ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries September 1986 / 501 .RESEARCHF ORUM Librarians and historians at the American Historical Association By Jo y ce D u ncan F alk History R eferen ce Librarian and Data Services Coordinator University o f California, Irvine At the annual meeting of the American Histori­ cal Association, the Association for the Bibliogra­ phy of History sponsored three panels related to historians’ use of library resources. At one session three historian-librarians presented their views on “H istorians’ and L ib rarian s’ Approaches to R e­ search: Implications for Educating Historians, L i­ brarians, and Archivists.” Stephen K. Stoan elabo­ rated on the points made in his article, “Research and L ib ra ry S k ills,” C o lleg e an d R esea rch L i ­ braries 45 (March 1 9 8 4 ):9 9 -1 0 9 , by recounting his experiences as a graduate student and history in­ structor. (A summary of his presentation is given on p. 5 0 3 — E d .). In my “Reply to Stephen Stoan” I agreed with Stoan’s brief that librarians should understand and articulate the distinction between library skills and research and with his explanation of the impor­ ta n ce of n o n -lib rary resources in h isto rical re­ search, for example, graduate school experience, colleagues, footnotes, and textbooks. I believe, however, he has overdrawn the misunderstanding between librarians and historians as he has over­ simplified and misrepresented librarians’ attitudes and practices. Stoan cautions librarians against misjudging the competence of history professors to teach students bibliography and goes to the oppo­ site extreme of uncritically accepting historians’ re­ search habits and of assuming that anything they publish is ipso fa c to good research. Stoan draws an artificial distinction between the historian’s use of footnotes and textbooks and the li­ b r a r ia n ’s use of indexes and encyclop edias; in truth, today’s librarian knows the value and use of all of these. Stoan criticizes the librarian’s highly systematic approach to research without recogniz­ ing that librarians adjust their presentations to the level of the student and that they do take into ac­ count the non-system atic aspects of research. W hile understanding the virtues of serendipity, browsing, gradual accum ulation and random asso­ ciatio n of ideas, b a ck tra ck in g , and other non- systematic “methods,” we should also realize that they are often used by scholars simply for pleasure, out of habit, from lack of fam iliarity with tools that would be useful, and from lack of effort in using available resources. I suspect that most librarians know professors amazingly well-versed in the bibliography of their field and knowledgeable about the broad field of history bibliography as well, but it is unwarranted to assume that all professors are so equipped, even if they did receive what they consider excellent training in graduate school. It is irresponsible to encourage the general assumption that professors are competent to teach or interested in teaching the bibliography and library use skills that their stu­ dents need to know. Stoan and I agreed that graduate students are the most likely to need and to benefit from biblio­ graphic instruction; but, contrary to Stoan’s argu­ ments, I pointed out that at some institutions un­ d e rg ra d u a te cou rses do r e q u ire in d e p e n d e n t library work. Furtherm ore, librarians are usually able to distinguish among courses and professors, tailor bibliographic instruction to the particular 502 / C & RL News class, and accept the fact that some classes do not need it at all. In addressing the question of the impact of on­ line database searching on bibliographic instruc­ tion in history, I noted that it varies depending on the personality and interests of the professor, the research topics in a class, and the other resources available for the subject. Whereas the literature on humanists’ attitude toward use of online searching cites the need for an intermediary as an obstacle to such usage, I have not experienced reluctance on the part of history professors to discuss their re­ search topics and participate with the librarian- intermediary in search strategy development and performance of the search. Teaching history stu­ dents and faculty about online database searching is a significant responsibility of the instructional li­ b rarian. T he increasing availability of online searching by specialist intermediaries, the growth in the number of systems for searching by the indi­ vidual researcher, and the rapid spread of online catalogs make bibliographic instruction impera­ tive for the history student’s success in college and in later professional life. There is little cause to fear that librarians will misrepresent library use and the gathering of a list of citations as research. The implications of this discussion for the educa­ tion of librarians are that library school students preparing for academic librarianship should have genuine research experience in a subject matter, be thoroughly current in instructional theory and practice, and pursue continuing education in a subject area through reading current research and through participating in professional meetings. By reading Stoan’s article in C &R L they can heighten their awareness of the variety of aspects of research and of the pitfalls of a narrow interpretation of it in library instruction presentations. For the education of historians, graduate re­ search methods courses must include current li­ brary, archival, and other