College and Research Libraries


By JESSIE J. SMITH 

Looking For-ward -with 
Student Assistants 

Miss Smith is librarian, Hiram College, 
Hiram, Ohio. 

C OLLEGE LIBRARIANS have alway:; been much concerned with ways and 
means of making student assistants of 
greater value to the college library, but 
there remains the ·student assistant's own 
side of the matter, which, perhaps, ought 
to receive more attention than we have 
been giving it. What are the needs of 
student assistants who are contemplating 
librarianship, and how can we be of more 
help to them without interfering with 
the service which we must have from them 
in order to carry on our own work? Is 
it possible to carry on a training program 
which will meet their needs and at the 
same time make them of greater value to 
us? v It is because we have been attempt-
ing such a program at Hiram College that 
I have been asked to present this paper. 

In justice to the student assistants, to 
our own institutions, and to the library 
profession, there are three services which 
we ought to render, viz., selection of those 
with aptitude for the task, sufficient in-
struction in library procedures to furnish 
a good background for work in a library 
school, and guidance in the selection of 
the college studies which are as essential 
in the preparation for librarianship as are 
premedical and pre-engineering courses for 
their respective professions. 

When I was in library school, Dr. Mel-
vii Dewey came to lecture to us on "The 

Qualifications of a Librarian." Almost 
the first thing he said was, "You can 
polish an agate but not a pumpkin." It 
is our business as college librarians to find 
the ·students who possess the qualifications 
essential for librarianship and interest 
them in the profession. It is also our busi-
ness to squash the "pumpkins" who think 
they would like library work because they 
would always rather read than study or 
work. 

A student assistant should be given as 
many of the widely 't'aried tasks in the 
library as it is consistent with efficient 
service to give. He should have the op-
portunity to see all that will be required 
for success in the profession before he is 
permitted to enter upon professional train-
ing. Selection of student assistants by tlte 
librarian through a year's training and 
the rotation of library tasks to give famili-
arity with as many phases of library work 
as possible have been the outstanding fea-
tures of our program. Because of the 
outstanding ability of our girls in library 
schools and in library work, the college 
was asked to give credit for the work and 
to expand our training to meet the re-
quirements for teacher-librarian positions 

in high schools. 
It has been suggested that before I out-

line these changes, which constitute the 

298 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES 



real subject of this paper, I review the 
essentials of the training program we have 
been carrying on for over twenty-five/ 
years.· 

The first things I learned upon assum-
ing charge of the Hiram College Library 
were that there is no correlation between 
inability to finance a college education and 
aptitude for library work and that neither 
the director of admissions nor the deans 
were capable of selecting satisfactory li-
brary assistants either by their need or by 
their classroom grades. To remedy an 
impossible situation, I proposed conducting 
a library class throughout the year for the 
training of freshmen who might be inter-
ested, and choosing for paid assistants the 
ones in the class who rendered the best 
service. 

This class met for instruction once each 
week, and each student gave two hours 
per week to supervised practice work. 
This gave us opportunity to judge both 
mental ability and character qualifications. 
It also served as sufficient introduction to 
the many phases of library work to enable 
the students to determine whether they 
wished to become librarians. There was 
neither tuition nor credit for the class. 
The course of study covered library ar-
rangement and techniques and the use 
of library tools and reference books. It 
was planned to be of value to the student 
who wanted to know how to use a li-
brary efficiently as well as to the students 
interested in training for librarianship. 

Training Class Duties 

The students in the training class per-
formed any kind of work which was 
needed. They did page work, filed cards, 
charged books, helped with invoicing, and 
mended books. It is possible we might 
have had better service if each student 

SEPTEMBER, 1943 

had been trained to perform one task, but 
the variety in the work helped mightily to 
popularize it and also gave us better in-
sight into the student's capabilities. 

Competition was keen because we never 
could employ more than half of the class 
on the paid student staff.X The chance to 
retain the upper half of the class gave us 
superior students and obviated the diffi-
culty of being asked to recommend inferior 
students to library schools. Under this 
system none but capable girls with apti-
tude for library work could become stu-
dent assistants. 

