I want to thank people for their comments on the piece I wrote for Art
Documentation. It has been an eye-opener.
I'll address the main points. I regret that I lack the space to address
all comments that came my way on the list and behind the scenes.
1. About the dual-degree programs at Indiana and at Pratt: yes, I could
have mentioned them, but the research, (and political
maneuvering/sifting) needed to do it thoroughly and fairly would have
been a PhD dissertation. I never intended to speak for all students in
all library schools. This is why I wrote some of the piece in the first
person, and why I revealed some embarrassing facts about my school, and
myself as well. (Who wants to confess they didn't get a job, and
why?) It is up to provosts and student organizations who are closer
to those schools to ask whether the programmes at Indiana and Pratt are
going to work out in the long-run -- and if they are really needed now.
The principles of dual degreeism are certainly open to question wherever
they are implemented -- especially if anything resembling a library
school is involved.
I would point out that the situations are different in Canada than in
the US: the unemployment rate is much higher up here, possibly because
of a higher rate of supply side education, possibly because of a higher
rate of foreign ownership and immigration. But this only strengthens my
point about the consequences of supply side education -- especially
library schools: Americans don't need them, and Canadians can't afford
them. Americans at least had the courage to close some library schools,
I wish we had.
2. The way we now educate/train librarians isn't the only way
possible. It's CUSTOMARY ONLY. And it's breaking down. Ask your
colleagues how many now have MLS degrees. Some areas of librarianship
have almost no MLS/LIS-degreed librarians. Harvard appears to use
normal graduate degrees more often than not, as according to some
sources, does Columbia. And map librarians: how many of these have an
ALA-accredited degree? As a guess, I would imagine that almost half of
all librarians have no ALA degree. And, if librarian' is defined as a
person paid to work with information in a library, it is likely that
less than 10% have ALA degrees. If Roma Harris is correct, the decline
is probably accelerating. Add to that the growing user autonomy due to
technology, and the obliteration of most of librarianship is in sight.
Museums will be among the last to lose their librarians and archivists
-- they may never lose all of them. Museums are special and will
probably increase in value in the future -- they have artifacts and
larger purposes.
ALL IT TAKES IS ONE GOOD LIBRARIAN TRAINED/EDUCATED/FIT FOR WORK WITHOUT
THE LIBRARY SCHOOL'S PARTICIPATION, AND MY POINT IS MADE. JUST ONE.
In fact, there are thousands just like that in Canada and the U.S.
Continuing Ed and Distance Ed is a generous concession to the library
schools/library educators -- these avenues of instruction may not even
be needed.
3. My "inflammatory" comments would only "surprise" the reader who has
not been exposed to the critical literature in librarianship. My piece
actually belongs to a genre: those criticizing fundamental principles of
library education. The problem is that the schools appear to have
chosen not to expose this material to their students.
A bibliography of critical literature would begin with Cronin's
"Shibboleth and Substance," move on to Roma Harris's work (Cronin and
Harris spar with one another by the way) and would along the way include
a couple of important pieces by art librarians: Jane Wright's argument
about the nature of specialism v. generalism and Guy de Marco and
Wolfgang Freitag's argument on the need for a new way to train
specialists -- i.e., music and art librarians. ALL the critical writers
devalue MLS/Library science education; ALL point to the need for genuine
educations to replace them. And ALL point to the need to separate out
the practical: to use on-the-job opportunities to learn the basics of
the work. Cronin (1995) suggests 2-yr internships in libraries while
removing library science itself from LIS schools (his own school
included!), Freitag and many others suggest giving credit for MA/PHD
courses in Art History/Music/History in place of many MLS courses.
IFLA's Art Librarianship Reader is the best single source for all of
the above with the exception of Cronin's classic piece. Art
librarianship's long-standing distrust of the MLS is one of the best
things about that branch of librarianship. A NEW, UPDATED IFLA ART
LIBRARIANSHIP READER WOULD BE GREAT. THEN LOBBY TO HAVE LIBRARY SCHOOLS
USE IT.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Cronin, Blaise. "The Education of Library-Information Professionals: A
Conflict of Objectives?" ASLIB OCCASIONAL PUBLICATION, No. 28, London,
1982
Cronin, Blaise. "Shibboleth and Substance in North American Library and
Information Science Education." LIBRI, Vol 45 (1995) 45-63
De Marco, Guy and Freitag, Wolfgang. "Establishing Rapport with the
large art or music collection." LIBRARY TRENDS 1975. Reprinted in
IFLA's Art Librarianship Reader
Why this literature is not mandatory reading is a mystery to me. If
librarianship were a genuine profession, it would have to address it; if
library education were a genuine graduate school experience, it would
address it as a matter of course.
