the construction o f five library branches.2 As academic librarians w e hadn’t been lulled into complacency, but nonetheless were surprised when it happened to us. The groundwork o f the past (the library’s “Collec­ tion Policy Statement,” and the affirmation of the concept o f intellectual freedom) proved to be invaluable. Six months after w e received the initial letter of complaint, we are in the midst of revising and updating our collection development statement. This experience will make us examine more closely the section on censorship and intellectual freedom, so rou­ tinely included in collection development poli­ cies, but never really expected to be used. Notes 1Mary Jo Godwin, “Conservative Groups Con­ tinue Their Fight to Ban Daddy’s Roommate,” American Libraries 23 (December 1992): 968. 2Michael J. Sadowski, “Book Controversy De­ lays New Branches,” School Library Journal 39 (May 1993): 12. ■ (Letters co nt.from page 80) ography, medieval French philology as well as medieval French philological bibliography. Why should a university bother to hire faculty in medieval French philology, or in chemistry, or in philosophy, if its librarians can teach and perform worldly research in these and all other subjects (as McKinzie seems to claim)? What librarians teach is (best called) BI, or (a bit less well called) documentation, or (even less well called) library skills. But to teach re­ search simpliciter, o f both kinds and in all sub­ jects— such a suggestion is on the face o f it unaware both o f what such researchers do and o f the meaning o f the words with which we describe them and their products.—J. M. Perreault, head o f special collections, the Uni­ versity o f Alabama in Huntsville ■