To enable these students who were 
taken on the student staff to grow in 
library work and assume more important 
tasks in their upper-class years, we then 
arranged a course in library techniques 
covering classification, cataloging, subject 
heading, administration, reference work 
and bibliography, and public documents. 
We divided these subjects into three 
years' work and rotated them so that any 
girl coming on the student staff in her 
sophomore year would get all of them. 
This gave a splendid background for en-
tering library school and also supplied our 
own library with very efficient help. This 
class also met once each week and thus 
made it necessary for the librarian to 
teach two hours each week. However, 
the classes usually were held at hours when 
the library was not busy, and the advan-
tage of having all of the student assistants 
together once each week for discussion of 
problems of administration partially com-
pensated for the time the librarian spent 
away from her regular work. This sys-
tem has proved very satisfactory, and we 
may regret having abandoned it this year 
in an effort to be of greater service both 
to the student assistants and to the state 
educational system of Ohio. 

299 



Needs of Rural High Schools 

The reason for the change in our pro-
gram was a request from the state de-
partment of education for training to meet 
the requirements for teacher-librarians in 
the small high schools which cannot af-
ford trained librarians. 

I believe few librarians realize the piti-
ful condition of the libraries in the small 
high schools of the country. I know I 
was quite ignorant of their condition until 
I became one of the trustees of a public 
library which gives county extension serv-
ice. Upon the creation of a large ord-
nance plant within the county and the 
consequent increase of population in all 
of the little villages and rural districts, I 
was asked to assume supervision of library 
extension to meet the emergency. This has 
taken me into many of the high school 
libraries. A few of them are quite well 
organized and are being efficiently man-
aged by teachers who have taken enough 
interest in them to study what ought to 
be done. However, many of them have 
passed from teacher to teacher without 
any comprehension of how a library ought 
to be organized and are in a pitiful condi-
tion. 

This is typical of what happens. A 
splendid teacher of mathematics, who has 
held her present position for fourteen 
years, was told on the day she reported 
for work this fall that this year her extra-
curricular task would be taking charge of 
the library. In this case there was a new 
school building and the books had been 
dumped in the room in utter disorder. 
Since there were no classification numbers 
in the books, it was impossible to get high 
school children to shelve them in any 
order. In the past an attempt at catalog-
ing had been made by W.P.A. workers 
without any knowledge of cataloging. Of 

course it was worthless. This teacher-
librarian was also informed that there 
would be one thousand dollars to spend 
for books this year. She has no book 
selection tools and really knows nothing 
about the existence of such tools. When 
she asked some of the teachers in the 
school to hand in requests for books they 
would like to have, they said, "As li-
brarian, the buying of books is your prob-
lem." What a plum for a book agent! 

This poor teacher-librarian is allowed 
thirty minutes each day, free from class 
schedule but not free from room supervi-
sion, to bring order out of chaos and to 
select, order, classify, and catalog a thou-
sand dollars worth of books. This would 
be an impossible task for the best trained 
librarian, but, when added to all of this 
is the fact that she has absolutely no 
knowledge of library techniques and li-
brary tools which would help her with 
her task, the impossibility of bringing 
order out of chaos is further magnified. 

The Teacher-Librarian 

The state department of education has 
been unable to enforce its ruling requiring 
the service of a half-time librarian in 
high schools, because there are no teachers 
equipped to give the needed service. 
Trained librarians can find full-time li-
brary positions. Moreover, very few of 
the trained librarians ha~e the teacher 
certification necessary for the other half 
of the job. 

Because some of our girls have made 
good in such positions, the department of 
education in Ohio asked Hiram College 
to give credit for our training program 
which would enable our girls to meet 
the requirements of the law. I was re-
luctant to make any change in our student-
training program, because the plan which 

300 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES 



we have been using all of these years gave 
us such excellent student assistants. But 
when I considered that the only way an 
improvement could be made in the high 
school situation was through making a 
small beginning with the service of a 
teacher-librarian with sufficient training 
to demonstrate how useful a well-organ-
ized library can become, I thought we 
ought to try the proposed program. Also 
I realized that many of our girls feel that 
they must earn the money for their pro-
fessional training after graduation from 
college. Here is a field in which they 
can render valuable service and at the same 
time earn the money for library school 
trammg. With this opportunity to con-
tinue library interests, these splendid girls, 
who have proved their fitness for library 
work and who have acquired the back-
ground to insure excellent work in library 
schools, will not all be lost to the pro-
fession, a situation which almost invariably 
occurs when they accept straight teaching 
positions. Here is a field for which there 
is no supply and in which there will be 
great demand if the department of edu-
cation continues to push for better organ-
ization of high school libraries. 

