College and Research Libraries M A R Y L E E B U N D Y and P A U L W A S S E R M A N Professionalism Reconsidered The question of librarianship as a profession is considered here in terms of the three key relationships of a professional—client, organiza- tional and professional. Professional practice in this field is thus cast against accepted norms and standards of professional behavior. This critical assessment suggests that librarianship falls far short of the professional model. Major shifts in the nature of the services per- formed by librarians and in their bureaucratic relationships will be required if librarianship is to advance. The contributions of the pro- fessional associations and of library schools to the advancement of the process of professionalization is also analyzed. Progress in the field is viewed to be inextricably tied to the success or failure which librarian- ship achieves in its quest for true professional attainment. L I B R A R I A N S , like many in other margin- al or maturing professions often spend considerable time being concerned about whether or not they are truly profession- al; much effort sometimes goes into re- assuring themselves that they are indeed professional and that they should there- fore enjoy the recognition and rewards of professional status. Such preoccupa- tion manifests itself in a wide range of activities common to all such up- ward-mobile and self-conscious aspiring groups. They conduct public relations programs designed to create a favorable image of their craft. Being much con- cerned about status differences, they dis- cuss endlessly means of differentiating the professional worker from the lesser edu- cated.1 They establish and seek vigor- ously to strengthen their occupational associations; they promulgate a code of ethics and establish internal means of 1 Hence the term "professional librarian." One might question parenthetically whether there could be such a thing as a nonprofessional librarian. And would it be comparable to such a thing as a nonprofessional lawyer, nonprofessional d o c t o r , nonprofessional dentist, e t c . ? Dr. Bundy is Professor, School of Library and Information Services, University of Maryland, and Dr. Wasserman is Dean. controlling members who violate it. They frequently turn to legislation to control entry into practice. Concomitantly, there is a striving toward the identification of a philosophical and intellectual base for practice. Ultimately their educational efforts find a place in the universities where they come eventually to seek aca- demic parity for their instructional pro- grams by meeting university standards of scholarship. Many early claims of professionalism and early activities to attain it tend to be suspect since they are often a melange of the real and the fanciful, in which pious longings are often confused with reality. A field's recruitment publicity is thus often based upon ill-conceived slo- ganeering or myths which sometimes turn out to be nearer to what the disci- pline and those who practice in it would like to be than what they really are. The ethic presented by the group can be so vague as to defy relation to the realities of practice.2 The educational prepara- tion, or training as it is more frequently termed, conducted by the professional 2 Or, as in the case of the library code of ethics, grows from a lack of understanding of what the na- ture of a professional ethic really is, emphasizing as it does the " e m p l o y e e s " obligation. / 5 6 / College <6- Research Libraries • January 1968 school, is sometimes offered by instruct- ors who are displaced, or perhaps mis- placed, from practice, and it tends heavi- ly to the practical, the mechanical, and the ritual. Only very gradually and very subtly does the university influence mani- fest itself in reorienting course content, so that a grudging tolerance for con- ceptual and theoretical issues comes to find its place alongside the pragmatic. Even within firmly established pro- fessions the ethic may be more pious hope than reality. Carlin's findings in a study of the legal profession suggest that a group may so frequently and flag- rantly overlook malpractice that it in effect condones it.3 The widespread abuses of the Hippo era tic oath by the medical fraternity in such instances as fee splitting and the proprietorship of pharmacies and optometry houses, attest to its hypocritical abuse.4 It is doubtless^ true that professions discourage their members from making public disclosures of undesirable practice, acting only after there has been a public scandal. Certain- ly, much of the effort of professional groups seems to stem more from self- interest than from a true regard for their responsibilities.5 Many groups which claim to be professional have never had a sense of community responsibility. Intra-group rivalry goes on within pro- fessions, while at the same time fields strenuously resist encroachments from 3 Jerome E . Carlin, Lawyers on Their Own: A Study of Individual Practitioners in Chicago ( N e w Bruns- wick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1 9 6 2 ) . 4 F o r recent documentation of such practice among ophthalmologists see the testimony of Dr. Marc An- thony, of Spokane, Washington, reported in the New York Times, February 1, 1 9 6 7 , p . 4 3 . 5 Adam Smith had some comments to make about the practices of merchant groups which may not be too tangential to be relevant here. "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a con- spiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. Though the law cannot hinder the people of the same trade from sometimes assembling to- gether, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such as- sembling, much less render them necessary." From The Wealth of Nations ( N e w York, Dutton, [ 1 9 3 7 ] ) . other occupational groups through the use of political and economic mecha- nisms, and they strive to reassign less glamorous tasks to others. Conditions of actual practice in virtually every pro- fession depart in important measure from the professional ideal. These disparities, however, do not mean that the professions do not have well-established traditions of service or commitments to standards, nor does it mean that they are not committed to the advancement of knowledge and the practical art of their fields. It is to these ends that the attempt to achieve pro- fessional status for librarianship appro- priately addresses itself. All established professions have an awareness of the conditions of practice required for a professional to grow and develop. They have frequently struggled to protect practice from political or other influences which would corrupt or misuse or down- grade, and on balance they must be viewed as a force for orderly progress within the democratic tradition. The more advanced professions, although their practice may remain imperfect, pro- vide traditions, ideals, models, and di- rections for emerging professions. Librarianship appears to be in the midst of a serious shortage of person- nel. In order to attract from the limited reservoir of talented people who are sought and competed for by each of the professions, it must be possible to offer potential recruits rewarding and satisfy- ing careers. To do so implies a speed-up in the process of professionalization. In order to fulfill their original mandate of serving as guardian of society's informa- tion needs and in order to influence pos- itively the forward motion of progressive information development in a time of competition with other emergent infor- mation-oriented disciplines, librarianship must more fully take on the responsi- bilities and substance as well as the forms of a profession. Without such com- Professionalism Reconsidered / 7 mitment, librarians may ultimately find themselves left only with custodial tasks while the intellectual aspects, as well as the more active forms of information serv- ice, are yielded to other groups. Some in library education place all their hope in the next generation of li- brarians. In effect, they would write off most of those now in practice as es- sentially and permanently semi-profes- sional. This attitude is unrealistic. It ig- nores the fact that during the next two decades, which may well prove to be most critical for determining whither (or whether) librarianship, the major de- cisions influencing variations and adap- tations in information services will be made by those who are already in prac- tice. Furthermore, such a view tends to be over-sanguine about the real advances of present educational programs over those of the past. Viewed in historical perspective, the library schools may be seen to have been a decisive influence in whatever degree of professionalization has been achieved thus far. They have succeeded in placing their programs, at least in a formal sense, at the graduate level. Nevertheless, one may remain skeptical of the capacity of library edu- cation, and of library educators (except for certain isolated institutions and, re- gretfully, isolated individuals) to be fully transformed along the drastically variant lines which contemporary tech- nological, societal, and behavioral ad- vances clearly require. Many librarian^ are without doubt best suited, either by temperament or through the remorseless habituation of long experience, to performing super- clerical tasks. In some instances they may even be hostile to or suspicious of efforts to upgrade the intellectual de- mands put upon them in their practice, but it is not necessarily because they are uninterested or opposed to intellectual effort. Frequently they are highly liter- ate, intelligent people who remain satis- fied with or resigned to spending major portions of their working lives perform- ing at a nonintellectual level. It is simply that the acculturation process in library education or in practice, or both, have been so devoid of genuine intellectual content that they have come to identify their roles, and the role of librarianship generally, as pedestrian and uninspiring. For them, as for many similar types in other humdrum fields which do not call forth the breadth of their imagination or the finest quality of their minds, there is sublimation in the form of home pur- suits, hobbies, and travel. For them the battle is over. Library work is a nine-to- five routine—the best comes only on long weekends, extended