College and Research Libraries


Letters 

Resume Essentials 

To the Editor: 
Job seekers and job changers who may 

have sought counsel' from Thomas M. 
Gaughan's article, "Resume Essentials for 
the Academic Librarian " (C&RL , March 
1980), were probably disappointed. 
Gaughan clarified little in the obscure world 
of the academic librarian selection process. 
While it is true that "academic librarian" is 
not a profession cited in the "how to" litera-
ture of resume writing, in most cases 
adaptation and interpolation of existing sam-
ples ( cf. , Gaughan's reference 4) should pro-
duce acceptable results . 

However , two steps in the personnel 
selection process that Gaughan only 
touched upon briefly do deserve further 
attention . These are the expanding use of 
search committees and the requirement for 
submitting letters of reference at the point 
of application , rather than after the first in-
terview or equivalent time. Further study 
into both of these activities would assist 
personnel librarians in determining the 
efficiency of these procedures and would 
also help the job applicants to understand 
the arcane practices in the world of 
academic librarian selection. Such studies 
would go far to enlighten these largely 
ignored areas of library practice and add 
more to the literature of the field than 
Gaughan ' s article.-Franette Sheinwald , 
Atlantic Beach , New York. 

Response 

To the Editor: 
Franette Sheinwald is correct in her 

COllEGE 
& RESEARCH 

LIBRARIES 

assertion that study of the use of search 
committees and letters of reference in the 
selection process would be of benefit to job 
seekers and library administrators. How-
ever, she seems not to have understood that 
the intent of my article was to " ... identify 
the elements of information in a resume 
that are of greatest importance and interest 
to academic libraries seeking to fill vacant 
positions" (p.123), rather than to attempt an 
explication of the whole of the selection 
process. 

I must also take issue with her assertion 
that adaptation of the literature of resume 
writing to academic librarians' resumes 
"should produce acceptable results." Cer-
tainly it can, but the evidence that reaches 
my 9ffice daily ' in the form of resumes 
more appropriate for professional salesper-
sons that for academic 'librarians , was the 
impetus for this study-Thomas M. 
Gaughan . 

NCHEMS Handbook 

To the Editor: 
The March 1980 issue of C&RL includes 

on pages 186-87 an abstract of the 
NCHEMS Handbook. Readers may be in-
terested to learn that the ALA Office for 
Research is currently revising that version 
in conjunction with the LAMA Statistics 
Section and under contract with the Nation-
al Center for Education Statistics. Mary Jo 
Lynch , of the ALA Office for Research , ex-
pects to complete the revision by the sum-
mer of 1980.-.Katherine Emerson, Univer-
sity of Massachusetts, Amherst. 

I 353 



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