FRANCES L. HOPKINS A Century of Bibliographic Instruction: The Historical Claim to Professional and Academic Legitimacy This paper links the origin, decline, and renaissance of bibliographic instruc­ tion (BI) to the increasing specialization and democratization of education. It argues that BI in academic libraries and the reference desk in public libraries were both initiated to foster independent learning by unsophisticated users; that BI, introduced by scholar-librarians in the 1870s, could not be sustained by the semiclerical graduates of early library schools and was consequently displaced by the reference desk, and that improved training and status for li­ brarians contributed to the BI renaissance of the 1960s. Library schools should recognize the centrality of BI to academic librarianship and develop its theo­ retical base. Concept-oriented BI can help students understand the disciplines as different but equally rigorous approaches to knowledge by comparing their bibliographic structures and research methods. INTRODUCTION enced in the teaching role and ready to put Three broad themes comprise the major these basic issues first. bibliographic instruction (BI) issues that are In this paper, these three dimensions will now coming to the fore, and define the likely be projected backward into the early history dimensions of BI's continuing development. of bibliographic instruction. What were the Intellectually, BI librarians, or instruction li­ intellectual and social issues then and how brarians, as they will also be referred to here, were they related? An approach from this are striving to move BI content from facts perspective may illuminate the present situa­ and procedures to concepts and theory. So­ tion and help BI librarians go forward with a cially, they are struggling on two fronts: in clearer sense of purpose. the academic environment they seek recogni­ HISTORY tion of the educational value of bibliographic instruction; in their own professional envi­ The modern American system of higher ronment, they seek its recognition as a core education and the development of librarian­ function of librarianship. These are not new ship as a distinct occupation both had their themes, of course. The difference now is that origins soon after the Civil War, as a conse­ there is finally a critical mass of instruction quence of four interdependent social forces: librarians who are confident and experi~ the growing importance of technology, the democratization of American culture, the secularization of knowledge, and the bur­ Frances L. Hopkins is head of the Reference Ser­ geoning of basic scientific research and sys­ vices Department, Temple University Library, tematic scholarship. 1 The character of aca­ Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. demic libraries was shaped by their dual 192 I Bibliographic Instruction I 193 environment of academia and librarianship, was accompanied by a surge of library devel­ and the early rise and swift decline of biblio­ opment. 2 Both university and public libraries graphic instruction between 1870 and World began building research collections in the War I can be traced to the combined effects 1860s. The technical problems of organizing of these environments. large collections for efficient access were Until the 1860s American higher educa­ solved by Dewey's classification scheme, de­ tion followed the British model. Through a veloped at Amherst College in the 1870s, and fixed religious and classical curriculum, the Cutter's dictionary catalog, which was intro-· goal was to turn upper-class youths into duced at Harvard in 1861. The new research moral, cultured gentlemen. In 1862, when libraries existed for the sake of scholars, and the Morrill Act provided federal land grants it was reasonable to assume that professors for the establishment of institutions to teach working in specialized fields knew their liter­ "agriculture and the mechanic arts," higher ature and could cope with classification and education was transformed into an instru­ cataloging schemes. But the broadening of ment for social betterment. In the 1870s the college course offerings under the elective same spirit motivated introduction of the system and the new independence of students elective system. Both elite, private Harvard was creating a class of novice library users. and democratic, land-grant Cornell began Librarians championed students' right to in­ allowing students to fashion their own pro­ dependent access by extending library hours grams, opening the way for faculty members beyond the usual one or two days a week and to offer whatever courses their interests dic­ by helping students select books and find in­ tated. For the presidents of both institutions formation. this was a deliberate means of replacing the Most of the early academic librarians were old curriculum with new, socially useful sub­ professors, responsible part-time for the li­ jects without first having to debate educa­ brary, possibly chosen for the job because tional philosophy with conservatives. they retained generalist interests in an era of The elective system was widely copied, increasing specialization. Their natural in­ and the resulting proliferation of college sub­ clination in an academic setting was to teach jects led not only to a demand for more pro­ the use of library materials for academic pur­ fessors but to a demand for a new kind of poses. Justin Winsor, appointed at Harvard professor- the subject specialist to replace in 1877 as professor of bibliography and one the generalist, who had been master of all of the few full-time academic librarians, was subjects in the old, narrow, fixed curricu­ a Harvard graduate who had studied at Paris lum. As the transformation of college educa­ and Heidelberg and was a respected histo­ tion progressed, the enlarged, specialized rian and cartographer. 