College and Research Libraries W. A. MOFFETT The Acade~nic Job Crisis: A Unique Opportunity, Or Business as Usual? Robert Haro's article in the March 1972, issue ('Change in Academ- ic Libraries") ivarns that the profession is slow to accept suggestions from outside sources, but perhaps this article can best come from someone who stands midway between teaching and library service. The paper not only evokes the dimensions of the academic job crisis, and the resulting opportunity for library recruitment, but calls attention to the danger of permitting the librarians' otv'n job market to .be overrun by candidates who may not have a genuine com- mitment to library service. As a "think-piece" it is deliberately gen- eral and suggestive, with footnotes and statistics kept to a minimum. Editor's Note-Subject specialists, some have contended, do not require a general founding in the principles of librarianship to succeed as librarians. Library directors have been overheard to observe that a sub- ject Ph.D. minus the MLS actually en- hances their library's status within the local academic community. But now that the job market has changed radically, are these views still held, or for that matter had they ever gained broad acceptance? Mr. Moffett's piece raises several intrigu- ing questions. Has the attitude toward the recruitment of individuals possessing sub- ject Ph.D.'s changed? Moffett views the current job market as an opportunity for the library profession and, indeed, his per- ceptions may be correct. The editors be- lieve that the issue merits a hearing. We would like to hear from our readers regard- ing their perceptions on the role of subject The . author, who received his doctorate in English history at Duke University, is an assistant professor of history at the U niver- sity of Massachusetts at Boston and a stu- dent in the school of library science of Sim- mons College. specialists. For example, should a subject specialist Ph.D. be required to obtain a li- brary degree as a demonstration of profes- sional commitment? Readers are invited to communicate their views to the editors . ALTHOUGH IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN EXPECT- ED, a crisis in the academic marketplace long in the making is presenting librari- anship-and especially, but not exclu- sively, academic librarianship-with an opportunity for selective recruiting that to all appearances is as unanticipated as it is unprecedented in scope. It remains to be seen just what the profession will make of it. To be sure, the number of job open- ings for librarians is itself diminish- ing.1 Nonetheless, the need for better qualified professionals persists. Indeed, it is sustained by a compelling interest in fostering the development of the so- called "new breed" of librarians, by the increasing variety of roles librarians are being called upon to play, and by the continuing effort to upgrade the status I 191 192 I College & Research Libraries • May 1973 of the profession generally. The pro- fession of librarianship will be well served by bringing into its ranks men and women who have already done ad- vanced work in subject areas, who have had considerable experience in graduate level research, and who have significant- ' ly displayed proficiency in communica- tion skills. But while not long ago it was thought an ideal goal for academic li- brarians to have an M.A. in a subject field, it now seems possible to secure a substantial infusion not only of M.A.s but of Ph.D.s trained for, and in many cases experienced in, college level teach- ing. The causes of the current oversupply of Ph.D.s are too well-known to describe in detail here, but they are basically twofold: overproduction by graduate schools on the one hand, coupled with an actual attrition of job openings on the other, as the projected expansion of undergraduate colleges has not only failed to continue, but is being drasti- cally cut back. The surplus affects every major disci- pline, whether in science, social science, or the humanities. And it is severe. At last year's American Historical Associa- tion convention, for example, there were 2,300 applicants for only 155 jobs. With graduate schools still dumping ap- proximately 1,000 history .Ph.D.s on the market annually, the prospect for next year is even worse. Those who. have studied the crisis foresee little chance of any meaningful increase of jobs for many years to come.2 For these would-be academics the pos- sibilities for securing alternative em- ployment commensurate with their cre- dentials are becoming extremely thin. The idea that secondary schools and community colleges might absorb many of them has proven unrealistic. Oppor- tunities which once existed in govern- ment and industry have virtually disap- peared. Moreover, there is a tendency on the part of many prospective em- players to regard persons with a Ph.D. as overtrained, overspecialized, and very unlikely to be either contented or effi- cient in nonacademic work. Thus, as Lawrence Stone points out, many men and women with a doctorate are finding that they have apparently disqualified themselves from almost every job- apart from the four-year college-that society has to offer. What is more, a large number of the surplus Ph.D.s on today's market are by no means recent graduates. A growing percentage are experienced university teachers who have run afoul of increas- ingly restrictive tenure quotas. Indeed, with mounting pressure to economize, many institutions are showing them- selves unable to resist the expedient of hiring relays of junior staff who are let go after three to six years when their tenure decisions fall due. The classroom experienqe of. such teachers may offer them some advantage over the more re- cent graduates in securing new employ- ment, but little guarantee of maintain- ing their salary level in a tightening mar- ket. The ones lucky enough to find em- ployment are doubly lucky if their courses reflect their fields of special in- terest. Moreover, within a short time they have to run the tenure gauntlet again, with no more security than be- fore. In this unhappy state of affairs, it is not surprising that frustrated teachers are increasingly turning to librarianship for alternative academic careers, drawn naturally by reason of affinity as well as by the operation of supply and demand. Still others would be attracted if they were made more fully aware of the range of options in library service open to them. And undoubtedly the same holds true not only for the surplus Ph.D.s but for all those currently fro- zen out of