holidays, travel, and early retirement. The field also has many competent and thoughtful people (mostly in the earlier years of service and not yet ground down by the weight of experi- ence and bureaucratic indoctrination) who are deeply disturbed by the dis- parity between what they believe consti- tutes professional practice and what most librarians now do. Many were and re- main deeply disgruntled about the cali- bre and content of their educational prep- aration and are strongly motivated to improve practice in the field. It is to this group, uneasy and unfulfilled by their present roles, to whom this article is primarily directed, in the hope that it may contribute somewhat to enlarged understanding of what professional prac- tice in librarianship involves and what needs to be done to advance this field toward such a goal. Professionalism will be viewed here not in abstract academic terms but rather in the real world in which librarians practice, through a comparison of the behavior of librarians with what is cus- tomarily considered to constitute profes- sional behavior. The central thesis is that it is in terms of three major rela- tionships—with clients, with the institu- 8 / College <6- Research Libraries • January 1968 tion where he performs, and with the professional group—that the decision as to whether one is or is not a professional is decided. T H E L I B R A R I A N - C L I E N T R E L A T I O N S H I P The client relationship is the central role of any professional whether the cli- ent be an individual or, as is frequently the case in the practice of law, a com- pany or other institution. It is his raison d' etre, his justification for the claims he places on individual institutions and on the society generally, even though not every professional works directly with the client. For even with the increasing institutionalization and bureaucratiza- tion of professional activities and the consequent lessening in the degree and frequency of client relations, the ulti- mate purpose remains service to the cli- ent. In an ideal and unambiguous rela- tionship, the client relies upon the pro- fessional for the expertise which his problem or situation requires. The pro- fessional, by virtue of his training, ex- perience, and specialized knowledge, of- fers the client the counsel, service, or prescription which he views to be ap- propriate whether or not this is precise- ly what the client wants or thinks he wants. The professional's guidance may not always be followed, but the judgment and recommendation of the professional are not open to question or debate by the layman. The professional knows. When cast in this context, how does the librarian-patron relationship meas- ure up? Generalizations are always fraught with risk, particularly when they attempt to characterize a practice stretched across a continuum as wide as that of librarianship. Yet, in spite of the hazards, perhaps some broadly rele- vant observations can be advanced here. In general library situations, that which is requested by or offered to the patron is ordinarily just not complex enough to be considered a professional service. The service provided would not overtax the capacity of any reasonably intelligent college graduate after a minimum period of on-the-job training. This is not necessarily because librari- ans do not wish to serve (although some do not and have developed a practiced hauteur which quickly suggests to all but the doggedly persevering client that they are thought to be intruders or igno- ramuses). Yet, in spite of this element and despite allegations that the collect- ing function takes high precedence over the service function, American librarian- ship has for the most part enjoyed a proud tradition of service. Perhaps in the past however, and even into the present, library work has had a decidedly feminine cast. That is to say, librarians achieve intrinsic satisfaction from the very act of serving and are content to perform in minor and inconsequential capacities. This can also manifest itself in other ways. Like the doting mother shoveling spoonfuls of food into the mouth of the child and joyful at the sight of consumption, the librarian may be too frequently insensitive to the limits of the information user's appetite, to the pre- ciseness of his need or to the particu- larity of his taste. The willingness to play an inexpert role may well have been reinforced by the fact that the li- brarian has had some little knowledge about many things but not very much genuine understanding of anything. This portrait is not drawn to suggest that it is only the very most complex problems with which a librarian must concern himself, nor, to use a medical analogy, that the general reference librarian is any less consequential than the general practitioner. It is to suggest only that the druggist should not be confused with the doctor. An apparently related phenomenon is the essential timidity of practitioners, clearly reflected in the widespread, deep- Professionalism Reconsidered / 9 seated, and trained incapacity or high degree of reluctance to assume respon- sibility for solving informational prob- lems and providing unequivocal an- swers. The problem may be viewed at two levels of service, each interrelated. At the general level, it is reflected in the extinction of the reader's advisor, that breed of librarian who could, would, and did actively channel readers along rational and productive lines by making concrete recommendations and introduc- ing taste and discrimination into such choices. The reluctance to be assertive may be as much a function of insecurity born out of fears engendered by the limits of the modern librarian's mind to cope with the complexities of an ever broadening spectrum of knowledge, or awe of the growing sophistication of middle class readers among whom high- er educational preparation is now widely characteristic, or because of the con- fusion which attends a set of objectives for library service which tolerates light diversion with intellectual development as equally viable missions: It is the cli- ent then who always determines his wants, and it is only the most iconoclas- tic librarian who suggests alternatives either by making precise recommenda- tions or by skewing client choices through close control of the content of collections to reflect excellence. Perhaps, in this sense, it is the children's librari- ans who are the most professional. Not only are they experts in their literature who share commitment and high pur- pose, but they also presume to advise and direct their clients readily and to influence the client's independent choices by maintaining careful quality control over the composition of their collections. (It is of course easier to assume this posture with the child than with the adult.) This problem is also seen at the gen- eral level in the conduct of reference li- brarians who balk at offering judgments about the quality of material or, at times, even at making comments upon the rele- vancy of material to particular infor- mational problems. Rather than straight- forwardly and self-assuredly advising a patron which is the singular or which the most promising sources, reference li- brarians appear to be most comfortable when providing numerous works or vo- luminous bibliographies. Moreover, it seems characteristic of the librarian's psyche to recoil from giving out straight answers. Instead, it is invariably the printed source in which the information is to be found that is offered. What may have been an appropriate rationale for such an approach in an earlier period seems less relevant in 1967. Whether a service which relies solely upon a book stock as the only true source of informa- tion is congruent with contemporary re- alities (except for such isolated cases as law or medicine) is subject to serious doubt. In a time of abundant and often- times more realistic alternatives to searching on printed pages, it is ana- chronistic for librarianship to remain so heavily committed to and dependent upon published sources to the exclusion of other possibilities. Viewed in solely economic terms, hours spent searching the literature for potential data which may no longer be current seems far less rational than employing alternative ap- proaches, as for example, telephoning and asking someone who knows, even if the knower is five hundred miles away. While training and temperament have geared librarians to fact finding from published sources, by setting such a limit on the approach they circumscribe their role, and in the process, their profes- sional value. For the most part librarians remain medium- rather than client-oriented. In clinging tenaciously to the information container of another age, and as they continue only to acquire and stock and shelve books, they resist the idea that 10 / College <6- Research Libraries • January 1968 the more fundamental commodity of modern times is information and that it takes myriad forms. They will meet the client's requirements if it can be done with a book and only with a book. For the clientele the vehicle is beside the point, the point is the information sought. By concentrating exclusively on the book and by resisting alternatives, the librarian remains comfortable and unpressured, while the client finds other avenues of access to information because of the librarian's default. As part of this same syndrome, we find large-scale collection building seen as the expression of the librarian's ex- pertise rather than rapid uncomplicated access to intelligence. Yet, the most ef- fective client service may well be en- hanced when the librarian concentrates his efforts upon careful discrimination in choice of acquisitions rather than in fiercely competitive and feverish collec- tion building.6 Ultimately, means be- come ends; libraries are measured in terms of the size of their collections while the more significant measure, the quality and nature of the service they render, is ignored. Viewed from another angle, catalog conventions, codes, policies, and pro- cedures are also divorced from their ulti- mate purpose—service to the client. De- tachment from clientele permits cata- loging personnel to remain dedicated ex- clusively to the book literature, while ig- noring or avoiding less conventional forms and media. As a consequence, these remain outside the control of the library and the patron dismisses the li- brary as a source for any but the tradi- ditional published forms. The full po- tential of a very powerful tool to sup- port clientele service is unrealized. At another level of service, the library and the librarian functioning within the 6 This point is elaborated in Paul Wasserman, The Librarian and the Machine (Detroit: Gale Research Co., [ 1 9 6 5 ] ) . p . 