College and Research Libraries Guest Editorial Talking to Ourselves Having been invited to contribute a guest editorial as a part of the celebration of College & Research Libraries' first half-century, it is bad form, I suppose, to use the occasion to com- plain. But in looking back over past issues, it is clear there's been a notable shortcoming on the part of academic librarians that this journal has failed to correct. As we push ahead into the next half-century it is high time someone does something about it! How can I put this? Academic and research librarians do a splendid job of communicat- ing what they're about-and C&RL reflects it admirably-but what we write is seen by al- most nobody but other librarians. For all our meetings, conferences, and preconferences, for all our committees and task forces, our journals and yearbooks, are we any better un- derstood by the clients in whose behalf we labor? By the senior officials who control our budgets and make information policy for our institutions? We talk too much to each other and not enough to them. Surely I'm not alone in thinking that the view of the academic library from the adminis- tration building is no clearer today than it was when C&RL published Robert Munn' s clas- sic article in 1968. In fact, it may be even murkier. Dennis Carrigan, summarizing the "po- litical economy'' of academic librarians in an article published here in July 1988, reminded us that the administrators who control the institutional resources upon which the library depends are traditionally not major consumers of library services and can't be counted on to understand those services or to assess competently their quality or their importance. That is ominous as librarianship becomes more complicated and as the budgetary pres- sures on higher education move toward crisis proportions. Interestingly enough, it was "the crisis in higher education and research" that supplied the note of urgency invoked by A.F. Kuhlman, the first editor of C&RL, in introducing this journal in 1939. In the very first issue he laid down eight objectives for the new venture; they included serving as the official means of communication within the association, pub- lishing professionally significant articles and reviews, stimulating research and experimen- tation, and helping the ACRL develop into a strong and mature professional association. After fifty years we can give C&RL pretty good marks for achieving these objectives. But how about objectives four and five on Kuhlman's list? • seek to bridge the gap between these librarians and the faculty, college administrators, and research workers whom they serve • integrate efforts of college, university, and reference librarians with those of kindred groups such as educational and research agencies and learned societies Here we've no grounds for self-satisfaction. The gap between us and our administrations (and sometimes our primary clients) still yawns on many campuses; nationally, we have not only failed to "integrate" our efforts with those of many kindred groups, but our lines of communication are almost nonexistent. We know we have a vital role to play in higher education, but sometimes we become acutely aware that our colleagues beyond the library have a remarkably superficial notion of who we are and what it is we do. 609 610 College & Research Libraries November 1989 Given our Ptolemaic view of higher education-with librarians somewhere near the cen- ter of things-it is both ironic and inevitable that we should be surprised and disappointed to find that our services are not always understood and appreciated by others. But it's an old story. Recently someone handed me an article from The Oberlin Review, our student newspaper, entitled ''What We Do at the Library.'' Submitted anonymously by a library staffer, it begins: When the library staff compare notes once in a while, they conclude that there is a vast amount of ignorance regarding their line of work. When they are asked, 'Are you kept busy all the time?' 'Do you find much time to read?' 'What will you do when the work gives out?' they think, How little you know about a library. Some perhaps see no need for so large a staff; that, however, is because they have little idea of the amount of work to be done. The writer goes on to describe in detail the organization of technical services and ob- serves that since most of the work of processing goes on "behind the scenes," it attracts little notice from the majority of library users who concentrate their attention ''on the per- son at the desk." That person, too, the anonymous writer concludes, has plenty of things to do: "Her sole duty is not to hand out books, nor does she find time to read." As quaint as the language is-it was published, after all, on February 5, 1986-its basic message is no less valid in the much more sophisticated libraries of a century later. We cannot assume that what we do, and what it takes to support the kind of service we know is needed by our users, is self-evident, even to them. We must still work to "bridge the gap." What can C&RL do to achieve goals four and five on A. F. Kuhlman's list? Figuring that out surely must be high on the agenda for the new editor Gloriana St. Claire, and her edito- rial board. Somehow we must find ways of reaching a wider audience. We've got to stop talking just to ourselves. WILLIAM A. MOFFETI Director of Libraries, Oberlin College President, ACRL "The most important part of your automation investment isrlt a machine:' "Its an attitude:' Many people think a computer system is the hardware they can see and touch. The metal boxes and wires and blinking lights. Actually, it's much more. Consider, for example, that your real investment is your data base and application software. Without these, that hardware is nothing. And what happens in three to four years when you outgrow all that expensive hardware? This may seem unlikely now, but it's precisely what you should be planning for. 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