College and Research Libraries Our Academic Library Leadership: From the Faculty? By R O B E R T E. MOODY THE SUBJECT ASSIGNED for our discus-sion today is a limited one: "aca- demic libraries" a n d their "leadership." We are not concerned with p u b l i c li- braries and their need of p u b l i c rela- tions experts or politically oriented busi- ness managers. Nor are we talking about the catalogers and reference librarians without whom the academic library would be a wilderness of chaotic confu- sion. (Of course, I would continue to hope that the scholarly people in these fields will continue to advance to posi- tions of leadership.) W e are not even talk- ing about the desirable personality traits of a good librarian, though their impor- tance is such that they m e a n the differ- ence between the success or failure of an otherwise competent m a n or woman. W i t h professional wisdom, our program committee has commissioned us to dis- cuss the type of background in education and experience most likely to provide our college and university libraries with the k i n d of librarians best fitted to cope with their growing complexities. T h e real difficulty we face in this ques- tion is that we all have extremely high ideals as to what the "academic li- b r a r i a n " should be. W e expect him or her to have a combination of all the virtues. Indeed, what would the ideal leader in this field look like were he to be created in the flesh? In this day of automation, we have machines which, given the necessary directions, can t u r n out the most intricate patterns. Suppose that we p u t on tape symbols for all the tasks now performed by academic librar- ians, together with symbols for the educa- tion and experience ideally required for their best performance, and feed the tape Dr. Moody is Director of Libraries, Boston University. This paper was given at the Eastern College Librarians' Conference, Co- lumbia University, November 28, 1959. into one of these machines. How would they appear—those librarian-robots— coming out at the other end like so many Frankensteins and Frankenstein- esses? I n some ways, I am glad that I shall never know. Such competence, such personality, such knowledge! But would not these ideal librarians, given these su- perior skills and these superb qualities, be successful in almost every endeavor? Is leadership among librarians so differ- ent from leadership everywhere? Perhaps if we consider what it is t h a t librarians are trying to do r a t h e r t h a n what their personal qualities should be, we may avoid the claim that they must be models of perfection. First, let me ask, can we agree u p o n the ends of our careers as librarians? Per- haps not, b u t we must try to give some indication of our purposes. " W h e r e ends are agreed," said Sir Isaiah Berlin, in his inaugural lecture at Oxford, " T w o Con- cepts of Liberty," "the only questions left are those of means, and these are not political b u t technical, that is to say, capable of being settled by experts or machines like arguments between engi- neers or doctors." W h a t is the academic role of the li- brarian? W h e r e does he fit into the aca- demic scheme? Is he playing the organ with the orchestra, or is he merely keep- i n g i t i n tune? T h e work of the academic librarian seems to be clearly a part of the scholarly 362 C O L L E G E A N D R E S E A R C H L I B R A R I E S process described by Professor Howard M u m f o r d Jones in his report as chair- m a n of a Commission on the Humanities of the American Council of Learned So- cieties. H e wrote, "it concerns something f u n d a m e n t a l to both teaching and civili- zation; namely, how do you maintain and enrich the organized knowledge about the achievements of m a n k i n d over the centuries, u p o n which teaching de- p e n d s . " 1 His report, he adds, "concerns the education . . . of scholars." At its highest, then, the academic librarian has as his aim the maintenance and enrich- m e n t of organized knowledge for the "education of scholars." Of course, not all students in our academic institutions are scholars, but if higher education fails to give to a significant n u m b e r of them some glimpses of the methods and at- tainments of scholarship, then it has in- deed failed. W h a t are the basic elements in our academic system by which we hope to achieve the "education of scholars"? T h e y are: (1) the scholarly teacher; (2) the scholarly library (I recognize, of course, the equal place of the laboratory in the training of scientists); and (3) the scholarly product, whether it be brain or books; for we cannot ignore the fact that the academic libraries which we have in m i n d exist not merely to aid in the edu- cation of the scholars of the f u t u r e , b u t also to enable scholars in our own gen- eration to write books or otherwise to create a useable body of knowledge. T h e academic'library occupies a criti- cally i m p o r t a n t middle position in this outline, and the librarian is a key figure in the study of the culture of which we are a part. H e is (1) the constant assistant of the non-librarian scholar in the col- lection of basic documents; (2) the officer chiefly responsible for the preservation a n d orderly arrangement of these docu- ments; and (3) the depository of a reser- voir of knowledge of what materials ex- 1 One Great Society (New Y o r k : Harcourt, Brace, 1959), p. v. ist, where they are located, how they are organized, and the means by which they may be