5 0 ff. framework of a specific subject disci- pline, many of these built-in constraints are absent. Librarians here are typically more prone to deal with and give spe- cialized treatment to nonconventional sources, and they are prepared to go further in pursuing information requests. Where there is lack of assurance on the part of the librarian or limits on the reliance which the client places on his expertise, it will most frequently stem from the inadequacy of the librarian's educational preparation in the substan- tive field. To function in a science setting without the requisite orientation in the science disciplines or in a financial en- vironment without understanding a bal- ance sheet or the working of the finan- cial markets serves only to reinforce the tenacity of the librarian to cling to card catalogs and book titles rather than to venture forth upon the precarious ground of substantive information; it re- affirms in the client's view the belief that the level of sophistication to be expected as an aid in problem-solving from li- brary personnel is minimal. In either case, the effect is far from the most effi- cacious ideal for the professional-client relationship. The remedy here may be to close the chapter on that phase of library history which tolerates, as one example, the well-meaning English major who gravi- tates into medical librarianship. Granted the need for organizational skill, the service ideal, and technical grounding in information handling, it will only be when the client can respect the subject competence of the librarian that he will accept him and respect him for his pro- fessional competence in the meaning em- ployed here. Now this is not to say that the subject librarian need be a highly trained and advanced student of a nar- row and specialized discipline to per- form effectively, but rather that there must come to be a better match than has yet existed in typical cases between his Professionalism Reconsidered / 11 preparation and his field of practice. Under such terms, someone without rudimentary grounding in the biological and chemical sciences would be discour- aged from medical library service and someone without economics and finan- cial study from business librarianship. Of course, this would call for a reorienta- tion in recruitment patterns away from the more traditional and disproportion- ately heavy reliance upon those trained in the humanistic disciplines and toward the sciences and the social sciences. With the increasing role of the federal govern- ment in the support of graduate study, as reflected in such programs as those of the Office of Education and the National Library of Medicine, such a prospect is less remote than when there were no incentives to offer library students and at earlier stages when library work was less related to information services and more to a predominantly custodial func- tion. Two prototypes of this professional ideal suggest themselves. One is the sub- ject-expert special librarian. He is epito- mized in the law librarian with a law degree, the fine arts librarian trained in fine arts, or the music librarian with sub- stantive preparation in music. In the university setting, some but not all de- partmental and college librarians fall into this category. More recently the sub- ject bibliographer has come to be found increasingly in the universities. Such an individual plays the role of subject col- lection builder and librarian. Sometimes drawn from the particular field of schol- arship, sometimes from librarianship, he enjoys the respect of his clientele for his subject competence. It may well be that the next stage in the educational preparation of librarians will call for a fundamental modification, to build into the educational preparation of librarians a planned and programed sequence of enhancing the subject competence of its students, for there can be little doubt that when the librarian is comfortable, both in the subject matter of the field in which he serves and in the substance of librarianship, he is far more strongly equipped and so more likely to achieve fuller acceptance as a professional in his role relations with clients. Pushed one stage farther, under these terms the librarian can move from a fundamentally passive to a more aggres- sive role in information prescription. At home in the subject field, he will be less reliant upon published bibliographic sources, and he will far more readily gen- erate for himself the bibliographic and reference aids for his clientele, for they will grow naturally and logically out of his work in a subject area in which he is not alien. Because bibliographic or- ganization and imaginative informational approaches to subject matter in burgeon- ing fields are so much sought by clien- teles, here is an obvious path to im- proved clientele esteem. The responsibility for a lack of ag- gressive professional service in problem- solving terms must be laid at the door of professional education for librarian- ship. For the schools, with only rare ex- ceptions, have failed to breed an appre- ciation for the subtleties or the poten- tialities of the professional role. Where individual librarians have assumed sig- nificant information responsibilities for their constituencies, it has resulted from a combination of their own inherent and intuitive perception of their clientele commitments with imaginative applica- tion of bibliographic expertise and sub- ject competence. What the schools have produced is several generations of librarians com- mitted zealously to the pattern of gen- eral service. While the library school student may have been exposed to a smattering of philosophy, and berated with and perhaps inspired by librarian- ship's service commitments and yearn- ings, nowhere was this likely to have 12 / College <6- Research Libraries • January 1968 been translated beyond the bounds of a vague service concept and on into the terms which might correspond with truly professional practice. Reference in- structors (typically generalists them- selves who rely on the descriptive terms of bibliography, simplistic isolated fact- finding exercises, or vague problems of reference administration) might seek to rationalize their offerings by suggesting that general, mechanistic, totally book- slanted orientations are intended for only the beginning stages of practice. This indoctrination, however, appears to have conditioned most librarians to per- form throughout their careers at no high- er level of attainment than that of this beginning practice. In learning a set repertoire of responses to meet only nar- rowly defined client requirements, li- brarians have not been provoked to con- sider the alternative of undertaking more demanding or new and differing respon- sibilities for their clienteles. It would be naive for any occupation- al group to believe it could establish its professional role independently, for the ability of any professional to perform and the capacities in which he functions are in many respects circumscribed and influenced by external factors. This may be particularly true for librarianship, which has been a relatively passive pur- suit. Since this has been so, it is not sur- prising to find that the librarian's role has come to be influenced by the ex- pectations of the library's clientele and community which, in many instances, correspond to the minimal attainment level which he has set for himself. A professional certainly cannot as- sume a professional role with a client without the client's acceptance of him in the role of expert. Varying factors have tended to prohibit such acceptance of librarians. One has been the condi- tioning of clienteles to view the librarian in negative stereotyped terms with a consequent reluctance to enlist him as an active ally in the information seeking process. On non-literary matters, the average person simply does not expect— and his experience reinforces this view- that the librarian would be able to help him. The unlettered may hesitate to seek help for fear of revealing their presumed ignorance to someone who ap- pears so all-knowing and bookish and who would tend only to reinforce their feelings of inadequacy in an alien en- vironment. The research scholar, reluc- tant to relinquish to another the tasks which he has performed unaided (ex- cept in the university, to graduate as- sistants who function under his guid- ance, and who as a consequence have the subject background to understand fully the nature of the work upon which he is engaged), requests only minor as- sistance from librarians. These barriers do not appear to pre- sent insurmountable obstacles to profes- sional performance. If the librarian suc- ceeds in developing skill and finesse in reducing the hesitancies of those not ac- customed to use libraries, larger num- bers who genuinely require information may be expected to turn to them.7 And as career preparation for librarianship came to comprise substantive prepara- tion beyond the solely bibliographic, so would the disposition of the client change to place heavier reliance upon him for assistance of a more profes- sional calibre. No ultimate wresting of control from the client is involved, for as in every other instance in which a professional is employed, the choice of whether or not to use the service, and then to accept or reject its guidance if it is found to be unreliable or inexpert, is retained by the client. 