the market for teachers. But will the profession be content to take a passive role? It has been observed that the "insistence of librarians that .. they want to recruit a new breed of young librarians would ring truer if they were doing more about it."3 What, for example, are they doing now at graduate schools of arts and sciences across the land to publicize career op- portunities at the point where receptive doctoral candidates may be most readily recruited-namely, the office of the graduate adviser in the individual de- partment? Are academic librarians ac- tively engaged in presenting the chal- lenges of their profession to the grad- uate students of their own universities? When the annual conventions of the various disciplines meet in the course of the coming year, thronged as usual with anxious job-seekers, will spokesmen for the academic library be there as well? And will they project a sense of some- thing more demanding and satisfying- as well as more realistic-than what has been communicated by the dull, cliche- ridden recruiting literature of the past several years? Is it possible that despite a reputation for being reluctant to respond quickly to changing needs, library schools will bestir themselves to facilitate · the re- training of people originally destined, as they thought, for conventional teach- ing positions? Have they in fact thought out the kinds of fundamental adjust- ments required of a person who at- tempts to make such a shift? Or will it be business as usual in terms of both re- cruitment and curricula? Will the avail- ability of loans and scholarships take into account the special problems of ad- vanced degree holders who are not nor- mally eligible for many types of exist- ing grants? But perhaps most importantly of all, especially if the interest in library ca- reers becomes as pronounced as this writer thinks it may, will the library schools and employers exercise intelli- gent discrimination in accepting pro- spective candidates from the ranks of the harried scholars? A Ph.D. is by no Academic ]ob Crisis I 193 means a surety that the holder will make a useful librarian, and the degree should not get in the way of thoughtful and perceptive appraisal. The glutted academic job market, after all, was fed in part by the input of substandard doc- torates. It would be doubly ironic if, as the librarians' own job market shrinks, positions are filled with job-hungry ref- ugees who, despite an impressive array of degrees, will debase, not enrich, weaken, not invigorate the "new breed" of librarians. For undoubtedly there will be those who see librarianship pri- marily as a convenient meal ticket which will claim a minimum of creative ener- gy while permitting them to carry on re- search in their subject fields. Still, that caveat aside, the opportuni- ties for recruitment should rouse the imagination of all those who have agonized over the problem of attracting professionals with genuine scholarly in- terests, a commitment to education, and the temperament for working actively with people and ideas which truly excel- lent library work requires . For it is not only that there is a sur- plus of people hungry for jobs, but that so many of them are ideally suited for service in the academic library. They are likely, at the very outset, to be enthusiastic about the potential of the library as a teaching facility. It is even possible that they would help insure more meaningful activity in that respect and fewer empty phrases. Their teach- ing background may better enable them, too, to take a useful role as librarians in the reshaping of the curriculum, in leading interdisciplinary ventures, and in promoting independent studies. One may speculate that they would signifi- cantly help bridge the gap which so of- ten separates librarians and regular fac- ulty members. They will surely rein- force the drive to secure the advantages of faculty status, with all that that en- tails. To suggest this, of course, is to pro- 194 I College & Research Libraries • May 1973 pose nothing new. Librarians have al- ways drawn new colleagues from the classroom. The novelty lies in the un- precedented numbers of prospective re- cr·uits of outstanding caliber, and the urgency of taking prompt and deliber- ate action to turn the crisis to the maxi- mum benefit of the profession. Not long ago this journal published some remarks of President Lyman of Stanford which warned that the coun- try's response to the oversupply of Ph.D.s was probably going to be deter- mined more by "the function of politi- cal attitudes and the resulting avail- ability or unavailability of money" than by "scholarly or institutional choice and ambitions."4 This need not be true of the response of librarians. If it proves to be the case, however, the profession may well have squandered a momentous opportunity. REFERENCES 1. Although the rate of decline in library open- ings in 1971 was described as only moderate by Carlyle Frarey and Carol Learmont in "Placement and Salaries, 1971: A Modest Employment Slowdown," Library Journal 97:2154-2159 (June 1972), disappointed job-seekers at last summer's ALA convention were convinced it had accelerated drastical- ly (New York Times, July 2, 1972, p. 12). 2. John L. Shover and Lawrence Stone, "Jobs for Historians and the Role of the AHA," AHA Newsletter 10: 19'--27 (March 1972). The plight of Ph.D.s in history is especially relevant because no discipline is more li- brary-oriented. A recent employment infor- mation bulletin analyzes data for the imme- diate hiring period supplied by six hundred and ninety-two four-year colleges and uni- versities (or nearly 60 percent of the insti- tutions from which information was solici- ted) . In the schools reporting-and not counting an undetermined number of job aspirants who are not new entrants into the market-there were some 2,711 persons known to be seeking immediate employment (including M.A.s, doctoral candidates, and Ph.D .s ) , and at most only 854 positions which might be filled, less than three hun- dred of which were classed as "reasonably firm"-that is, not hinging on the question of whether maximum budget and staffing re- quests were met. And only 149 of the "rea- sonably firm" slots were described as lead- ing to permanent, fulltime positions.-AHA Professional Register 2: 1 (October 1972), introduction. 3. Richard M. Gummere, Jr., "Toward a New Breed of Librarian," Wilson Library Bulle- tin 31:811 (Apr. 1967). 4. Richard W. Lyman, "New Trends in Higher Education: The Impact on the University Library," CRL 33:298-304 (July 1972). • I'