The Suicide of the Public Librarian

Management efforts to look good in the short term are leading to the demise of the MLS

There is a public library that I know of, a system that has become a "must stop" for library managers from around the nation who hope to learn its secrets to achieving public recognition for service effectiveness. Well supported by local government, the library system is heavily used by customers who crowd its parking lot and flow through its doors. Unfortunately, it is also a library system that hides a dirty little secret—its success, in part, is built on the continued downgrading of its professional positions. Library workers who have not studied for the MLS now hold responsibilities once carried out by professional librarians. The survival of professional librarianship involves what other fields have called "process theories of professionalism." Simply stated, such theories hold that a degree, even one from a program accredited by the American Library Association (ALA), does not guarantee that a librarian professional will get respect in the workplace. Such affirmative regard has to be supported by one's employer. Support for librarian professionalism is clearly lacking when an employer, regardless of national standing, strips away critical responsibilities and systematically underpays its librarian staff. Radical redefinition This library's systematic denigration of its own professional staff takes many forms. The responsibility for developing the library's collection has been removed from the public service librarians—who are now expected to concentrate on providing information. Collection development has been handed over to part-time librarian selectors. This step represents a professional demotion of the public service librarians. That move was recognized by the library's own salary and position consultants, who assigned a higher hourly wage to the part-time selectors on the basis that their collection development responsibilities were clearly more professional than the public service duties of colleagues at the service desks. It is legitimate to argue over the precise line for dividing collection responsibilities between centralized selectors and librarians who interact with customers. Removing public service librarians from the process, however, cannot be justified. After comparing its work force with a group of local libraries, this nationally known institution determined that it is "over-MLS-ed." It has adopted a systematic policy of reviewing each librarian vacancy with the intent of minimizing the position to that of an associate, which does not require a graduate degree from an ALA-accredited program. A 19th-century vision Among other duties, these associates are assigned to work reference desks where the professionally educated librarians estimate that it takes three years of on-the-job, apprenticeship training to bring them up to speed in providing public service. For more than a century professional status has been equated with earning appropriate graduate degrees. By reverting to a 19th-century vision of service staff education requirements and needs, the library management demeans its own academic preparation and the professional education of those who have long delivered its core services. Realizing that full-time staff with many years of employment are unlikely to look elsewhere for a job, this library maintains professional compensation scales at about $1 less per hour than the average of the libraries to which it compares itself. The library also has removed storytelling from the duties of its youth librarians. These professionals with master's degrees are now expected to be managers only. They are required to train the library associates of their department in the highly specialized skills of the storyteller, telling stories themselves only under exceptional circumstances. This is a thoughtless approach. Even in tightly unionized environments, contracts frequently allow librarian supervisors to spend a portion of their time doing the "line position" work on the valid grounds that managers must maintain their own professional skills, if only to evaluate accurately the employees they supervise. The issue needs debate We call the library the "Jonestown Public Library" (JPL) and have named the state of its location "Franklin." Revealing the actual name of this facility would institutionalize and personalize the discussion and would add nothing to the more important issue of deprofessionalization. This essay must not be considered an indictment that the JPL senior administrators are incompetent or evil. The national recognition and strong history of local support clearly indicate that they are functioning remarkably well in the short run. Their mortal professional sin is shortsightedness. Years ago Tony Miele, the director with whom I worked at the Alabama Public Library Service, the state's library agency, was very frustrated when heads of other government departments complained about his efforts to upgrade librarian salaries and responsibilities in Alabama librarian job descriptions. His success meant that other departments had to pay their own librarians more money. Miele believed supporting the status of the library profession was absolutely essential. He understood that it was his responsibility to demonstrate the value of our profession to those who controlled the purse strings. In contrast, JPL managers diminish librarian responsibilities and return the education of public service staff to an old-fashioned apprenticeship system. The JPL environment is not amenable to professional progress; it is a context for professional suicide. Master's programs will adjust As a library and information educator I could be accused of self-serving entreaty. However, the JPL devaluing of its professional positions is not really a threat to ALA-accredited master's programs. Our enrollments are, generally, at their highest levels ever. Corporations and other employers, even in this recession, have learned to value the education our graduates receive for an information-driven economy. If the JPL style of deprofessionalization becomes a public library standard, we will create or expand undergraduate degree programs in information use and management to meet their new needs. We treasure our master's degree programs, but it is a higher education truism that all tuition dollars, whether supplied by graduate or undergraduate students, are equally useful in paying faculty salaries or meeting other educational expenses. The JPL example shows the danger of using mere numbers from national databases to evaluate library systems and give them recognition or acclaim as models for other libraries. From a managerial/educational vantage point, I am reluctantly coming to believe the JPL case is a strong basis for librarian unionization. Where senior library managers prosper by discounting the value of their own profession, front-line librarian professionals must organize to determine their own survival and future.