7 Although, at least in the public library, a funda- mental modification of objectives is required for this to be the case. T h e alternative is to have the informa- tion responsibility assumed by others. A recent mono- graph suggests the establishment of a national informa- tion system at the community level. See Alfred J . Kahn, et al. Neighborhood Information Centers: A Study and Some Proposals ( N e w York: Columbia University School of Social Work, 1 9 6 6 ) . Professionalism Reconsidered / 13 The immediate institution in which the librarian performs may also have de- cided and frequently dysfunctional in- fluences upon the client relationship. These institutional constraints will oc- cupy us in further detail hereafter. Just as the wider environment influences the library, it also determines to a consider- able degree the professional role of the librarian. The clientele group, in the ag- gregate, exerts its influence, for libraries, like other service institutions, tend to accommodate to those who use them. And such external forces have charac- teristically tended to perpetuate tradi- tional roles for the institution and in the process for the professional role. Several examples shall be cited. At a time when the population compo- sition has shifted radically in virtually every older core city, the public library essentially retains its cultural orienta- tion to the middle class, and this results in an institutional role and a concept of client service which corresponds with the strivings, literary tastes, and values of a middle class clientele which often is no longer present. The community typically is indifferent to this incongru- ity. In a university during the period when it seeks to develop its graduate and research programs (and this is the present state of a large proportion of American institutions of higher learn- ing), the undergraduate service require- ments continue to preoccupy the library as the influence of a longer history, of undergraduate programs continues to hold sway, while the graduate and fac- ulty constituencies are neglected. This situation often persists until the research faculty succeeds in exerting its influence upon the university and upon the li- brary's administration. Not only are the libraries inclined to be biased in favor of one constituency over another, but in each instance the' community expects only minimal forms of service. Public li- brary patrons tend to settle for recrea- tional fare. In the university a classroom appendage, the reserve reading room, is too often confusedly equated with the entire library by administrators who do not understand the nature of a library and by librarians who do not understand the nature of either. In the school library, client service is often a victim of the conflict between the ideal of service to support the indi- vidual student's intellectual growth and development, and to the curricular re- quirements of the school. Moreover, many school libraries carry out functions which bear no relation to either objec- tive, as reflected in such activities as li- brarians substituting for teachers, or in the use of the library as a study hall or for class disciplinary purposes. There may be some fundamental question and ambiguity about who the client really is—the school, the teacher, or the stu- dent—and this only further compounds the conflict inherent in the situation. In each of these instances, accommo- dation is to requirements which are not reinforcing of professional-client rela- tionships, but are rather the contrary. Where service expectations are minimal from the community, and as these are furthered through the institutional ori- entation of the library, whatever the as- pirations of the librarian, he is restricted from enhancing his professional role. The point is that this role is of course, to a considerable extent, conditioned by the public image of the library and the function of the librarian which is in need of drastic modification, if the pro- fessional ideal is to be furthered. The client relationship has been dealt with thus far as a primarily individual matter, but it seems relevant also to con- sider it in its community context, and in comparison with other similar fields. To take two illustrations, let us consider public health and social welfare. Ener- getic clientele effort conceives of ,,its role as embracing more than only the 14 / College <6- Research Libraries • January 1968 existing consumer, but also reaching out and functioning as a professional service in improving the community as regards such affairs. For public health, this would include preventive measures in a program designed to reduce the inci- dence of disease, and in social service, the organization of activities committed to a reduction in the frequency of need for welfare assistance. The counterpart for library service could be found only through commitment to constituencies not now viewed a's the library's respon- sibility—for the public library, the mar- ginally literate and other non-users of traditional services; for the academic li- brary—the devising of new forms and methods of information service beyond the passive collection function; for the school-library—a commitment to building collections and services to influence the teacher in his continuing education and his effectiveness to perform. Such a per- spective of the revised professional com- mitments for library service is not in conflict with the views of progressive elements in the library profession. Yet, far more persistent and far more per- vasive is the widely shared consensus that libraries basically are for those who use them and that it is no part of the li- brary's or the librarian's responsibility to shift in the direction of those who do not. The implementation of far-reaching, innovative, or imaginative approaches to professional/clientele services seems only remotely possible, or likely to develop in only isolated instances, when viewed against the general level of current com- mitments and current practice. INSTITUTIONAL R E L A T I O N S H I P S Client relationships are importantly conditioned by the bureaucratic setting within which librarians function. As is equally true of other types of profes- sionals who practice in formal organi- zations, librarians are faced with con- flicts inherent in the incongruence be- tween professional commitments on the one hand, and employee requirements on the other. Professionals view the free- dom to function independently, the ex- ercise of discretion, and the formulation of independent judgments in client rela- tions based upon their own standards and ethical views, as essential to profes- sional performance. The professional re- sents institutional authority which at- tempts to influence his behavior and perform ace norms, preferring control by colleagues. These requirements for in- dependence are met to varying degrees in the institutionalized professions, and in librarianship, scarcely at all. Librarians do perform in their direct client relationship with remarkably lim- ited review or supervision, and stated conversely, with perhaps equally limited direction or training. The reference li- brarian is typically free to set his own limits on how or whether to deal with patron inquiries. He will, in fact, often spend more time on those questions which interest him or upon which he feels confident. Or, he will perhaps de- termine the relevance of an inquirer's need based upon his assessment of the prestige, the authority, the personality, the appearance, or the presumed social, economic, or intellectual stratum which the patron represents. Despite the demo- cratic ethic upon which library service is founded, the human tendency to choose to deal with individuals or situations which do not threaten, or to cater to those presumed to be most important, remains unbridled. It is not so much that the institution tolerates such personalized judgments of the relative merits of a quest by the ref- erence librarian out of deference to his expertise or evaluative acumen, as much as that the encounter does not appear to be viewed as critical or crucial enough to warrant inspection (as compared, for example, with preparing cards for a Professionalism Reconsidered / 15 catalog which can be assessed as a per- manent record of the success or failure of performance). If administrative pres- sure is exerted, it will most typically be directed toward expediting or handling of more requests so that larger numbers of patrons can be accommodated. In some large systems there may even be a deliberate striving for anonymity, with new staff members cautioned against trying to build a personal following. While the institution may not directly interfere in the client encounter, in ad- dressing himself principally to satisfying immediate client needs the professional inevitably runs counter to the system which is designed not to maximize cli- ent service, but for the over-all good of the largest number, even if this is only a most modest good. And since rigid ad- herence to bureaucratic ritual (rules and regulations) permits of practices which may be efficient in terms of the organiza- tion's requirements, in any given in- stance professional service to clientele may be sacrificed.8 Ultimately, the bu- reaucratic routine imposes procedures which may be in conflict with the very goals of the organization—the dialectic is complete, means have become ends, and the intellectual and professional de- sign is sacrificed upon the altar of eco- nomic and efficient work procedures. This is not to suggest that there is not a need for order and control in or- ganizations which traffic as heavily in stock and records as do libraries. With the growth in size and scale of activity, the need for procedural consistency is accentuated. Nevertheless, such regulari- zation means that perhaps ironically in the very largest libraries with the great- est resources and thus the greatest po- 8 As for example, in following such a policy as that in a number of university libraries which specifies that a librarian will not carry out extensive literature searches for any faculty m e m b e r since the library could not b e expected to provide such service for all who sought it. tential for professional service, the toler- ance for individual needs will be most sharply curtailed, the client service mini- mized, and the professional values most seriously threatened. The role of the li- brary, as Walton has so concisely put it, is to find that precise balance which introduces only enough routine to keep order and record-keeping integrity, but not so much as to impair the opportunity to afford clientele convenient and un- hampered access to resources.9 Finding this balance may be «seen as the task of the creative administrator. It is clear- ly not to be found in imposing burden- some ritual which may serve to stultify the opportunity for professional behavior and practice. It is for this reason and to act as a countervailing force to the pressures for economy which would reduce standards of service that it is essential for profes- sionals in organizations to assume de- cision-making responsibilities in relation to goals and standards of service.10 Yet, with only rare exceptions, libraries fall into that class of organizations in which goal decisions are tightly controlled by the administrative hierarchy. They are consequently often at the mercy of other tendencies of bureaucracy which run counter to professional aspirations and responsibilities. While professional spirit and zeal thrive most in an atmosphere which tolerates, even furthers, freedom of inquiry and pronounced license for unrestricted thought and action, the hier- archical system by its nature protects and perpetuates itself through its de- mands for submission, obedience, and acceptance. Since the hierarchical struc- ture is reinforced when it withstands any pressure for rapid change, it tends to be 9 John Walton, " T h e Administration of L i b r a r i e s , " Johns Hopkins University Ex Libris, November 1 9 5 7 . 