obtained. Just as it is a wise father who knows his own children, it is a wise librarian that knows his own books—and an even wiser one, if he knows the books of his neighbors. Let us take u p these points in order. Collection of Materials. D o e s a n y o n e doubt that nearly every great collection of scholarly materials has behind it a scholar-librarian, or possibly several gen- erations of them? It is true that collectors like Lenox, Brown, Morgan, Hunting- ton, Folger, Clements, founded great li- braries—usually with competent advice— and we may devoutly hope that collectors will continue to flourish. But today it is the librarian who is adding to existing collections, establishing new ones, advis- ing collectors on their purchases, and p u t t i n g their growing collections in order for use. T h e scholar, the collector, the librarian, are a triumvirate, indis- pensable to each other, all cooperating in the great task of gathering material for the study of man and his universe. Do they not each share at least some of the qualities of the other? Preservation and Organization of Ma- terials. I n this area the librarian has no rival. Why some librarians apologize for being curators, I have never been able to see. T h e librarians of today who will be longest remembered are those who have preserved faithfully the materials placed in their custody and who have greedily and shamelessly added to them. Long after the circulation figures have become neglected statistics, long after the success- ful public relations program has been forgotten, his name will continue to be recorded and blessed by the scholar who finds, no matter how dust-laden and neg- lected, no matter with what labor, the items needed to make his work complete. T h e efficiency expert may deplore the li- brarian pack-rat, who seems to be accum- ulating everything, b u t many a great collection began as a seemingly indis- S E P T E M B E R 1 9 6 0 363 criminate aggregation of books. I like to remember, too, the words of the Bishop of O x f o r d when he spoke some years ago to the Friends of the Bodleian Library, answering the criticism that certain groups of books were "rarely consulted." T h e Bishop said, " T h e Bodleian has a right to receive a copy of every book published in England, and much of what it receives may be rubbish, b u t the world would be a gloomier place if there were no actual rubbish in it, and a great li- brary would be less atractive if all the books in it were worth reading and had to be read by somebody." I hope that I do not need to emphasize here that I am not talking about collections of books on stenography, of old college catalogs, of railroad time tables, and of corpora- tion reports, even though these may be i m p o r t a n t for certain users. I have sympathy for the libraries with two mil- lion volumes that are f e a r f u l that their rate of growth will overwhelm them, b u t how representative are they of academic libraries as a group? T h e problems of the organization of materials are closely connected with librarianship. But the ends of organiza- tion are scholarly ends and make neces- sary a knowledge of the habits and meth- ods of scholars, (erratic though they may be) as well as of their demands, which are often, as everyone knows, somewhat unrealistic. Here again, if the ends can be agreed upon, the technical staff may be counted on to supply the means. A Reservoir of Knowledge. T h e g r e a t - est satisfaction which a scholarly librar- ian can have is to find his name or that of his library included in an author's preface or list of acknowledgments. As a class, librarians have been h u m b l e and modest as well as generous in their serv- ice—perhaps too h u m b l e and too mod- est—never too generous. Authors have sometimes been too self-centered to ap- preciate fully the service performed for them, b u t currently I seem to be reading rather frequently articles by p r o m i n e n t writers which state most flatteringly their obligations to libraries. At this point, I am thoroughly con- scious of the fact that, educational de- mands and budgets being what they are, the librarians of many academic institu- tions may feel that the ends of academic librarianship, as I have described them, are foreign to their everyday work. "We must be practical," they will say. "My library now has 50,000 volumes, 500 pe- riodical subscriptions, and a book budget, if I am lucky, of $7,500. T h e only type of collection I am likely to be offered in the near f u t u r e is a collection of old theological books that a trustee wants to give, and the president thinks we ought to accept, and no scholar writing a book ever so much as looked at my library, thank goodness. Even the faculty have to do their limited research in the sum- mer, and go somewhere else to do it." T h i s is an i m p o r t a n t aspect of our prob- lem because there are so many of these libraries. But are their ends really differ- ent from those which we have stated? I think not. At whatever level, the process is still teaching with books. I would say to the administrators of such institutions, whether j u n i o r col- leges or four-year colleges, "You have a magnificent o p p o r t u n i t y to integrate your teaching program with your book collections by selecting a librarian who has had teaching experience." It is my belief that the staffs of such libraries should be strengthened. Of course, it is too often limited in size and relatively inexperienced. But the administrative problems are comparatively simple, and a faculty member who knows the aims of the curriculum and the practical prob- lems of teaching, who can at once place every interest of the library on a par with other college interests, can ordi- narily provide more effective leadership than any one else. T h e small institutions must struggle hard to keep the ideal be- fore them; they can often do it with great success. 