information technology as well as new research aids and resources. Stoan overlooks the fact that the majority of historians presently engaged in the training of students have themselves not been trained in these current re­ sources and techniques of information retrieval, and are therefore unlikely to provide adequate in­ struction in these crucial areas. Perhaps the next generation of historians will not be in need of so much assistance from librarians. C are must be taken to avoid the attitude, illustrated in some of Stoan’s remarks, of the self-sufficient, omniscient, even arrogant professor who believes the tech­ niques and resources he learned in graduate school and from research in a narrow specialty are all his students need to know. Instead, future historians should be encouraged to call upon any and all persons— even librarians— who have other knowl­ edge, resources, and approaches to the subject. The third panelist, Frederick J. Stielow (College of Library and Information Services, University of Maryland), in a paper titled “Continuities and Dis­ continuities in the Training of Librarians, Histo­ ians, and Archivists,” traced the historical reasons or the increasing separation of American histo­ ians from command of bibliographic and library kills. The two fields of history and librarianship ad similar roots and began at about the same im e, but they developed different educational hilosophies and curricula. Now the fields need to artake of the knowledge and methodologies of ach other. One area in which this is happening is rchival education. Sources Kirkendall, Carolyn, ed. “Dialogue and D e­ ate: Online Reference Services’ Impact on Biblio­ raphic Instruction,” R esearch Strategies 3 n o .l Winter 1985):40–43; “Dialogue and Debate: To each Manual or Online Searching,” ib id ., 3, no.2 Spring 1985):93–94. McCarthy, Constance. “The Faculty Problem ,” ournal o f A cad em ic Librarianship 11, no.2 (July 985): 142–45. McCrank, Lawrence J. “Public Historians in the nformation Professions: Problems in Education nd Credentials,” Public Historian 7 no.3 (Sum­ er 1985): 7–22. Sm alley, Topsy N ., and Stephen H. Plum . Teaching Library Researching in the Humanities nd the Sciences: A Contextual Approach,” in Ce­ ise Oberman and Katrina Strauch, eds., Theories f B ibliographic E ducation: Designs f o r Teaching New York: Bowker, 1982), pp. 135– 70. Stoan, Stephen K. “Research and Library Skills: n Analysis and Interpretation,” C ollege and R e­ earch L ibraries 45, no.2 (March 1984):99– 109. Vincent, C. Paul. “Bibliographic Instruction in he Humanities: The Need to Stress Im agination,” esearch Strategies 2, no.4 (Fall 1984): 179–84. RBMS bylaw s change At the ALA Annual Conference in New York the A CRL Board of Directors approved the fol­ lowing amendment to Article V II (Commit­ tees) of the Rare Books and Manuscripts Sec­ tion’s bylaws: “ S e c .3. D iscu ssion G ro u p s . D iscussion Groups to discuss issues and topics of interest to the Section may be authorized by the Executive Committee. The name and purpose of the dis­ cussion group shall be specified at the time of au th o rizatio n . T h e ch air of the discussion group will be appointed by the chair of the Sec­ tion. A discussion group may be discontinued or declared inactive by the Executive Com mit­ tee.” The complete RBMS bylaws may be found in C ò-R L News, April 1981, pp. 107–8. r f r s h t p p e a b g ( T ( J 1 I a m “ a r o ( A s t R September 1986 / 503 Historians and librarians: A response By Stephen K. Stoan H ead o f R eferen ce W ichita State University I presented what could be called a case study of one historian— myself— and of his training and personal philosophy of teaching. The major points I emphasized were: 1) I personally received excel­ lent bibliographic training in graduate school, con­ sisting of six credit hours of coursework on the his­ torical literature of Latin America taught by two professors of history; 2) given this training, I re­ garded myself as com petent to deliver b ib lio ­ graphic instruction to my own students; 3) the cir­ cum stances of my teach in g w ere such th a t I preferred to give library assignments only to my graduate students, to whom I did give b ib lio ­ graphic guidance; 4) given my training, I would have seen no good reason to have a librarian give bibliographic instruction in my courses; 5) I was fully aware that other professors, depending on their circumstances and personal philosophies of pedagogy, might teach in a different way and de­ sire bibliographic instruction by a librarian, which I would support; and 6) my personal use of biblio­ graphic tools, even though I knew them very well, was occasional because the internal logic of my inform ation-seeking made other techniques of gathering bibliography generally more useful. The points I hoped to convey by making the pre­ sentation in this way were as follows: 1) we should be cautious about assuming that college professors are all ill-prepared in bibliography; 2) many pro­ fessors are competent to give bibliographic guid­ ance to their students; 3) we must be sensitive to professors’ prerogatives in organizing and teaching their courses as they see fit, for not only does the university make them accountable for that activity but this is a powerful tradition within the academy that professors themselves are extremely sensitive to; 4) there may be legitimate and defensible rea­ sons why some professors do not desire the services of librarians; 5) some professors may seek the help of librarians, which is also legitimate and