10 F o r a fuller consideration of authority structure in libraries as an influence upon decision processes, see Mary L e e Bundy, "Conflict in Libraries," CRL X X V I I (September 1 9 6 6 ) , 2 5 3 - 6 2 . 16 / College <6- Research Libraries • January 1968 organized in such a way as to inhibit the stream of ideas within the organi- zation which might ultimately culmi- nate in variations in organizational ar- rangements or practices. One conse- quence is that libraries tend not to ad- vance beyond the levels of minimal serv- ice, for the organizational structure strives to reinforce the status quo. While there may be tolerance for procedural improvement, particularly when there is a universal climate provoking such modification (automation of circulation procedures may be a case in point) re- sistance to any more fundamental change such as goal modification remains as staunch as ever.11 Compliance of professionals is achieved through a reward system which distrib- utes benefits and higher incentives for loyalty to the institution. While the pro- fessional presumably addresses his fun- damental loyalty to the societal respon- sibilities of his calling and therefore to the commitments and responsibilities to the clientele which this engenders, the institution recognizes only organizational loyalty. As the professional seeks insti- tutional rewards, security, and status, he pays for them with compliance and con- formity at the expense of his professional obligations. The professional who retains a fundamental identification with clien- tele commitment is inevitably forced into a position of conflict with organizational requirements. Bureaucratic structure clearly imposes restraints, yet these tendencies which are contrary to professional requirements are not necessarily irreversible processes or insurmountable barriers. Even so, librar- ians continue to tolerate and perpetuate conditions of practice which fall short of the professional ideal. Perhaps this stems from the lack of understanding on 11 In many instances concentration upon automa- tion may be viewed as an administrative strategy for diverting attention from more basic problems and thereby forestalling the necessary fundamental re- assessment of goals and services. the part of many librarians as well as administrators of what the issues are. In many library situations, a librarian view- ing his primary commitment as essential- ly to client service, rather than to insti- tution, would be considered disloyal, uncooperative, or otherwise suspect, even among his peer group—fellow librarians. May this not perhaps be the case of the new breed of subject bibliographer being spawned in the academic library, forced to choose between allegiance to library or to subject discipline, and gravitating away from the rigid bind of bureaucracy and toward the more free flowing current of his scholarly company? By many li- brarians he is seen as a prima donna, impatient with necessary work routines, unwilling to help out in emergencies, a waster of time spent in idle conversa- tion with his clientele about their work —renegade and spoiled. Administrators in other comparable fields (particularly when they are drawn from the professional ranks as is true of most library administrators), are sensi- tive to professional needs, values, and aspirations, and as a consequence, strive to bend the bureaucratic limitations in order to accommodate to the working requirements of professional and other specialists in their organizations. Library administrators sometimes view opera- tional constraints to be of such over- bearing importance that they are exag- gerated through their administration. Too often the administrator (not infre- quently one who blows the horn of pro- fessionalism loudest), has not a mini- mum understanding of the proper cli- mate within which professionalism is cultivated. He will view professional standards from the standpoint of inter- nalized organizational standards, see the products of graduate study as so many replacements for the firing line without regard for their needs or their immediate or ultimate aspirations. Under these terms, librarians are treated like inter- Professionalism Reconsidered / 17 changeable parts serving where and when needed. Librarians man desks and meet schedule commitments, and in the process, deny and are denied the op- portunity to care, to grow and to act professionally. Nor is the library administrator always sensitive to the changing requirements of the external environment within which his organization functions. In the aca- demic milieu, the storm warnings have long been out to alert the administrator to the fact that for important elements of his clientele their information require- ments are simply not being met effective- ly and that only dramatic modification of the library's role will alter things. Where the problem is economic, and this will typically be only a minor symptom of a more fundamental dis- order, the library administrator does both his library and the larger institution a disservice when he accepts only the crumbs from the organizational table. Indeed, library administrators sometimes make a virtue of such martyrdom when they might better recognize that there are times and issues for which one must stand up and be counted, even if this implies putting one's job on the line. In the public library, the central issue re- lates to the basic role of the library dur- ing a period when social needs, modern technology, and other dramatic factors should be influencing a re-evaluation of the conventional middle-class and book orientation which was seen as appropri- ate for another time and under different circumstances. People and institutions ultimately get the form of administration which they seek. If so, why during a period of dras- tic personnel shortages, have librarians tolerated forms of administration which deny them the opportunity for full ex- pression? As the administrators do not often understand the nature of profes- sional commitment—or are short-sighted enough to sacrifice it—so librarians come to assume that professionalism may sim- ply be a slogan, or that administration may be the only professional practice. Since there is no basic commitment to clientele, or awareness of what is being sacrificed, they succumb easily to an authoritarian structure. In doing so, they need no longer assume more responsi- bility or undertake differing tasks, carry the burden of professional commitment, or take risks which put them in conflict with the organizational status quo. In the process, their submissiveness lends further credence to the bureaucratic ethos which holds that people need to be led for they are not mature enough to lead themselves. It is not simply that some librarians do not resist bureaucratic entrapment, nor that library leadership sometimes diabolically exploits the very individuals who must be inspired to adapt and to innovate rather than to be smothered in stale ritual, but that the environment created by library admin- istrators and closing in the practicing li- brarian is diametrically at odds with the independence of action and freedom from restriction which most character- izes truly professional service. Part of the difficulty in libraries is undoubtedly related to improper utili- zation of personnel. In recent years, a greater number of individuals who carry out so-called professional library func- tions have benefited from formal aca- demic preparation for librarianship. Yet it is undoubtedly true that libraries have not tended to analyze systematically their position structures and requirements, and as a consequence disproportionate numbers of librarians are employed in capacities which do not call for their full range of preparation and expertise. Too many librarians are under-utilized in roles which call for lesser skill or training, with the result that there is much zealous guarding of the few cher- ished intellectual tasks from those with less formal preparation, if equivalent 18 / College <6- Research Libraries • January 1968 competence to perform. It is true that if a professional were to continue to perform at a concentrated peak level of strenuous intellectual effort all through the day, the strain would be intolerable. This is one reason why professors do not lecture forty hours a week, or social workers spend a full work day in case interviews. But, the problem in librarian- ship appears rather one of a need to attempt to reach equilibrium closer to the other end of this scale. At precisely the same time when ad- ministrators bewail an abundance of unfilled positions, accurate analysis of working environments for members of these very staffs would all too frequently identify the sharp limits on opportunities for the expression of imagination and creativity—the burdens and ritual of desk covering, the routine and menial tasks more economically delegated to lesser paid employees. Imbalance in the pro- portion of time spent by professionals on chores which may be tiring, energy sapping, but professionally shallow and devoid of importance, may be quite widespread in libraries. The dignity and respect which might be accorded to professional, rather than to administra- tive pursuits, is too often denied. Ex- uberant professional spirit, high ideals, zeal, and commitment to innovation and experimentation are so often suspect and misunderstood