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VISIONS Raising Our Professional Expectations Two-Track Approach to Librarianship

by Susan Martin

with a

A cademic librarianship is an interesting profession. With essentially one qualifying degree, the profession draws both those who aspire to be no

more than 9-to-5 librarians and those who come early, leave late, participate in professional activities, and want a fulfilling professional career. In the past, librarianship was able to easily accommodate people on either track. We were flexible in our standards for school accreditation, student education, and job requirements. We could afford to maintain this approach because librarianship was a fairly static field that was sustained through well-established traditions. Innovation was not really an issue.

Times, as they say, have certainly changed. In the last 30 years or so, the profession has been faced with changes on all fronts-and traditional curricula, job skills, and attitudes do not serve us well. Discussions within the Strategic Visions Steering Committee and at professional conferences in the past 18 months have sometimes addressed this issue head on, but usually have skirted the topic. There is clearly no profession-wide consensus on our own expectations for ourselves as professionals.

Within a society that increasingly stresses accountability, the subject can no longer be avoided. With some reluctance, but with deep conviction, I now believe that the flexibility that has allowed people with different career aspirations to enter and practice librarianship is a major factor in our dissatisfaction with ourselves as professionals, and with librarianship as a profession. We now know that it is essential to acknowledge and remedy what amounts to a lack of professional standards.

Librarians are very conscious of the stereotypical image that the rest of the world is assumed to have of the profession, and we often express our dissatisfaction with it-calling it untrue or unfair. But to change this image we must make internal changes that signal that we hold high expectations for ourselves, that we view our profession as exciting and responsive to the changing information environment.

I am talking about restructuring and redefining our profession. We know what performance levels are required for excellent or outstanding service on the job; these performance levels must form the basis for our new self-

Susan Martin is University Librarian, Georgetown University,

Washington, D.C.

definition. Then we must decide what elements of professional behavior should characterize these performance levels. Should librarians be expected to be responsible to individual clients? To work until the job is done, rather than until the end of the shift? To make professional contributions in the form of research or publication? To be able and willing to work with other members of the information community?

One approach to this redefinition would be to create two distinct categories for libraria_nship-perhaps termed Professional Librarian and Occupational Librarian-with different requirements for education, training, and job responsibilities. Career advancement and full professional status would be available to Professional Librarians who contributed to their own professional growth; Occupational Librarians would be evaluated on their 9-to-5 job performance.

Is this two-track option a reasonable one? I think so. In fact, I know of one library that is now developing a rank and structure system for its librarians that allows each to select for her/himself whether career advancement, and the intellectual effort required of it, is a worthy pursuit. If the answer is “no,” the individual can remain in a professional position (i.e., one requiring an MLS), but will not be given the kinds of responsibilities, assignments, and promotions given to those who pursue higher career goals.

A more basic step in our professional transformation is to rebuild, or at least remodel, our educational framework. Perhaps the MLS should continue to be the basic degree for both types of librarians, but those on the professional track will be expected to continue their education, as do faculty, by taking courses to update and increase current knowledge in the field.

Raising the expectations of an entire profession, the first step in the change process, is a massive task. But I could argue that our future value in the information arena- and our ability to remain a vital force in the academic community-depends on it. Just as we used to say that libraries had to change in fundamental ways to avoid becoming museums, librarians must now transform themselves to avoid being relegated to museum caretakers. We have the capacity to change ourselves, to raise our expectations and standards for the profession, but we lack consensus and leadership. These we must establish quickly and decisively.

The Journal of Academic Librarianship, vol. 19, no. 1, p. 24 01993 by the Journal of Academic Librarianship. All rights reserved.