College and Research Libraries


Status and Responsibilities 
O f Academic Librarians 

BY R U S S E L L H. S E I B E R T 

TH E P R E P A R A T I O N of librarians, their status, responsibilities, and remunera-
tion are all interrelated. If the acaedmic 
librarian hopes for faculty status and ac-
ceptance—where it is not already a fact 
—the profession would surely agree that 
librarians must be willing to meet the 
same qualitative standards, or their 
equivalents, as are expected of the fac-
ulty at large. And what are these stand-
ards? They are of several types: 

Educational: It is normally assumed 
that faculty members will pursue the 
field of their specialization through the 
doctorate and show at least minimal 
skills in the area of scholarly research 
and publication. T o move above the 
ranks of instructor or assistant professor 
it is expected that the faculty member 
will give evidence of his continuing pro-
fesional growth as teacher and scholar. 
T h e obtaining of a doctorate is meant 
to be a begining—not an end in itself. 

Intellectual: At a library conference at 
the University of Chicago in August 
1948, L. C. Powell said: "On every aca-
demic library staff I have any acquaint-
ance with, I can count on a few fingers 
the number of persons who can establish 
intellectual cameraderie with the faculty. 
Until this can be done by a majority of 
a staff, talk of equal rank with the fac-
ulty is a waste of breath."1 Whether or 
not this indictment is valid librarians are 
in a better position to judge than am I. 
My own experience would not bear it 
out. But I am confident that intellectual 

1 Lawrence C. Powell, "Education for Academic Li-
hrarianshif)" in Bernard R. Berelson, ed.: Education 
for Librarianship ; Papers Presented at the Library Con-
ference, University of Chicaao, August 16-21, 1948. 
Chicago: A L A , 1949, pp. 133-146. 

Mr. Seibert is Vice-President for Academic 
Affairs, Western Michigan University, Kala-
mazoo, Mich. This paper was given at the 
sixth Midwest Academic Librarians' Con-
ference, Western Michigan University, April 
14, 1961. 

interest, a concern with ideas, is one im-
portant mark of a good faculty member. 

Professional: T h e professional man is 
not concerned with hours. He is con-
cerned with the performance of certain 
services and the pursuit of that truth 
which is directly related to his profes-
sional area of interest. An instructor's 
duty has not been performed when he has 
prepared for and taught nine, twelve, or 
fifteen hours of classes and graded the 
papers. A librarian's duty has not been 
performed when he has worked thirty, 
thirty-five, or forty hours in the library. 
T h e life of scholarship, the drudgery and 
the thrill of research, the pursuit of 
truth; the exchange, the sharpening, the 
clash of ideas; professional growth—all 
these are demands that must be met over 
and above hourly requirements. 

A sixty-hour week is not uncommon 
for a conscientious, dedicated faculty 
member who feels under self-imposed 
pressure to grow professionally by seizing 
every opportunity for study, research, 
publication, and broad background read-
ing. Few get very far on a forty-hour 
week. T h e better professors look upon 
vacation periods as opportunities for pro-
fessional advancement as well as times 
for recreation. Research, writing, study 
within some well-conceived program of 
professional growth—these are essentials 

J U L Y 1 9 6 1 253 



to faculty status, and the unfortunate 
fact that some faculty members do not 
meet these standards in no way subtracts 
from their importance. 

Institutional: W e ued to have on the 
faculty a professor who was fond of say-
ing: " I ' d be glad to teach for nothing, 
if only they would pay me for the com-
mittee work." Many another has echoed 
the thought. Committee work of endless 
types, and endless in time, the sponsor-
ing of sororities, fraternities, campus 
clubs and organizations, speeches on and 
off campus are so much with us that, 
though we may lay waste our powers, 
such duties are a part of every faculty 
member's responsibilities. 

Faculty members are judged by all 
these standards. T h e claims upon them 
are heavy, time- and energy-consuming, 
and demanding. It may well be that 
some librarians would prefer not to be 
judged by such professional and intel-
lectual standards and would prefer to 
settle for the less-demanding standards 
of the technician. But if the librarian as-
pires to be more than technician he must 
be willing to be measured by the longer 
yardstick. 

Librarians are far better acquainted 
with their responsibilities than am I. A 
broad cultural background and technical 
competence are both essential to the per-
formance of their duties, but whether the 
profession is most in need of "the gen-
erally trained specialist" or "the specially 
trained generalist" is a question I gladly 
leave to others. 