that enthusiasm is ulti- mately thwarted by the bureaucracy un- til even the idealists succumb to the nine-to-five mentality or find other out- lets for their creative aspirations. Librarians are alert to and much con- cerned with the need to re-allocate cer- tain routine chores to others less quali- fied; this is laudatory. But they do not as often recognize the fact that time spent in administrative work is also time spent in non-professional practice. And in this they have much in common with those in other disciplines who look schizophrenically toward the twin goals of administrative aspirations and pro- fessional satisfaction. Perhaps because the utility of administrative accomplish- ment is more clearly understood, and is so often attributed a higher value in a bureaucracy and in the culture, and be- cause the goals of professional practice in librarianship are so confused and am- biguous, librarians more readily assume such administrative responsibility with- out remorse. And it may be for this rea- son that the assumption of an admin- istrative role is so often equated with success. It naturally follows that the highest professional performance is seen as administrative activity, and that ser- vice to clientele through direct or indi- rect performance, comes to be viewed merely as a way station on the high road to the assumption of administrative re- sponsibility. It would be misleading to convey the impression that problems would be solved if only work assignments were to be better distributed, or if more digni- ty and stature were accorded to pro- fessional performance in libraries. Given the organizational propensities of librar- ians, personnel reclassification might lead only to more tightly circumscribing the librarian's role, if albeit at a higher level. What appears to be required is a more fundamental administrative reorientation toward an institutional climate which ad- vances the professional spirit and yields organizational responsibilities to the pro- fessional group. Nor is this to propose democratic administration or a human relations approach as an end in itself, but rather that the decisions about the future of libraries and of librarianship itself may well hinge upon the extent to which professionalization is furthered. As long as professionalism remains so weak and so ill-understood, libraries will ' A remain unable to solve not only their im- mediate and pressing problems, but they will be unprepared and so unable to make the radical adaptations necessary Professionalism Reconsidered / 19 to meet the rapidly shifting and growing requirements put upon them. Under these conditions outside intervention will come to influence the changes required, either by direct action upon the library or by fashioning new alternative forms of information service. This may be what has happened in a number of university libraries where top library administrators have been re- lieved of their responsibilities or where outside insistence has resulted in the addition of more expert personnel to the staffs of the libraries. Perhaps admin- istrators have served as the whipping boy for the limited level of professional attainment, when all who would aspire to professional standing should stand in the dock together. It may be that as some administrators charge, the majority of librarians are simply unprepared to assume mature responsibilities, although perhaps this is more a consequence of the bankruptcy of administrative leader- ship than of inadequacies among li- brarians. Nevertheless, to the degree that administrators countenance, if not foster, a set of organizational conditions less than appropriate for even minimal pro- fessional practice, it is they who are in greatest jeopardy and it is they who must beware. T H E PROFESSIONAL G R O U P Why is the record for professionalism in individual libraries so weak, and why has librarianship failed to move more rapidly toward maturity as a profession? In order to answer this question and thus better to understand the nature of the professional commitment, it is neces- sary to consider the wider grouping of which the librarian is a part as well as the nature of his professional relation- ships. In these terms, the professional group—the associations and societies—as well as the less formal personal identifi- cations and group affiliations, are seen to be relevant. Through these relations are derived many of the patterns of the librarian's behavior and his continued professional growth. The process of ac- culturation into the group is begun dur- ing the educational sequence when the initiate is not only inducted into the field and affairs and is introduced to its in- tellectual substance, but is also indoc- trinated in its commitments, its value orientation, and the standards which ulti- mately guide his practice. Although the library-school tie may be securely attached, and while the bond may grow stronger as the nostalgia of each passing year adds further romance to old associations, the indoctrination process of the schools in feeding fuel to professionalism has been remarkably weak. The mystique, the induction rites, the salute to service concepts, the glori- fication of its heroes, the reinforcement of the field's sense of its own importance and accomplishments, all these have been present as long as one remembers. But, the substantive content, the body of significant professional knowledge, the theory, the philosophy and the ethic, these have evaded the field's grasp ex- cept in rare and isolated instances. Why should this have been so? Perhaps the answer may in part be found in the role which library educa- tion has assumed in orienting its program so markedly to the requirements of those who come either while heavily engaged, or during the brief respite from practice after a period of past involvement. Many such students view library education grudgingly, as only a necessary intru- sion, to be managed dextrously and con- veniently, and to be related as much and as directly as possible toward reinforc- ing the operational skills which they have already gained on the job. The schools, perhaps seeing their role in much the same manner, conscious of the need to placate their clients, and having no firm philosophical orientation and commitments either, have provided insti- 20 / College <6- Research Libraries • January 1968 tutionalized accommodation to precise- ly such requirements. What is more, because the professional schools have tended toward weakness and have followed the more active van- guard in the field of practice, they have allowed the special interest groups—pub- lic, school, special libraries—to influence them in orienting their course sequences toward the presumed needs of particular areas of practice.12 In the course of pur- suing such a fragmented approach, librar- ianship has been divided rather than uni- fied around a common theme, philoso- phy, or professional commitment. By offering technical courses for specific types of libraries, it is as if to suggest that the process of administration or organization of materials or information- al problem-solving is fundamentally var- iable by type of library. Cross-fertiliza- tion is thereby reduced; school librarians see themselves as something apart from public librarians, and academic from special librarians. To suggest only one serious dysfunction, the ultimate end of this process is to reinforce the institution- al barriers to cooperative and imagi- native planning, and seriously to impede the logical next step in the evolution of library service—the invention and organ- ization of regional and interinstitutional information systems. Perhaps the most searing indictment of all, however, is that while library edu- cation has evolved to the graduate level in the university, when its content is measured against the honest yardstick of its intellectual contribution there is room to doubt whether its claim to pro- 12 One manifestation which illustrates such influence may be seen in the meeting on library education for special librarianship convened each year by the S L A Education Committee during the annual conference. While the subject matter of the discussion varies from year to year, the common theme is the attempt to ar- range for a dialogue between special librarians and library educators about the educational require- ments for practice in the special library. See for ex- ample, Special Libraries, LVTI ( J a n u a r y 1 9 6 7 ) , for a report of the Second Forum on Education for Special Librarianship. fessionalism has not been a ploy by those in library education who simply seek to rationalize their own roles as profession- als. For if library education is not truly professional education, what then is the self image of the field's educational and administrative leadership?13 This is not to say that library education is incapable of advancing to the stage where it is more centrally concerned with ideas, issues, theory, concept, and less with routine, description, procedure, and method, more with why and less with how, more with what for and less how to. But, the transition from description and homily and routine has only grudgingly given way to scholarship. There are still hun- dreds of students in graduate library programs memorizing names of famous modern librarians, committing to mem- ory large sections of classification sched- ules, cluttering their minds with details of whether certain books have an index and table of contents or not, and taking superficial cultural romps through the various fields of knowledge to learn such things as the fact that Margaret Mead is an anthropologist, instead of studying the reasons for contemporary trends in societal information developments, the logic of comparative systems of classifi- cation, the structure of bibliography and information agencies as resources for problem solving, or the personal, organi- zational, and social group determinants of information need. To the extent that the details have overshadowed the more fundamental issues, so has education been routinized and stripped of its po- tential for embodying a content that is intellectually viable. Part of the problem is one of the certi- fication of mediocrity. At a time when the accreditation process in library edu- cation (jealously and zealously guarded as the prerogative of one national organ- 13 This issue is elaborated in Bernard Barber, " S