4. As to the "combination of very practical skills as well as
theoretical ideas about the nature of information" making it possible to
"think about how best make the information being catalogued available to
patrons" -- this is the embodiment of the stunting qualities of dual
degreeism that occurs when the library school is in charge of the degree
arrangement. It confirms my point about the negative effect of dual
degrees when an art history degree is directed primarily to the uses of
library and information management rather than in its own directions.
This is like using a Physics MSc/Trade school diploma dual degree to do
plumbing. Plumbing is a good trade -- my father was a tradesman -- but
I wouldn't want plumbers to have to take out 20,000 in student loans and
a 2-year degree (with very little compensatory on-the-job training!) to
be a plumber. Apprenticeships are a good way to learn a trade; and
librarianship is a trade. Cataloguing continues to be needed -- but
does a cataloguer need a library degree and $20,000 student loans to do
this work? Probably not.
And, in my experience, the one thing library school does not teach
its students is how to evaluate what they read, otherwise there would be
some evidence somewhere of courses on discourse analysis, radical
librarianship and its own critical literature. We did endless tours of
libraries and one silly piece of "practical" busywork after another,
but we had no relevant intellectual work, or even LIBRARY SCHOOL
SUPERVISED internships.
5. My complaints are indeed with the "MLS in general as being beneath
the dignity of a scholar, and (2) with dual-degree students who he seems
to feel may not be on a par with single-degree art historians." I may
even be resentful. BUT the idea that "education is what you make of it,
what you bring to the table and what you take away" is simplistic. This
supply-side argument would seem to absolve the schools of
responsibility. The schools have courses, they make you take a certain
number; persons with power over you teach them; and you're not allowed
to leave (in a positive way!) until you do all that's requested of you.
And, human nature makes it difficult to admit a sacrifice was a waste.
It has been hard for me.
Library school "education" was a bit like being in the army (which at
one point financed some of my university): no matter what you "take away
from it" it's still the army. Yes, you can get fit, learn how to drive
a tank, and appreciate something of what combat does to a person, but
where is the "higher education" in this? You don't have the time --
you're in the army! The library school I know best is fundamentally
anti-intellectual, obscurantist, and so dominated by busywork that you
don't have time to think. I did a community college degree at one
point, and would have to say that they are at about the same level,
except that the library school does a poorer job of preparing you for
work.
C.S. Peirce said: "at least do not deter inquiry." It should be the
equivalent of the Hippocratic oath for teachers and scholars. The
library schools -- in providing dross with a cudgel -- deter inquiry.
The only good I took out of my library school was: a thesis length
argument -- which could not be made an official thesis because the dept
has so few people qualified to supervise a thesis -- and a renewed
appreciation of real knowledge produced in a real graduate department.
6. Someone else suggested that I was "bitter" and that this somehow
would have an effect on what I wrote. I am so much more than bitter!
$25,000 in student loans for a degree which I now believe could have
been achieved through on-the-job training and a small concession or two
to the intellectual skills I already possessed before even going to
library school!? How do you think I feel?! I feel cheated. I was
cheated, just as 20,000 librarians have been cheated over the course of
time I was in library school. I wrote this piece to get people
thinking. So that maybe library work preparation can be done better --
so that students don't have to do the stupid things we all did, when in
fact most of it was never required at all.
8. And last, Joan Benedetti's presumption about my "personality."
I HAVE NEVER MET MS BENEDETTI. SHE HAS NEVER MET ME. HER SLUR IS
UNWARRANTED, AND IN BOTH OF OUR COUNTRIES QUALIFIES AS LIBELLOUS. WHAT
SHE HAS SAID COULD BE CONSTRUED AS LIMITING MY ABILITY TO OBTAIN and/or
PURSUE EMPLOYMENT, MOREOVER, APPEARS TO BE INTENDED TO PRODUCE THIS
EFFECT. I AM OWED A RETRACTION.
That said, what better indication of the pseudo-professional status of
librarianship could you find than in Benedetti's remarks? Who else
hires on the basis of personality (or "attitude") rather than knowledge:
real estate, maybe; retail sales, more often than not; Starbucks, and
lesser restaurants, certainly. Do you want your surgeon or your lawyer
-- or your garage mechanic for that matter -- to have a "good
personality" rather than knowledge?
I guess librarians can be hired on lesser criteria. Which was one of
my points all along. I leave librarianship behind to begin the pursuit
of a PhD in Classics.
Thank you.
Gary Ditchburn
Victoria BC.
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