364 C O L L E G E A N D R E S E A R C H L I B R A R I E S T h e r e is a more significant objection to my statement. You may say that the ends which I have described are the ends of the scholar, not of the librarian; that the functions of the latter are service functions; and that, while it is desirable for the librarian to have some preten- sions to scholarship, or at least to like books, it is considerably more i m p o r t a n t that he be competent in library tech- niques. I n other words, the symbols which we should feed into our imaginary machine should be those for business- man, accountant, personnel manager, guidance counsellor, and the like. I rec- ognize that aptitude, training, or experi- ence in all these lines is valuable and to a considerable degree necessary to a li- brarian, b u t are they primary qualifica- tions, or are they merely qualifications which we should expect any person in a position of leadership in an academic institution to have or to Require? For myself, I would m a i n t a i n that, service to scholars and potential scholars being our primary purpose, a librarian should first of all be a scholar. Now the word "scholar" is a rather vague term. So, too, in practice, is "librarian." A distin- guished geographer was once asked to define "geography" in the face of the ever expanding activities of practitioners in his field. H e finally arrived at a defi- nition. "Geography," he said, "is what geographers do." Perhaps the only defi- nition that we can agree u p o n is that "Librarianship is what librarians do." W h a t librarians do is not entirely their own choice. Neither are all the ac- tivities of the scholars who teach alto- gether voluntary. But there is quite a range of choice. Background and interests are powerful determinants of one's con- ception of his job, and particularly of how one does it. Even if one thinks of librarianship only in terms of business management, he still has to determine the theory of organization to which he subscribes. If one is an advocate of tight control over his library as an organiza- tion, he will spend all his time managing the business, and have no time to be a librarian. O r if he defines each position and its responsibilities with extreme care, he may attain what appears to be great efficiency, a n d even occasionally have time to go fishing. But if one prefers to place his trust in the "other m a n , " giv- ing h i m every opportunity to develop his skills, which is a theory of industrial management frequently advocated, he may have some time for such things as scholarship, and, I hope, leadership. T h e kind of leadership an academic librarian gives, then, is to a large degree u p to the librarian, and his education and experience inevitably influence his definition of his job. My plea is for aca- demic leadership. T h e r e may be some who will say that if a librarian does his main job well, he will have no time for research or writing. T h i s position has been maintained by some teachers. T h e r e are some scholars who have no time for students. But I know no essential reason for conflict be- tween research and teaching. Need there be between research and librarianship? It was not so in the older tradition of librarianship. But I have been overly long in coming to the discussion of the education of the scholar-librarian. If I have so far carried out my intention, I have left myself con- siderable latitude in the description of the education, experience, and knowl- edge of a librarian over and above his background as a scholar and teacher. I would particularly emphasize that one's total education as a scholar does include education which is valuable for librar- ianship. T o claim otherwise would be to say that the educational experience needed for librarianship is so separated from scholarship that a scholar ordi- narily will be unable to acquire it without unreasonable effort. Barzun's criticism2 of the jealousy of scholars is ap- 2 Jacques Barzun, The House of Intellect, (New York: Harper, 1959), pp. 12-13. S E P T E M B E R 1 9 6 0 365 plicable here. H e writes, " T h e m a n who denies that his subject has principles communicable to any receptive intellect, and who says, ' H a n d s off! Unless you be- long to my profession or will join it, you are n o t h i n g to me,' is convinced that the world is divided into the few who know nothing about his specialty and the happy few who know everything." My view does not oppose the concept that some training in library techniques may be desirable for one who undertakes the leadership of an academic library, b u t I am of the definite opinion that mastery of a subject field, so called, and experience in teaching are more impor- tant qualifications. I would m a i n t a i n this position, also, were I discussing the qual- ifications for the deanship of a college or the presidency of a university. Suppose that, for the moment, we h a d narrowed our differences of opinion in our discussion of the proper education of an academic librarian to a discussion of the proportion of scholarly courses a n d of technical courses. Librarians are not