o m e Problems in the Sociology of the Professions," Daedalus, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, X C I I ( 1 9 6 3 ) , Professionalism Reconsidered / 21 ization) should be strengthening the fiber of the educational product, it is accrediting and reaccrediting programs of doubtful merit thereby giving its im- primatur to schools very distant from any ideal or even advanced attainment. A truer service to professionalism would be to submit each program to ever more critical test, to encourage experimenta- tion. The perspective of other organiza- tions might well be sought (representa- tion from SLA and ADI as illustrations), if only to encourage library education programs to foster timeliness and con- sideration of alternatives to their conven- tional fare. Present accreditation of grad- uate library education is in danger of fostering a negative standard—like the way in which a hack writer is encouraged when he watches an inferior television program and is sure he can do that well himself. Of course, the prescription of an absolute standard would be absurd, but it must certainly be time for graduate level programs to aim higher. In a period so crucial for librarianship's future, when excellent students present themselves in abundance, to tolerate and certificate mediocrity and worse is a disservice to professionalism and to the students who are being prepared. The relatively painless acquisition of the association's seal of approval may, however, be only symptomatic of a more fundamental ailment. Education for li- brarianship may simply not have suc- ceeded in attracting to the scholarly dimension of librarianship the theorists and researchers competent to build the concepts and the knowledge base upon which to construct an intellectual basis for professional practice. Drawn pre- dominantly from, and committed almost overwhelmingly to, humanistic disci- plines (when not to educational method- ology), faculties in librarianship have failed or refused to see in library service a scholarly pursuit. Analytic insight is uncommon. Descriptive and historical orientations abound. Doctoral study has remained predominantly an academic exercise, serving either as the spring- board to administrative advance or as the terminal research effort, short on methodological rigor and long on detail and bibliography. Like the practicing librarian who be- moans the overload of clerical demands and busily perpetuates a role which tol- erates the condition, academics accede to excessive course loads, teaching com- mitments in subject matters alien to their background and preparation, and wist- fully lament the lack of time for genuine research and scholarship. But, the fact of the matter may simply be that they have not had the imagination or the con- ceptual orientation, the scholarly and intellectual footing to do more than re- main a lap or two behind practice in their classrooms. For they seem to have almost universally failed to identify the basic problems or even to ask the most interesting questions, and so ultimately what they have taught proves to be irrelevant to contemporary requirements. Lacking a conceptual base, typically barren of the analytical skills of the social or hard sciences, what scholarly effort is carried on by library faculties tends most frequently to center upon historical study or the applied survey. Where research has been fostered it has remained largely irrelevant to the edu- cational offering, and even doctoral study has been characterized by a sterility and detachment from the fundamental issues in a way that is remarkable for a field so much at the center of societal con- cern. The link-up first forged with the social sciences at Chicago in the 1930's and 1940's has slipped away, and now information science seems the only se- rious intellectual issue to be engaging the attention of more than a handful of li- brary scholars. Yet, there is danger in this that the technological issues and ap- plications will so overwhelm the scholar- 22 / College <6- Research Libraries • January 1968 ly company in librarianship that alterna- tive issues, with all of their behavioral, political, and organizational ramifica- tions, will be swept aside and once more pragmatic means rather than philosoph- ical ends will engage the attention of the field's most inquiring minds.14 Just as the schools provide or fail to provide the basic intellectual orientation and the body of knowledge fundamental to the claims of professionalism, the wider professional grouping acts to sup- port professionalism in practice purely because it is a vehicle for wider personal recognition and reward. Within the scholarly disciplines, the source of recog- nition and prestige tends to be the peer group of colleagues rather than the local institution. Success and the achievement of career satisfactions are most often ac- corded only following distinctive attain- ment among the scholarly fraternity, even while there may be some degree of ambiguity and conflict between local and cosmopolitan orientations.15 In the professions, career advancement pro- ceeds differently. Except for the rela- tively small number of individuals en- gaged in research, writing, or other scholarly pursuits, the path to wider recognition through the channel of pub- lication tends to be closed.16 Perhaps for this reason librarians sense that they must concentrate so energetically upon purely local demands and requirements, 14 In a way that may be analogous to that of the weak library which concentrates its zeal on automating its processes rather than in building client services and timely information access. 15 See, Alvin Gouldner, "Cosmopolitans and Locals: Toward an Analysis of Latent Social Roles, Part I , " Administrative Science Quarterly, II ( D e c e m b e r 1 9 5 7 ) , 2 8 1 - 3 0 6 . 16 There is one important yet subtle difference be- tween a professional society and a scholarly dscipline in the way in which recognition and prestige are awarded to its membership. Prestige in the professional society typically comes from office holding and work for the organization, while in a scholarly discipline, prestige more usually follows upon academic productivi- ty as reflected in the form of articles and monographs. This m a y relate very essentially to the difference be- tween librarianship and some of the more scholarly disciplines with which it is sometimes compared. since without having achieved profes- sion-wide visibility, the route to ad- vancement locally or laterally into other organizations is equated with recognition within one's own organization of the effectiveness of his performance. But, in a time of almost unlimited opportunity, the truer barrier to advancement may be the restriction upon mobility which handicaps the individual. While it is uncertain whether career advancement within libraries is promoted by profes- sion-wide contribution (except in the case of academic libraries where such recognition is more common), the proc- ess of professionalization might be fur- thered if this were to be the case more generally. This is not to suggest that the goals of librarianship would necessarily be enhanced by a spate of ill-conceived and poorly executed articles, but rather that an institutional tone which honors such external commitment becomes a stimulus to professionalism, just as the converse may be equally true. Librarians can and frequently do achieve visibility. It is also clear that professional involvement is often prel- ude to career advancement. While it is unquestionably true that some few in librarianship have adroitly identified the political utility of organizational en- gagement as a device leading to career opportunity, it is equally true that for many, many more, professional affilia- tions and participation serve as the tool of improved practice. This may be best illustrated by the special librarian's re- liance upon professional colleagues in other institutions to expand the scope of his expertise, for as he draws upon his fellow librarians as external access points to information, he in the process expands the confines of his limited col- lections. In so doing, he reinforces im- measurably the professional contribution which he can make to his own organiza- tion. We suspect that a significant hallmark Professionalism Reconsidered / 23 of the librarian who functions as a true professional is reflected in the nature of his relationships. The professional con- stantly expands upon his circle of con- tacts and reinforces and strengthens ex- isting colleague relations, pursuing an active role by continuing his growth through self-study and associating him- self with the local and regional and na- tional activities in librarianship and in other special disciplines with which his work puts him in contact. For him, keep- ing up with professional trends and ad- vances through the journals and mono- graphs is a matter of fact. To lose touch with current affairs would make him feel as uncomfortable and ill-equipped pro- fessionally as to remain out of touch with broader societal affairs would render him uneasy as a generally aware person in his culture. This is in contrast to the li- brarian who confines his relationships to those which are merely comforting, reassuring, and reinforcing of his preju- dices and limitations. Nor is this to suggest that all so-called professional activity is desirable. Those who have participated in groups in which meetings consist of members ex- plaining why they have failed to com- plete assignments or committees which deliberate weightily the means for per- petuating themselves instead of con- sidering their purpose or program, or still others which consume hour after hour preoccupied with minutia, need no reminder of this. It is likely that many energetic and imaginative librarians have been repulsed and disenchanted from professional engagement by participating in precisely such exercises in frustration. The associational excesses of the ritual, the routine, and the social do not charac- terize only the local groups; as a conse- quence the participation of some of the most thoughtful and committed of li- brarians has been shunted off. It is interesting to speculate whether identification with professional norms and values may be impeded, enhanced, or otherwise affected by practicing in large libraries, compared to the situa- tion of the librarian in the special