One question which I should like to 
raise, however, is this: How may the li-
brarian assume a more direct responsi-
bility for the education of students? It 
may be that librarians working closely 
with other faculty groups can make ma-
jor contributions to the resolution of the 
problem we face in providing quality ed-
ucation to large numbers of young Amer-
icans. In the years ahead tight budgets 
may well throw more of the burden of 
instruction on librarians by placing 

greater reliance upon library materials 
as sources of information and media tor 
independent study. Possibly some librar-
ian, who is both imaginative and crea-
tive may develop new techniques and 
methods by which the library may bet-
ter serve large numbers of students in 
the instructional program. At least every 
administrator should be permitted to 
have a few such fond hopes. 

Economy of operation, whatever the 
size of the budget, is a major responsi-
bility of every librarian. Library expendi-
tures for books, periodicals, bindings, and 
salaries represent a very sizable item that 
must be managed with wisdom and care. 
T h e most efficient methods must be con-
stantly sought for handling all the busi-
ness operations of the library—ordering, 
processing, circulating, and storing ma-
terials. T h e search for new techniques by 
which the records of civilized man may 
be stored in small space must never falter 
as we face the flood of twentieth-century 
publications. T h e accessibility of re-
sources must be balanced against the 
danger of loss by theft. T o carry out these 
responsibilities calls for a high order of 
judgment from any librarian. 

In any concern for the economical 
operation of the academic library a 
question should also be raised about the 
danger that some professional talent may 
be employed in ways that are wasteful. 
In the effort to raise professional stand-
ards, is precious professional talent being 
wasted on positions that could better be 
filled, or be filled as well, by persons with 
either less training or a different type of 
training? Registered nurses today per-
form many functions that were reserved 
to M.D.'s a decade ago. Many engineer-
ing firms have discovered it is a waste of 
talent to pay highly trained engineers to 
do drafting that might actually be better 
performed by drafting technicians. And 
so I would ask if professionally trained 
librarians—whose talents are in short 
supply—are not sometimes tied to posi-
tions that might better be performed by 

254 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 



business school graduates, for example. 
W i t h the boldness of ignorance I would 
suggest that, with this question in mind, 
a look be taken at the work in the order 
department and possibly even in the 
circulation department. 

Furthermore, I would hope that we 
will never reach the point where we as-
sume there is only one route by which 
professional librarians can be produced 
and that we would always keep the doors 
open to other routes of preparation. 

Probably judgment of a high order is 
never more demanded on the part of 
academic librarians than in the develop-
ment of a rational and institutionally 
sound policy on acquisitions. Whatever 
the character of the college or university, 
the library must be tailored to fit its ends. 
If the emphasis is upon research, the li-
brary must reflect that function; if the 
college is primarily for undergraduate 
study, its collection will again mirror the 
institution served, but a book collection 
perfectly balancing all the areas of hu-
man knowledge will not be sought. In-
stead the particular needs of particular 
faculty members and students must be 
met. T h e brilliant research scholar, 
whose pioneer work brings honor and 
prestige upon his institution as well as 
upon himself, may need special assist-
ance. T o determine whether or not his 
extensive requests for materials are justi-
fied is no mean art. 

T h e academic librarian must also be 
alert to the development of new fields of 
importance in a day of rapid change. He 
must cultivate campus relationships in 
a way that will increase each depart-

ment's sense of responsibility for library 
acquisitions. He must learn to cooperate 
with the specialist, moderate the de-
mands of the fanatic, prod those depart-
ments that suffer from limited vision, and 
husband resources as wisely as possible. 

I said earlier that every administrator 
should be permitted a few fond hopes. 
T h e fondest of those hopes is the dream 
of a library staffed with perfect librar-
ians: librarians who love books and the 
contents between their covers; librarians 
burning with unsatisfied intellectual 
curiosity; librarians filled with the con-
tagious enthusiasm for learning that will 
spark a student's interest without repell-
ing him with too much bookish detail; li-
brarians who are the soul of helpfulness, 
sensitive to the limits of, as well as the 
need for, assistance; librarians who are 
quietspoken and courteous, as respectful 
of those who are reading or studying as 
the mortician of the bereaved or the 
young mother of a sleeping child. 

Such librarians will make the library 
a place where all who enter sense that it 
is more than a pleasant place to meet the 
girl friend on a cold day—as worthy and 
important a goal as the latter may be; 
where the student, be he undergraduate 
or faculty member, feels welcome; where 
working conditions are conducive to 
study and research and where students 
sense the gravity and the delight of learn-
ing. 

W i t h such a library, faculty members 
and classrooms could be reduced to a 
minimum and administrators be nearly 
eliminated, for learning would have be-
come a thing of beauty and a joy forever. 

Gormley to Succeed Harwell 
Mark M. Gormley has been appointed Executive Secretary of A C R L to replace 

Richard Harwell who leaves at the end of July. Mr. Gormley will be working as 
a member of the A C R L staff at the Cleveland conference and will begin his duties 
at Headquarters on September 1. A sketch about Mr. Gormley appears in this issue's 
Personnel. 

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