the only professional class that have been concerned with the a m o u n t of "how to do i t " in the curriculum. In the academic world at the close of the last century the education a n d training of secondary school teachers became mat- ters of concern. College faculties gener- ally assumed that if a prospective teacher knew enough about his field he auto- matically could convey this knowledge to others. At H a r v a r d College, that east- ern citadel of academic respectability, it was years before Professor Paul Hanus's courses in education received m u c h more t h a n sarcastic mention f r o m his col- leagues in the arts and sciences. I think everyone now recognizes that in the ever increasing democratization of education a theory concerning the preparation of teachers which may not have worked out too badly when the recipients of the teaching were able and eager completely failed to be realistic when faced with the fact that teachers themselves were no longer the most competent intellectually, nor their pupils selected for their ability a n d interest. T h e liberal arts faculties resisted, the educationists insisted, and between them the school of the "how to do it" won over the "what and why," with tragic effects both on the internal organization of our faculties and u p o n our whole educational system. W e got little education a n d a great deal of training in life a d j u s t m e n t . Similarly, collegiate business schools divorced themselves to a great extent f r o m the humanities and the social sci- ences, while medical schools, reaching down into the colleges, set u p rigid pre- medical requirements which included little of the humanities. I n short, in many fields of education, the technician was thought more im- p o r t a n t than the scholar. Education be- came "indoctrinating the young in tribal rites." , Librarianship first followed the pat- tern of the collegiate schools of education a n d business. I n late years, except in the programs for school librarianship, the li- brary schools have increasingly become graduate schools. I n this, in some ways, they have anticipated the decisions which many schools of education and of business seem to be making. Obviously however, these graduate schools are not providing for the education of anything like a great majority of the people who are practicing librarians today. T h e y are, I suppose, definitely trying to provide the leadership for the academic libraries which we are discussing. T h a t they are not the sole source of such leadership seems to be a m a t t e r of great concern to some of them. T o remedy this situation, some propose to set requirements in m u c h the same way that doctors, lawyers, dentists, pharmacists, a n d other groups do—not to speak of plumbers, brick- layers, and the like. I n the same breath, comes a demand for faculty status, partly at least because of summer vacations and sabbatical leaves, n o t to speak of after- 366 C O L L E G E A N D R E S E A R C H L I B R A R I E S noons off and irregular schedules. These proposals are not wholly compatible. So far, at least, the A A U P has not become a union. A n d so far as the general staffs of academic libraries are concerned, I think they should stand on their own feet and ask for their own salary scales, privileges, and fringe benefits. W h a t I fear is not the setting of high standards of education for librarians by the schools, b u t rather a concerted effort to d e m a n d that the colleges and universities hire no one for a position of leadership who has not the particularized degree. Perhaps I am unnecessarily apprehensive. It is u n f o r t u n a t e , I think, that in this commendable zeal to raise standards, the fact that there are many positions in large libraries for which a good general education, a sense of responsibility and orderliness, coupled with a rather limited a m o u n t of technical library training is a b o u t all that is needed. Certainly a com- plete library school training as now constituted is not necessary; b u t are we at some point going to say that courses in library techniques are not to be avail- able anywhere except to those who are candidates for a master's or doctoral de- gree? Just what courses are going to be given for college undergraduates? I n medicine, if one must make comparisons, we have doctors, registered nurses, prac- tical nurses, household nurses. Are we trying to achieve a situation where we have at the top only Library Doctors and Registered Nurses and beyond that only the untrained? But I wander; this is not my concern here. Let me r e t u r n to my subject. I have rejected the idea that the leadership in academic libraries be handed over to the technicians whether they be business managers, information retrievers, or cir- culation pushers. I have not rejected the idea that the scholar librarian must have, in addition to the highest motivation, knowledge of the techniques involved in the administration of libraries. I sub- scribe also to the idea that scholars who would be teachers must be concerned with the special obligations and tech- niques of teaching, whether they get them by example, by study, or by prac- tice. Scholars who would be librarians must perforce get the knowledge neces- sary to the practice of librarianship at the leadership level. I do m a i n t a i n that the "receptive intellect," to use Barzun's term, can and will get that knowledge. But it is equally clear that there may well be some means which are better t h a n others. I