Training for Efficient Service' BYRON A. SOULE University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan
A . '
NY menhon of library service to a librarian invanably prompts the question, "What kind of a library do you have in mind?" This is simply a defense mechanism aroused by extensive general critiasm and suggests the type of alibi being held in reserve for the time when the discussion grows too warm. Let us dispose of this question a t the outset by stating that we are here interested in technical library service, which may be interpreted broadly to mean the service required by technically trained people in the conduct of their business. When technicians need informational assistance, whether it be in the laboratory or plant, the duty of the librarian is to procure that information if published. Furthermore, excuses are not acceptable in place of the desired data. "The book is not on the shelf" is no useful answer to the question, "What is the melting point of lead?" Such a reply can be due only to indifference or incompetence attributable, perhaps, to poor training rather than any lack of native ability. One other point should be made clear. From the standpoint of the reader (anyone going to the library to use the books) the mechanics of library work have no connection with efficient service. He is interested only in the prompt production of the book. Classification and cataloging do not concern him, while the dictionary catalog is merely a place to hide cards. Frankly, why should a reader be burdened with the librarian's tasks? He doesn't ask her to perform his experiments. Why should she expect him to master her filing rules? The answers to these questions, if there are any, plunge us directly into the problems of training for efficient library service. Schools of library science were established many years ago to meet the urgent demand for public library custodians. Gradually a fairly tiniform course of training was adopted. It included the six mandatory activities: book selection, classification, cataloging, administration, reference work, and bibliography, along with a few specialties. Liberally educated persons with A.B. degrees were admitted and a t the end of two semesters of passable work were granted a second bachelor's degree, then sent forth as professional librarians. Unquestionably they met the needs of the times, but times change. Twenty years ago the Carnefie . Corporation made an extensive investigation
'Presented at the Division of Chemical Education of the American Chemical Society. 107th meeting, Cleveland, Ohio, April 4. 1944.
and recommended revisions in the curriculum. More recently many caustic articlesqave been published but too many schools have merely turned a deaf ear. Year after year, as routine drudgery bas mounted with the ever-increasingvolume of printed matter, they have firmly entrenched themselves behind the card catalog and defied modernization. So the first and most obvious step in training for efficientservice is to start with the source of inefficiency, the schools of library science. They must clearly see how absurd it is to put five-dollar hand processing on a dollar book, especially when the final result-the card catalog-is so complicated that i t defeats its own purpose. The schools must call in machine experts and let them devise machines to do the drudgery. If the human voice can be heard in every corner of this earth merely by the use of a few radio tubes, certainly some of the processing and servicing operations in a library are not insurmountable problems for machinery. As the number of identical or type operations increases in any field, the call for mechanical aids becomes more insistent. Library work reached the "urgent" state long ago. When released from backstage demands. the schooIs. will have time to evaluate their objectives. They must rediscover the simple fact that the true success of a library is not measured in terms of the number of books correctly classified, but by the rate a t which satisfied readers leave the front door. Then the curriculum will be revised and educated librarians rather than trained bookkeepers will be the goal. Cooperation with the various departments will result in the production of subject specialists-scientist-librarians, technology-librarians, chemistry-librarians. These people will understand the problems of the laboratory worker from personal experience. They will talk his language. What is more important, they will know his literature and how to search it. They, as true library technologists, will keep him informed of the latest developments in his special field and, from the library angle, be just as essential in his work as he is in the laboratory end. If many library schools do not soon bestir themselves they may disappear. The apprenticeship system will regain its former prestige. The special librarians who have been so successful in spite of their librarv school ' Su for example: HOOLE, American Scholar, 13,110 (Winter,
-
19434).
training will, through the Science-Technology Group of the Special Libraries Association, establish a system of "in-service" training much like the Westinghouse and General Electric schemes for training their new college-graduate employees. Due to its very aggressive, businesslike attitude, the Science-Technology Group will tend to promote the investigation of up-to-
date methods and encourage their adoption whenever feasible. Long experience with the actual problems and an acute awareness of their own initial shortcomings give this group a foundation upon which to build an apprenticeship course of real merit. Perhaps this idea is not the solution to the problem, but i t may serve as a starting point in the discussion of ways and means.
