ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries


321

library systems, and such places as the Folger 
and the Newberry.

The proposal has generated some interest on 
the part of Congress and it now becomes a 
matter of proposing statutory language that 
makes the right institutions eligible. Definitions 
have to be written with some eye to political 
realities and plain old good will. For instance, 
there are no ARL libraries in Montana, New 
Mexico, Arkansas, and Mississippi, which will 
dampen the interest of Senators Mansfield, 
Montoya, McClellan, and Stennis—all key 
members of the Senate appropriations com­
mittee. So perhaps eligibility has to include, 
let us say, the biggest academic library in any 
state or the largest public library. The diffi­
culty is to avoid sounding elitist or pedantic 
while making the intent of the legislation per­
fectly clear.

In the coming months representatives of 
ACRL will be working with the ALA Wash­
ington Office and ARL to come up with word­
ing that meets the needs of research libraries.

One thing is important to remember. No­
body gets a dime just for being eligible. But 
if more libraries are eligible, more people are 
out there lobbying for money for this program. 
The real need is to design a program that will 
actually get funded and do some good for 
the scholarships, authors, and students who use 
our research libraries.

Letters

The editors have received the following 
letter supporting the ACRL Board of Di­
rectors policy statement on the M.L.S. de­
gree:

Dear Editor:
I fully endorse the decision of the ACRL 

Board of Directors to declare the master’s de­
gree in library science the appropriate terminal 
degree for professional librarians. Additional 
degrees in other subject matters may enhance 
the librarian’s value in specialized fields, but 
unless we want to become bibliographic assist­
ants to authorities in other fields we must as­
sert our independence and strive for excellence 
in our own area. We should be proud to be 
generalists because we form the information 
link between the various disciplines and our 
task is to bring them together. We help the in­
formation seeker to formulate the questions to 
be answered and either supply the necessary 
information or show the paths to it regardless 
of the form in which the information may be 
recorded. We also facilitate contact between 
the information seekers and those knowledge­
able in that field for discussion and answers. 
Often directional and routine and superficial 
reference questions would lead to deeper re­
search and better understanding if they were 
handled by competent reference librarians in­
stead of nonprofessional assistants. Academic 
libraries have never recognized limitations or 
classifications as finite and therefore have al­
ways paid attention to the needs for individual 
instruction. The drive of librarians for full fac­
ulty status should be based on the importance 
of librarians to academic development toward 
excellence at our institution and on the impor­
tance of our contribution to the intellectual de­
velopment of each individual in our academic 
community who cares to take advantage of our 
services. Librarians have a unique opportunity 
to emphasize the interrelationship of the vari­
ous disciplines and to act as catalysts for iden­
tification with our academic institutions, and 
thus become indispensable governance partici­
pants.

Sincerely,
Leo R. Rift 
College Librarian 
Ithaca College 
Ithaca, New York

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