College and Research Libraries Myths and Realities: The Academic Viewpoint II Gresham Riley Does the college library play a primary role in learning or does it function in a secondary sup- port role to classroom learning? This paper contrasts the myths (false beliefs) and realities of these two points of view. Skills learned in using a college library are highlighted not only as essential to acquiring an education, but also as necessary for lifelong learning. II he word myth is clouded in am- biguity. On the one hand, myth can mean a false belief or a be- lief that, if not false, has no de- terminable basis in fact. An example would be the belief that it is possible for one of the superpowers to be the winner in a nuclear war. On the other hand, myth can mean a story or fable that, although lacking factual or historical accuracy, nev- ertheless contains profound insights about the human condition or that of a people or a culture. Myth, .in this sense, brings to mind Prometheus, Icarus, or the Garden of Eden. In this paper, I shall use myth as "false belief" and suggest seven such myths. The first two myths have to be discussed together because they are mirror images of each other. Myth #1: The library is the heart of a col- lege, with classrooms and laboratories serving (to extend our anatomical image) as the brain. Myth #2: The classroom and the labora- tory are the center of the educational pro- cess, with the library functioning in a sec- ondary support role. Clearly, these two myths are contradic- tory and would cancel each other if they were not held by different groups: librari- ans and academic faculty. What are there- alities? Reality# 1: The library is not the heart of a college for many faculty members. Teach- ing faculty do not view professional librar- ians as equal partners in the teaching'7 learning process, but view them as they do residence hall directors, counselors in the career center, or athletic coaches. As scholars, most academic faculty are not predisposed to recognize and to acknowl- edge a legitimate educational role for the library and for librarians. Faculty mem- bers often need to be brought to this recog- nition and acknowledgment through edu- cation. Further, they are more likely to be influenced by local conditions (in particu- lar, the attitude of key college or univer- sity administrators toward the role of the library) than by their prior experience or their role as scholars. Finally, many fac- ulty members consider bibliographic in- struction as an "add-on" to the basic course work, they consider mastery of the library to be an easy task, and they believe extensive use of the library to be appropri- ate for only the brightest students. For the majority, the library should serve as a study hall. Clearly, the library is not the heart of a college if one takes seriously the beliefs and practices of many faculty members. Moreover, the transmission of informa- tion, the trial and error of experimenta- tion, and the give and take of ideas in sem- Gresham Riley is president of Colorado College, Colorado Springs, Colorado 80903. This paper was presented at the ACRL Third National Conference, April4-7, 1984, Seattle, Washington . 367 368 College & Research Libraries inar discussions are all made possible by the classroom and the laboratory. They have to be placed at the heart of the college even if they must share this central spot with other functions. Reality #2: It has been argued that the principal objectives of an undergraduate liberal arts and science education are the following: • Preparation f!Jr responsible citizenship in a democratic, pluralistic, and techno- logical society. • Understanding of and appreciation for the actual and the possible relationships between and among disciplines-in short, the gaining of interdisciplinary insight. • Development of the ability to think criti- cally and analytically about normative issues. · • Acquisition of skills related to lifelong learning. Because our formal education in the classroom and the laboratory represents only a small amount of time in the average life span, this last objective (skills related to lifelong learning) is especially impor- tant if we are to avoid intellectual and crea- tive stagnation. What are these skills? Among them, certainly, are the following: • The ability to identify a problem or issue worthy of investigation. • Knowledge of relevant sources of infor- mation that might solve the problem or clarify the issue. • Possession of criteria that allow one to know when a problem has or has not been solved or when an issue has or has not been clarified. I believe that the library and the profes- sional librarian have a major and equal role to play in meeting at least one of the objectives of a liberal arts and science edu- cation. The obvious basis for this belief is that the mastery of library search strate- gies is central to those skills that make life- long learning possible. Consequently, no matter what other functions and other people might be found at the center of the educational process, the library and librar- ians have a legitimate claim on that space. If the acquisition of lifelong learning skills is one of the primary objectives of higher education and if the library and li- September 1984 brarians can play a vital role in the devel- opment of these skills, then we can expose three additional