am inclined to think that for library schools to proliferate courses leading to the Ph.D. degrees is not the best way to provide leaders for academic libraries. T h e formal courses which might be desirable are not many, in my opinion, and these such as might be f o u n d room for within the usual doctoral program in a subject field. Possibly its length would need to be extended slightly. One course in formal and symbolic logic; work in the behavioural sciences, pref- erably with application directly to li- brary problems; internships such as are increasingly offered in the field of col- lege teaching, followed by special short- term institutes or seminars, would be of considerable value. If every library large enough to provide a variety of experi- ences f o u n d it possible to provide in- ternships as they now provide teaching assistantships, it would h e l p solve the problem. T h e r e might be two kinds of these internships. First, one which in- volves spending half time on the library job, the other half completing the de- gree work—not in library science per se, b u t in a subject field. A second type might try the experiment of dividing between teaching and library experience the time spent in the applied half of the requirements. If the candidate went into teaching, he would be the better teacher for his u n d e r s t a n d i n g of librari- anship and, if he went on to become the academic leader of a library, his teach- ing experience would be invaluable, all S E P T E M B E R 1 9 6 0 367 the more if his work were in a small col- lege. T h e r e is u n f o r t u n a t e l y more than one obstacle in the way of achieving in this way the providing of academic libraries with scholarly heads. T h e qualified scholar must find in the librarian's j o b the necessary satisfactions of status, re- spect, authority, and the salary commen- surate with the importance of the po- sition. T h e problem is not necessarily one of faculty status of the incumbent. T h e problem is one rather of the status of the job. It must be recognized as a position comparable to that of the head of any academic department, assistant dean, or dean. Some scholars teach, some scholars write, some administer academic institutions or departments, some ad- minister libraries. How can we obtain general recogni- tion for the job? If administrators of colleges and universities mean it when they say that an institution is no better than its library, they must logically rec- ognize that the library administration is an equally i m p o r t a n t measure of excel- lence. F o r t u n a t e are the institutions where this recognition has had a long tradition. T h e r e should be many more. Another serious problem is the crea- tion of the desire on the part of quali- fied persons to become academic librari- ans. Already we are faced with the problem of creating the desire on the p a r t of otherwise qualified persons to be- come academic persons at all. It is harder still to carry the process one step f u r t h e r a n d create the desire in an academic person to become a librarian. Can we obtain the recognition that academic librarianship is a desirable occupation for a scholar? Is mere recognition by the administration enough? I must confess that when I entered into my present po- sition I f o u n d my colleagues astonished that anyone should a b a n d o n even in part the ivy tower for the insoluble problems of the academic library. And, on the other h a n d , there were few cheers, so far as I could hear, from the ranks of the library-school librarians. T o some of them it seemed that another job in the higher echelon had gone to a non-union man, a n d that there ought to be a law against it. Personally, I deplore both attitudes, not only because I think there is no essential barrier between the scholar who teaches and the scholar who ad- ministers, b u t also because I have a very great respect for the competent performers in both fields. And, need- less to say, a p r o f o u n d conviction that libraries are i m p o r t a n t to scholars. I cannot close without asking myself the question: Will the administrators of colleges and universities provide the status for the job, the respect for the position, the authority as evidenced by assignment to i m p o r t a n t committees, and above all the salaries which make li- brarianship attractive to scholars? In general they certainly do not do so now. It is because of these unanswered questions and not because of any Tack of theoretical convictions that I am led frankly to say that I am not able to an- swer the question as to whether the leadership of the academic libraries will come from the faculty or not. I do not know. I can only hope, advocate, plead, that in large measure it will do so. My argument is simply this: t h a t aca- demic libraries are an integral part of the scholarly process, that their leader- ship ought to be in the hands of schol- ars, that technical knowledge of librarian- ship as such should be subordinated to scholarly knowledge of what libraries are and what they are for, and that the practical education of scholars who in- tend to teach is not incompatible with the practical education of scholars who intend to become librarians. Let us not create barriers by refusing to recognize that the guild of scholars embraces all who love learning. I want academic li- brarians to be members of the g r o u p in every respect, not merely technicians who serve it. 368 C O L L E G E A N D R E S E A R C H L I B R A R I E S