Curriculum 

Our first task was to work out the 
curriculum for such a course. It was de-
cided that the course ought to be divided 
into two halves of three hours' credit 
each. One half would include instruction 
in the use of library tools and reference 
books essential for efficient use of a li-
brary by any student and would be desig-
nated as a course in library research. The 
other half would be devoted to the tech-
niques essential for doing a good job in a 
high school library and would be desig-
nated as a course in library techniques. 

SEPTEMBER, 1943 

Both courses are required before stu-
dents can secure positions as student as-
sistants, but the course in library research 
is also open to students not interested in 
librarianship. This course is planned to 
be of value to students who expect to do 
gr.aduate work or research work of any 
kind which will necessitate use of a li-
brary and is planned especially for teach-
ers who expect to become school superin-
tendents. It is so important that teachers 
know how to use library facilities for the 
enrichment of their classroom work that 
several states are considering including 
such a course in the general requirements 
for teacher certification. But it is even 
more important that school superinten-
dents have such a course, since upon them 
will depend the responsibility for the prop-
er organization of high school libraries. 

Library Research Course 

Our outline for this course is as follows: 

Hours 
Use of the library catalog, special 

indexes, periodicals, etc. 12 
Subject heading 12 
Use of reference books 18 
Bibliography 12 

Total hours for library research 
course 54 

The course in library techniques would 
include knowledge of all library proce-
dures essential to the high school job. 
These techniques would be taught in 
simplified form so as to avoid the confu-
sion of overspecialization. This course 
should also include instruction in young 
people's literature unless this subject is 
taught in some other course in the col-
lege. In many liberal arts colleges the 
literature classes are confined to adult 
literature, and students majoring in Eng-
lish or in literature graduate utterly un-

301 



aware of the splendid literature for 
children and young people. This wealth 
of material suitable for young people's 
reading can make a great difference in 
the reading habits of the next generation, 
and certainly anyone who is going to do 
work with young people in a library must 
have an introduction to the riches which 
are available. We who are interested in 
good reading habits ought to press for 
the inclusion of courses in literature suit-
able for high school in all teacher-training 
courses. I have sometimes thought that 
part of the responsibility for the popular-
ity of cheap literature rests upon the Eng-
lish teachers who attempted to teach col-
lege literature in a college manner to 
young people who were not yet equal to 
it. Their consequent dislike of what was 
being taught resulting in a pendulum 
swing to the worthless, they have missed 
the excellent literature which they would 
have liked and which would have led to 
good reading habits and literary taste. 

Adapting Reading Programs 

High schools have come to a realization 
of the necessity for adapting reading pro-
grams to the age level and to previous 
reading experience, and I am sure all 
regular teacher-training institutions do 
offer excellent courses which enable Eng-
lish teachers to choose suitable material. 
l\1y plea is that the liberal arts colleges 
which teach only the traditional literary 
subjects introduce a special course for 
English teachers. I have no argument 
for crediting a course in young people's 
literature toward an English major, but 
I do consider such a course indispensable 
for high school teachers and for high 
school librarians. 

With all of these considerations in mind 
we adopted the following outline for our 

course in library techniques: 

Hours 
Library classification I 2 
Library cataloging I 2 
Library administration I 2 
Young people's literature I 8 

Total hours for library techniques 54 

Our plan is to have two hours of labora-
tory work for all subjects except young 
people's literature, for which, of course, 
all of the time will be required for read-
ing. For all other subjects there are 
either problems illustrating the instruction 
or actual library tasks within the field of 
the instruction. We believe that practice 
in the library is quite as essential for li-
brarians as practice teaching is for teach-
ers. 

Objectives of Teaching 

To teach in a way which will make the 
student self-reliant is of the utmost im-
portance. Although we recognize the im-
portance of giving the student knowledge 
of both library tools and library tech-
niques, we still feel that the building of 
good work habits, the fostering of the 
right attitudes toward tasks, dependability, 
and resourcefulness are equally impor-
tant with knowledge. These qualifica-
tions, all of which are vital to success, 
cannot be built in the classroom. These 
are qualities which we built under our 
old system. We are not yet sure that the 
program we are now attempting will give 
us sufficient opportunity for this develop-
ment, and if we find that the increase in 
classroom instruction crowds out the 
building of capabilities, we will surely 
abandon the program. 