3 He believed that col­ faculties became grouped into academic de­ leges should "pay more attention to the meth­ partments. Their specialized expertise soon ods by which a subject is attacked" and brought them the right to determine pro­ should "teach the true use of encyclopedic grams and standards within their own fields, and bibliographic helps."4 a power formerly centralized in the presi­ Azariah Root of Oberlin College Library dent. While this decentralization was occur­ had an Oberlin BA and an MA, had studied ring at the college level, the rapid develop­ law at Boston University and Harvard, and ment of scientific research and systematic had spent a year at Gottingen, 5 whose li­ scholarship, modeled on the German brary provided the standard for the new achievement, led to the establishment of American universities. 6 From 1899 to 1927 research-oriented graduate education. Johns he taught a sequence of courses on library or­ Hopkins, which opened in 1876 (with, it ganization, bibliographic resources, and the should be noted, a former Yale librarian, history of the book. 7 Edwin Woodruff, re­ Daniel Gilman, as first president), was porting on BI at Cornell in 1886, wrote that planned as a graduate institution only. Har­ it was the "duty of a college library to teach vard, anticipating competition from this the student how he may, if necessary, at any new university, was prompted to offer time in his post-collegiate years, seek out and graduate-level courses in 1875. use the books that have displaced or carried This educational revolution of the 1870s along the knowledge of his college days" and 194 I College & Research Libraries· May 1982 to "reveal to [the student] the fact that no The early entries from such institutions as professor's word is final."8 Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Amherst, Dart­ Academic librarians were thus on the way mouth, Bowdoin, Wesleyan, Columbia, and to establishing a position for themselves as Johns Hopkins show the influence of the educators, and they could perhaps have Winsor-Root-Woodruff approach. From filled in part the general education role abdi­ 1907 on, there is increasing incidence of arti­ cated by a specialized faculty. But the inexo­ cles on teaching basic access skills to fresh­ rable flood of acquisitions in research li­ men in normal schools and agricultural col­ braries caused a shortage of trained leges, and by 1926 the opinion was published librarians, who learned their profession one that freshman instruction is remedial and by one as apprentices after receiving their should be the responsibility of the high . college degrees. Responding to the shortage, schools. Melvil Dewey opened his School of Library Meanwhile, another approach to user as­ Economy at Columbia in 1877, where he sistance was taking hold in academic li­ was then librarian. With reformist zeal, he braries. In 1876 Samuel Green reported his not only admitted women to his school but introduction of formal reference service at required only native ability and good charac­ the Worcester, Massachusetts, Public Li­ ter for entrance, over strong protest by Win­ brary. 11 Public libraries had a concern for sor and other leaders in the field. Other li­ the needs of unsophisticated users similar to brary schools followed his lead. Courses in the academic librarians' concern for stu­ the early library schools were entirely practi­ dents, and the idea of having a librarian at a cal, emphasizing typing and "library hand" visible desk to give ad hoc responses to indi­ as well as classification. 9 Thus, classification vidual users' questions was gradually and cataloging, which had required enter­ adopted into academic libraries. Unlike BI, prising intelligence for their invention, were reference service required no planning or lec­ largely routinized within a few years into turing, no direct involvement in the aca­ semiclerical work. demic program, and little exposure to faculty Most of the new library school graduates scrutiny. To the average library school grad­ were neither the intellectual nor social equals uate, the role of reference librarian must of academic faculty. BI of the sort developed have been much more congenial than any at­ by Winsor and Root could not be routinized tempt to emulate Justin Winsor as professor or divorced from familiarity with the curric­ of bibliography.