library or the school, where he is functioning apart, and associating more with a dis- tinct clientele or discipline. In theory, professional ties should be reinforced through daily interaction with profes- sional colleagues. Yet, close colleague as- sociations with other librarians seem also to foster undesirable aspects of profes- sionalism. Professional values may be more strongly reinforced through inter- action and identification with clientele. This would clearly be the case in those instances where such undesirable or negative manifestations as a strong al- liance in defense of the status quo or a tendency to band together in common disregard if not active resentment of the clientele, were to be found.17 While librarians working in concert may be better able to impose their standards and values on the institution, frequently they tend rather to reinforce and tolerate minimal service expectation. If recent events in New York City libraries are a harbinger, more militant group solidarity when it takes shape may more likely be found in efforts to organ- ize as collective bargaining agents rather than as professionally goal-oriented groups. While proponents of unioniza- tion reason that unions are fully com- patible with professional goals and ob- jectives,18 in view of the emphasis in organized labor on such matters as 17 W h e t h e r such characteristics tend to be more pro- nounced in academic libraries because of their unique status problems when compared with other types of libraries, would serve as the basis for an interesting line of inquiry. 1 8 " . . . It is true that a union of professional people, whether they are researchers in an industrial laboratory or college professors, will be substantially different from that which you would find in an industrial organ- ization of plant workers. But, the fact that they have joined a union doesn't change the fact that they still have professional standing, professional c o m p e t e n c e , " in " H o w to Negotiate with a Professor's U n i o n " ( a n interview with Dr. John McConnell) in College Man- agement, II ( J a n u a r y 1 9 6 7 ) , 2 5 . 24 / College <6- Research Libraries • January 1968 seniority rights and employee benefits it remains to be seen whether the effect may not be a reinforcement of the very rigid authority structure of libraries which serves now as an impediment to innovation and furtherance of service commitments. There are certain issues which require of professionalism that their proponents stand up and be counted. While the li- brary profession supports an ethic with regard to intellectual freedom that calls for librarians to resist censorship pres- sure, the Fiske study documents the ways in which many librarians practice forms of self-censorship.19 It is equally true that librarians do not always resist or are not always successful in resisting external censorship pressures. Whether or not the practice varies from the ideal, the ethic is viable. More librarians will stand up for it than if it did not exist and unless it were to be so flagrantly disregarded as to become a mockery, society will ultimately come to know and respect it and the group which sup- ports it.20 But, censorship is the most dramatic issue, not necessarily the one most central to professionalism. Librar- ians need equally to be militantly vocal about meeting minimum standards of excellence in such terms as the con- ditions, the support for, and the re- sources necessary for them to perform by acceptable standards. In theory, if a professional cannot win minimum conditions for practice, he leaves. In actuality, he usually does 19 Marjorie Fiske, Book Selection and Censorship; A Study of School and Public Libraries in California (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1 9 5 9 ) . 20 See for example, the " F r e d o m to R e a d " statement prepared by the Westchester Conference of the Ameri- c a n Library Association and the American Book Coun- cil in 1 9 5 3 ALA Bulletin, X L V I I (November 1 9 5 3 ) , 4 8 1 - 8 3 . It is important to recall that at this very time other prestigious national societies assumed a position of studied silence. This was the case of the American Political Science Association, to cite only one of a number of such bodies, which might be viewed as having an important concern with the issues of cen- sorship and political freedom. nothing of the sort, for a variety of rea- sons good and bad. Many librarians are married women and hence im- mobile. Librarians frequently ration- alize that it is better to remain and so offer some level of service while seeking to influence change for the better, much in the same manner as the optimistic woman whose life mission is to reshape some undeserving and un- suspecting male. There is perennial hope that conditions will improve. In these matters, librarians do no worse than faculty members of academic programs in which all who seek admission enter and everyone who enters ultimately graduates. No pat formula is at hand to describe whether in a given situation at a given time the conditions are irremedi- able, or must remain intolerable. It is only to be hoped that decisions may come to be made more frequently in terms of the professional commitment and the zeal for improved conditions, rather than the naive wish or the long- ing, and that aggressive professionalism will become a more widespread standard than patience and hope. It will never cease to be an embarrass- ment to those who aspire to profession- alism to find library situations in which the fiercest partisans for improvement are not the librarians themselves, but rather some outside or community group such as faculty members or teachers who struggle tenaciously for improved re- sources and conditions of operation. It is precisely here, in the passiveness or aggression of its commitment to the ideals and goals of library service, that those who practice it are assessed. Li- brarianship has not yet reached the stage in its development where it exerts the type of influence over its members which requires them to stand up and be counted on important issues or to re- fuse to practice in situations where re- sources are inadequate to do a minimal job. It therefore continues to countenance Professionalism Reconsidered / 25 forms and levels of service which fall short of adequate standards. It has been conditioned by a national and education- al leadership attuned to the acceptance of the modest and unassuming prospects of the past when resources were scarce or unattainable. In these more affluent times, librarians have still not been aroused to demand the conditions for effective performance which are typical- ly far more readily within their reach now if only they will aspire to them. For much of the history of American librarianship, the professional associa- tions remained forward of practice. But, in many ways the one primary national organization now no longer speaks with authority for all the elements in librar- ianship. Information activity under var- ious names is shifting dramatically and incorporating new forms and new paths to entry into practice. Libraries as they have traditionally functioned must either respond to contemporary requirements, or lose to competitive agencies and tech- nologies. While the principal national association has been influential in many ways, its primary focus has been and remains political rather than profession- al. It has identified predominantly with the public library, and in the process lost touch with many of the most sig- nificant developments which should be influencing the library profession. Through its overly modest position on accreditation standards for graduate edu- cation, its non-existing role in the ac- creditation or certification of libraries, and by concentrating its zeal most stren- uously upon aggrandizing the scale of its size, its political influence, and its economic power, it has contributed little to professionalization and tended, by de- fault, to perpetuate inadequacy. Like the libraries which it reflects, the American Library Association is a bu- reaucracy with the same built-in vested interests. To the extent that its key posts are held by those in administrative po- sitions in librarianship, and that power in the organization is wielded by a rela- tively small coterie, it is less a profession- al association than an administrative con- federation. Like other oligarchical organ- izations of large size and wide geo- graphical dispersion, it proves less ca- pable than it should be of attracting younger, innovating elements into its higher councils. By concentrating its ef- forts on improving only the most under- developed situations in librarianship, it frequently misses being in the vanguard of new or imaginative directions for librarianship. By assuming unto itself a wide range of national, international, research, and societal responsibilities, for which it is less than ideally equipped, it purports to do more than attain the political ends at which it is most success- ful. Conventions and meetings which ap- pear designed in greatest measure to re- assure the rank and file that problems are under control by reinforcing out- moded traditional approaches, are of only limited service to a profession in a rapidly changing world posing new de- mands. Viewed against the perspective of his- tory, librarianship can be seen to have made only slow and gradual evolution as a profession and exists now as only a marginal entry in the competitive race for professional status. The conditions of modern times, however, are such that if librarianship does not move much more rapidly forward toward enhanced professionalism, the field will not only decline rapidly, but ultimately face ob- solescence. Already, traditional and con- ventional libraries are being replaced as new agencies and new practitioners re- spond more appropriately to changing requirements for information and pro- fessional service. Progress in librarianship is made by only a relatively small number. Innova- tion remains on trial when it should be encouraged. The field stands conserva- 26 / College 6- Research Libraries • January 1968 tively and deeply rooted in the past at a time when such a stance exposes it to danger. Fundamental to advancement is the need to forge a new professional identity founded upon some of the char- acteristic elements which have been treated here.