defensi­ ble; and 6) we must guard against making blanket assumptions about the quality of academic re­ search or teaching, since we cannot prove empiri­ cally that using this or that index more or knowing of the existence of this or that bibliography affects the quality of research. I argued, then, that though librarians ought le­ gitimately to alert faculty and students to the exist­ ence of indexes and other specialized bibliogra­ phies, we have no choice but to leave them free to use, not use, or even forget those tools as they see fit. That someone is unaware of a particular tool does not necessarily mean that he was never taught it (by a librarian or a faculty m em ber), only that he may have forgotten it. That someone uses a tool only sporadically does not mean that he is not using it “enough” to be a good researcher or teacher, only that his personal information-seeking behavior is such that he does not think he needs it more. Librarians, therefore, should be guarded about blanket criticisms of the research skills or teaching techniques of the faculty, the more so when we ourselves were not hired by the university because of our recognized expertise in scholarly research or pedagogy. Workshop on fund-raising for law librarians On Thursday, July 1 0 ,1 9 8 6 , the American Asso­ ciation of Law Librarians sponsored an all-day workshop on fund-raising for law librarians as part of their 79th Annual M eeting in W ashington, D .C ., organized by Carol A. Roehrenbeck, law li­ brarian at Nova University. I had been invited to be one of the speakers at this workshop, addressing the topic “Embarking on the Fund-Raising Pro­ gram .” Other speakers and panelists included Gerald Crane, executive vice president for alumni affairs, City College of New York; Diana Vincent-Davis, director, New York University School of Law L i­ brary; James B. Hoover, law librarian, C olum bia University Law Library; Julius Marke, law librar­ ian, St. John’s University; Alfred Coco, law librar­ ian, University of Denver; and Morris Cohen, law librarian, Yale University School of Law. Presenta­ tions and discussions focused on the principles and basic techniques of fund-raising, campaign strate­ gies, and how to build a funding file. This was fol­ lowed by a discussion on grantsmanship led by San­ dra Coleman, law librarian at Harvard University, and round table discussions of two actual grant proposals. The workshop participants were as­ sisted in this endeavor by a panel of experts: Sally 504 / C & RL News Jones, foundations and research director, Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island Foundation; Lee Kimche Mc­ G rath, director, Art in Embassies Program, U.S. State Department; and Harold Cannon, director, Office of Preservation, National Endowment for the Humanities. Much useful and practical information was pro­ vided during the workshop and all participants gained new insights into the art of fund-raising, in­ cluding gift programs, grant proposal preparation, friends of libraries, building and endowment fund­ raising campaigns, and, most especially, how to understand and work successfully with govern­ mental, private and corporate funding sources.— H annelore B. R ader, A C R L President. L ib rarian s and in tern ation al development: Getting involved By Alice Spitzer and Elaine Brekke Public Services L ibrarian International D evelopm en t Liaison L ibrarian W ashington State University W ashington State University A workshop on overseas consulting at W SU. L ibrarians and In tern atio n al D evelopm ent: Getting Involved” was the title of a workshop held May 7–8, 1986, by Washington State University Libraries in Pullman, Washington. The workshop was designed to inform librarians and to encourage greater library participation in this land grant uni­ versity’s intern ation al development projects at home and overseas. Although WSU librarians have been engaged in international development since the 1950s, there has been a great upsurge of activity in recent years. Librarians who work directly with projects and those who recently returned from overseas assign­ ments in Jordan, Yemen Arab Republic, and L e­ sotho wanted to share their experiences. The result­ ing two-day workshop gave a broad introduction to the topic of librarians and international develop­ ment. Among the subjects covered were what it means to be a library consultant overseas, cross- cultural communication, stateside library support services for international development projects, project design, implementation and evaluation, culture shock, and how international development fits into the W SU Libraries’ overall goals. Guest speakers were drawn from W SU Libraries, WSU departments and the University of Idaho. A combi­ nation of lectures, panel discussions, films, role playing, and social activities kept participants on their toes. Jan Noel, deputy director of W SU ’s In tern a­ tional Program Developm ent Office, gave a chal­ lenging presentation on project design which had the participants actively involved in the process of sending a hypothetical library consultant to an­ other country. The session participants were di­ vided into groups in order to explore the various viewpoints of the many agencies (host government, donor, contractor, campus office) that were in­ volved in the project. Information presented by consultants who had returned from overseas assignment exposed partici­ pants to the challenges and rewards of working abroad. A lively discussion followed where panel­ ists compared and contrasted their experiences.