ROBERT B. DOWNS The Role of the Academic Librarian, 1876-1976 . ,- ..0., IT IS DIFFICULT for university librarians they were members of the teaching fac­ in 1976, with their multi-million volume ulty. The ordinary practice was to list collections, staffs in the hundreds, bud­ librarians with registrars, museum cu­ gets in millions of dollars, and monu­ rators, and other miscellaneous officers. mental buildings, to conceive of the Combination appointments were com­ minuscule beginnings of academic li­ mon, e.g., the librarian of the Univer­ braries a centur-y ago. Only two univer­ sity of California was a professor of sity libraries in the nation, Harvard and English; at Princeton the librarian was Yale, held collections in ·excess of professor of Greek, and the assistant li­ 100,000 volumes, and no state university brarian was tutor in Greek; at Iowa possessed as many as 30,000 volumes. State University the librarian doubled As Edward Holley discovered in the as professor of Latin; and at the Uni­ preparation of the first article in the versity of · Minnesota the librarian present centennial series, professional li­ served also as president. brarHms to maintain, service, and devel­ Further examination of university op these extremely limited holdings catalogs for the last quarter of the nine­ were in similarly short supply.1 General­ teenth century, where no teaching duties ly, the library staff was a one-man opera­ were assigned to the librarian, indicates tion-often not even on a full-time ba­ that there was a feeling, at least in some sis. Faculty members assigned to super­ institutions, that head librarians ought vise the library were also expected to to be grouped with the faculty. What the specific relationship should be, how­ teach courses in their fields of compe­ ever, was undetermined. By the begin­ tence. ning of the present century, modest ad­ EARLY VIEWS vances in the status of librarians were OF THE AcADEMIC LIBRARIAN evident. On the other hand, among eigh­ .. teen major universities checked, in no The idea of the college .and univer- instance did the librarian hold an aca­ -+- sity librarian being accepted and recog­ demic title as librarian per se. nized as a bona-fide member of the aca­ The librarian as educator received demic community still lay in the future. some support in the famous 1876 Unit­ A representative sampling of university ed States Bureau of Education's special catalogs during the 1870s reveals that report Public Libraries in the United none of these institutions conferred States of America. F. B. Perkins and .academic titles on their librarians unless William Mathews proposed the creation I 491 492 I College & Research Libraries • November 1976 of "professorships of books and read­ ficers; and, finally, at Yale the librarian ing" to guide students through the and assistant librarian were under the mazes of what even then was regarded heading of "Faculty and Instructors," as a bibliographical explosion. The in­ without titles, while the remainder of struction recommended would be pri­ the library staff were with "Other Offi­ marily for the acquisition of knowl­ cers" at the end of the faculty list. edge, "the scientific use of books," i.e., Thus, there was little consistency sev­ sound methodology, and for . "literary enty-five years ago in the classification production." A chair of books and read­ of library staff members among the na­ ing, it was suggested, might be filled by tion's universities. The sampling tech­ "an accomplished librarian."2 The first nique, however, finds a definite trend in library school was still eleven years the direction of rating the chief librar­ away. ian as faculty, despite the fact that no By the year 1900, we find that Brown breakthrough had been made toward University was listing the librarian, as­ conferring formal academic titles or sistant librarian, and four library staff ranks on them. Other than the head li­ members with "Officers of Administra­ brarian and one or two top associates, tion and Instruction"; California at it is obvious that professional library Berkeley included the librarian in the staff members lacked any definite place ,.t. Academic Senate, but without academic in the educational hierarchy. rank, while the remainder of the library Voices crying in the wilderness were ~ staff appeared under "Assistants and trying to make themselves heard at an .. Other Officers"; the University of Chi­ early date. H. A. Sawtelle, writing on cago recognized the librarian by making college librarianship, in 1878, states: him a member of the University Senate Time was when if a college librarian and University Council; at Columbia, cataloged and placed his books and for the librarian was among "Officers of half an hour twice a week charged the Administration"; Cornell listed the li­ borrowed volumes and checked the re­ brarian and his staff under "Officers of turned ones, he had sufficiently dis­ Instruction and Administration"; Har­ charged his duty. But it has come to be vard did the same. understood that it becomes him to be At Illinois, the librarian was a mem­ daily ready to be consulted in rela- ber of the Senate and Council and a tion to any book or ~ubject, to converse professor, but by virtue of being direc­ freely with the students in regard to their reading, inspiring their literary in­ tor also of the library school, while oth­ terest, guiding their taste, bringing to er librarians were listed with "Labora­ their attention the right kind of appe­ tory and Other Assistants"; Indiana tizing works, and if needful gently lead­ used the heading of "Library Officers," ing on the reader from light and tasty following the listing of "Faculty"; at books to those of high quality and per­ Missouri the librarian was one of "Oth­ manent utility. To us nothing in the er Officers"; North Carolina included life of the college student seems to be him among "Officers of Administra­ of greater importance than just this in­ tion"; Northwestern's heading of "Offi­ spiration and guidance. But all this is time consuming and requires no small cers of Instruction and Government" amount of understanding and skill.a included the librarian; Pennsylvania named its librarian and assistant librari­ The writer concluded that such col­ an under "Administrative Officers"; lege librarianship as he described Texas and Wisconsin grouped the li­ "ought not to be annexed to a profes­ brarians and their staff together follow­ sorship, but be itself a professorship." ing the listing of faculty and other of- As early as 1891, President Daniel Academic Librarian I 493 Coit Gilman of Johns Hopkins Univer­ at Columbia and· given permission to sity, himself a former librarian, assert­ open a new school. Every possible road­ ed that "the librarian's office should block, however, was placed in the way: rank with that of professor .... The no money, no faculty, no equipment, profession of librarian should be dis­ no space, and Dewey was directed not tinctly .recognized. Men and women to admit women, who at the time were should be encouraged to enter it, should banned from Columbia. "' be trained to discharge its duties, and The School of Library Economy should be rewarded, promoted, and hon­ opehed officially on January 5, 1887, ored in proportion to the services they with an enrollment of twenty students render."4 -three men and seventeen women, from which ~ight be marked the be­ TRAINING FOR LIBRARIANSIDP ginning of the feminization of the li­ The matter of training for librarian­ brary profession. Immediately, stormy ship, mentioned by Gilman, was in its weather was encountered. Dewey was de­ infancy at the time that he was writing. termined to accept women students, and The pioneer institution in the field was, the Columbia trustees were equally ada­ of course, Melvil Dewey's School of Li­ mant against the institution's becoming brary Economy at Columbia University, coeducational. which began instruction in 1887. The Thus acting in direct violation of the establishment of such a school had been explicit orders of the trustees of the in Dewey's mind for at least a decade, college, Dewey sef the course for a head­ but he had found little enthusiasm for on collision. Almost exactly two years it among his most influential profession­ after the opening of the library school, al colleagues. Their point of view is he was forced to resign as Columbia's represented in a critical statement from librarian. But Dewey was not unem­ William F. Poole, compiler .of Poole's ployed for long. He moved to Albany Index to Periodical Literature, who to become New York State Librarian, commented: "I have entertained the taking the school with him and estab­ idea that practical work in a library, lishing it as the New York State Library based on a good previous education in School, which was for more than thirty­ the schools, was the only proper way to five years thereafter the leading Amer­ train good librarians."5 ican school for librarians. Another dominant figure in the Amer­ The School · of Library Economy at ican library world, Justin Winsor, Har­ Columbia and other early library vard University librarian, also adhered schools, following Melvil Dewey's lead­ to the view .that practical experience in ership, were heavily weighted on the a well-organized library was the best practical side, emphasizing perfection preparation for librarianship, and John in technical details and preparing stu­ Shaw Billings, later director of the New dents to step directly into the manage­ York Public Library, spoke emphatical­ ment of library routines. In many of ly against the proposal to create a school their aspects, the programs res em bled an to teach librarianship.