I am not worried about the students 
who actually become student assistants 
after taking this training, for we will still 

302 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES 



have opportunity to train them in actual 
tasks. But we will have places for only 
a few student assistants, and I am worried 
lest the students who have earned class-
room credits will think themselves capable 
of assuming teacher-librarian positions. 
We still have to work out a program 
which will combine more actual work m 
the library with classroom instruction. 

Intensive Study Plan 

In Hiram College we have unusual 
opportunity for student assistants to gain 
valuable experience under our intensive 
study plan. Under this plan a student 
concentrates most of his attention upon 
one subject for a period of nine weeks and 
covers a year's work in that subject. In 
addition to these intensive subjects, each 
student is expected to carry one running 
course with recitations three days each 
week throughout the year. There is six 
hours' credit for each intensive quarter 
and six hours' credit for a full year of 
each running course. Most of the lan-
guage courses are given .as running courses. 
Our library course, as set up at present, 
is one of the running courses with classes 
three times each week throughout the 
year. It is possible for a student assistant 
to drop an intensive course for one quar-
ter and make up the credit lost by taking 
an extra running course, for example, the 
library course, and thus have the oppor-
tunity of working in the library full time 
(forty hours per week) for a period of 
nine weeks. Working in this way a stu-
dent gains much more knowledge of li-
brary work than he does when working 
a few hours each week throughout the 
year. It is quite needless to say that he 
is of much more value to the library. 

Another unique advantage at Hiram is 
the opportunity for all student assistants 

SEPTEMBER, 1943 

who are working intensively for one quar-
ter to make some trips on the bookmobile 
which serves the rural sections of Portage 
County. This, of course, is only possible 
for student assistants who are working 
intensively in the college library, as other-
wise a full day's trip would make serious 
inroads on college work. But under our 
intensive program it is possible for a stu-
dent assistant working intensively in the 
college library any quarter to set up a 
schedule in which he will work one day 
each week at the public library, thus 
gaining an experience which is closer to 
what he will find in high school than the 
college library experience. The student 
would also develop a familiarity with 
young people's literature at the public li-
brary. 

Selection of College Subjects 

The third service which college librar-
ians ought to render to students who are 
contemplating librarianship is guidance in 
the selection of college subjects which will 
make the greatest contribution to their 
professional success. Although most col-
leges offer premedical and pre-engineering 
courses, few have yet adopted prelibrarian-
ship courses. The faculty member who 
knows nothing about the actual demands 
of library work glibly says, "Oh, you are 
going to be a librarian. Then, of course, 
you will want to major in literature." 
Now, as we all know, a librarian must 
have enough knowledge of many fields 
to understand the great variety of requests 
which come to her. It is as important for 
her to know the names of great musicians 
and artists as to know the names of great 
authors; as important to be able to serve 
chemists intelligently as to serve the mem-
bers of the poetry club; as important to 
be able to keep books which will bear 

303 



auditing as to be able to help with a 
bibliography on Greek drama ; as impor-
tant to know the art principles which will 
help her with the arrangement of her 
library and the layout of publicity posters 
as to be able to give a good book review. 

It is clearly evident that if a student 
distributes studies over all of the fields in 
which a librarian must have at least a 
vocabulary knowledge, it will be quite 
impossible to take enough courses in any 
one subject to meet the major require-
ments. When the situation is further 
complicated by the requirements for en-
tering library schools, the requirements for 
teacher certification, and the requirements 
for teacher-librarians, it becomes impos-
sible to build up a subject major without 
leaving the student in absolute ignorance 
of many important fields of knowledge. 
With all of these requirements in mind, 
a functional major seems to be the only 
solution. 

Planning Functional Major 

In attempting to plan such a major 
we encountered a number of difficulties. 
Naturally such a program calls for too 
many subjects at the freshman level, since 
each subject is built in sequence requiring 
the freshman course as prerequisite to the 
upper-class courses. Nevertheless, I still 
feel that a librarian should have enough 

~ familiarity with each general division of 
the field of knowledge to understand its 
vocabulary, in preference to the lopsided 
education which must result from a sub-
ject major imposed upon the other require-
ments which we have already cited. 