myths. Myth #3: Extensive use of the library is for only the brightest students; for the rest, it is merely a study hall. Reality #3: The reality is that we have failed our students if they graduate with- out possessing those skills that will allow them to continue to learn once their formal schooling is over. Life expectancy in the United States is seventy-three years~ For most of our graduates, this means fifty- two years during which their minds can continue to be challenged and expanded. Consequently, every student must become familiar with the library as a learning labo- ratory that can be used throughout life. Myth #4: Bibliographic instruction is an ''add-on'' to the disciplinary content of a course. Reality #4: The reality is that knowledge of how to frame a question for investiga- tion and of how to identify and locate rele- vant resources for answering the question-in short, knowledge about how to solve problems-is as central to aca- demic disciplines as their factual content. Course-centered bibliographic instruc- tion, as a joint effort by both library and in- structional faculty, can result in the acqui- sition by the student of skills in learning how to ·learn. As such, bibliographic in- struction is integrally related to the pri- mary content of every course. Myth #5: The teaching faculty in the var- ious academic disciplines are the only ed- ucators. Reality #5: The mistaken assumption upon which our fifth myth is based is that the classroom exhausts the educational universe. This myth is deeply rooted in the erroneous belief that ''education'' and "schooling" are the same. Education in- volves any experience or activity that yields instructive insights about nature, men and women, society, or about the processes by which such insights are gained. Education, in this sense, is virtu- ally coextensive with life. Schooling, on the other hand, involves the orderly trans- mission and evaluation of formal bodies of knowledge, skills, and values. As such, schooling requires some degree of struc- ture, regimen, and discipline-thus, the formal curricula that we have in our col- leges and universities. Once the distinction between education and schooling is acknowledged, it is easy to see that the classroom does not exhaust the educational universe. Furthermore, it becomes clear that librarians are educators no less than are biologists, political scien- tists, and philosophers. This conclusion is underscored by the fact (which has been demonstrated in the discussion of the pre- vious myth) that bibliographic instruction is integrally related to the primary content of every academic course. Librarians are, indeed, equal partners in the teaching- learning process. This brings us to our fi- nal two myths. Myth #6: Learning how to use an aca- demic library is an easy task. Reality #6: The reality is that learning how to learn is as complex as learning phi- losophy or chemistry. It should come as no surprise, then, that course-centered bibliographic instruction, if done prop- erly, will be gradated and differentiated. This is to say that specialized bibliographic instruction is needed at different points in a student's educational career. For exam- ple, certain resources and certain search strategies are appropriate for general ref- erence work in a freshman composition course; others for an introductory biology course; yet others for an advanced course in genetics; others in a student's major field of study; others for a particular course in a discipline; and still others in in- terdisciplinary subject areas such as urban studies or women's studies. Mastery of the library will not result from a tour during student orientation, from viewing a slide-tape production in Academic Viewpoint II 369 the learning resources center, or from tak- ing an adjunct course. The issue is simply more serious and more complex than sug- gested by such responses. Myth #7: The library is a well-defined . place on campus. Reality # 7: The reality is that an academic library is less a place than an array of func- tions and services to be found in many lo- cations. If bibliographic instruction is course-centered (as I believe it should be), then faculty members and professional li- brarians will be working together for the purpose of determining how best to inte- grate bibliographic instruction with the other objectives of the course. This means that librarians will be called upon by fac- ulty not only to plan courses but also to evaluate the bibliographies that students use for their research papers. As a result, the library is wherever courses are. Furthermore, as card catalogs are taken out of boxes and placed in computers, and as lending networks are created through ever-more-sophisticated programs, li- brary search activities will spread across the campus, and the library will become all those places from which documents can be drawn. Even now, but more so in the future, academic libraries will be less substance or a place than function or an activity. Myths, in the sense of stories that con- vey profound insights about the human condition, are to be cherished, preserved, and transmitted. Myths, in the sense of false beliefs, are to be exposed. For too long, myths have prevented academic li- braries from fulfilling their educational mission within our colleges and universi- ties. The time has come for these myths to be broken.