Since there is wide variation in the sub-
jects which students submit for college 
entrance, there must be flexibility in the 
college program. It is impossible to think 
of a librarian rendering good service to 

a nature study class without some study 
in the field of biology. However, if she 
has had a good course in biology in high 
school, biology should be omitted to make 
place for some subject of which she knows 
nothing. Some students enter college 
with four years of some modern language, 
and faculty advisers recommend specializa-
tion in this language in which a reading 
knowledge is already gained, instead of 
recommending a reading knowledge of a 
number of languages, which would be of 
greater value to a librarian. 

Other 17 alues in Education 

Not only must we consider the cur-
riculum from the standpoint of a wise dis-
tribution of subject knowledge, but we 
must recognize that some subjects are im-
portant for the contribution they make 
to character. My grandmother, who 
never studied pedagogy but who was a 
successful -teacher in an academy before 
the day of high schools, used to say, "Some 
subjects are needed to put twist into char-
acter." "Twist" to her meant the 
strength which was given yarn in the 
spinning. Without "twist" the yarn 
proved sleazy and worthless. Both wool 
and the time of spinning were wasted if 
the yarn lacked strength. Mathematics 
and courses which require painstaking 
laboratory work are such subjects, and 
some such subjects must be included to 
balance bookishness. 

The case for functional majors was 
dramatically presented by Dr. Alexander 
Meiklejohn in an address which he de-
livered before an anniversary celebration 
in his honor last year. Because his ex-
perience is typical of the change in attitude 
which must come to all educators and in-
stitutions which frankly face the needs of 
the democratic society they serve, I quote: 

304 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES 



Thirty years ago I delivered an inaugural 
address at Amherst College. And among 
all the exciting incidents of that exciting 
day one incident has lingered in my memory 
with a poignancy exceeding that of all the 
rest. I can still shudder at the shock, the 
disturbance of it. As I advanced, line by 
line, page by page, through the text of that 
address, I suddenly found myself reading 
words whose meaning I could not accept as 
true. I can still recall how near I came to 
stopping. What should one do in such a 
situation? To myself I was saying, "I 
don't believe that. Why did I write it 
down?" What I wanted was time to think 
of something to put in its place. And yet I 
could not stop. . . . The sentences, which 
at the very start of my career carried me 
to the edge of disaster, were saying that 
scholarship refuses to submit to certain 
practical demands which are made upon it. 
And in the face of that conflict I was taking 
the side of scholarship. Men of knowledge, 
I said, "are not willing to cut up thefr 
sciences into segments and allow the student 
to select those segments which may be of 
service in the practice of an art or pro-
fession." And what suddenly threw me 
back upon my heels was the realization that 
I was approving this "high-and-mightiness" 
of the scholar. I was lining up the teachers 
on the side of knowledge for its own sake 
as against knowledge for the benefit of man-
kind. "In one way or another," I said, "the 
teacher feels a kinship with the scientist and 
the scholar which forbids him to submit to 
this domination of his instruction by the de-
mands of an immediate practical interest. 
Whatever it may mean," I continued, "he 
intends to hold the intellectual point of 
view and keep his students with him if he 
can. 

"Scholars are not willing to cut up their 
sciences into segments and to allow students 

SEPTEMBER, 1943 

to select those segments which may be of 
service in the practice of an art or profes-
sion." Why not? What is knowledge for? 
Presumably the arts and professions are 
conducive to human welfare. Why, then, 
should not the sciences contribute to them 
in whatever ways they can? 

Objectives of Education 

That question which Dr. Meiklejohn 
faced at the beginning of his career can no 
longer be ignored by educational institu-
tions if they are going to produce the 
leadership needed in a democracy. Edu-
cation must be centered around the needs 
of the individual and aimed at making 
him of the utmost value to society. 

It is possible that in an attempt to 
serve student assistants in the three ways 
mentioned-selection, training, and guid-
ance-we may also serve greater social 
units. By selection of students with 
ability and aptitude for library work we 
make a valuable contribution to library 
schools and the library profession ; by 
training student assistants to fill teacher-
librarian positions in small high schools we 
render valuable assistance to rural "educa-
tion and to the reading habits of a large 
part of our population who are without 
library service; by pressing for the adop-
tion of functional majors we help to free 
our educational system of the outmoded 
practice of centering itself around subject 
matter instead of around the development 
of the individual to the limit of his ca-
pacity to serve society in his after-school 

life. 

305