College and Research Libraries HAROLD MATHIS Professional or Clerical: A Cross-Validation Study A list of library tasks-of which half were professional and half were nonprofessional-was given to 221 librarians in Michigan, who were asked to indicate which duties absorbed their time. About two-thirds of the total duties reported as performed by these librarians are con- sidered professional. Senior librarians in the public services of academ- ic libraries performed the highest percentage of professional duties, and junior librarians in the technical services of non-academic libraries reported doing .the most nonprofessional work. I N THE SEPTEMBER 1961 issue of the Li- brary I ourn.al, Eugene E. Hart and Wil- liam Griffith reported the results of a study conducted in California to deter- mine the "involvement of professional li- brarians in nonprofessional duties." This author has cross-validated the original study, using the same questionnaire on a selected sample of Michigan librarians. A study was recently completed to de- termine the aptitudinal requirements for professional librarians. The results of this study will be used in the vocational counseling of youth and may attract more qualified young people into the li- brary profession. Hart and Griffith's questionnaire was administered to the librarian sample as part of the job anal- ysis phase of this study, and the results were also analyzed to determine the per cent of professional duties performed by various types of librarians. The question- naire, containing fifty professional and fifty nonprofessional duties randomly dis- tributed, taken primarily from the ALA Descriptive . List of Professional and Non-Professional Duties in Libraries, was Mr. Mathis, a test-research technician with the Michigan Employment Security Commission, resides at 5915 Fourth Street, Detroit. completed by 221 librarians from the fol- lowing organizations: Detroit public library Wayne County library Pontiac public library State of Michigan library Flint public library Kent County library Lansing public library Wayne State University library Michigan State University library University of Michigan library Grand Rapids publiq library Only professional librarians with a minimum of six months' experience were administered the questionnaire. To pre- vent errors of contamination, the follow- ing categories of librarians were con- sidered nontypical and were not includ- ed in the analysis of data: l. State of Michigan librarians 2. Community-service librarians 3. Administrative librarians 4. Librarians of undetermined classifica- tion level Fifty -eight individuals were thus elim- inated, leaving a total 163 in the sample. For the purposes of this cross-valida- tion study, only those duties which li- / 525 526 I College & Research Libraries • November, 1965 brarians indicated were performed more than three hours per week were consid- · ered. The table shows the total number of duties performed by each type of li- brarian, and the number and per cent of professional duties this included. In analyzing the per cent of professional duties performed, the total sample of 163 was broken into smaller categories to distinguish between various types of librarians. Three basic distinctions are considered: college vs. noncollege librar- ians, .. junior" vs . .. senior" librarians, and public service vs. nonpublic service li- brarians. In the .. nonpublic service" cat- egory are included catalogers, acquisi- tion librarians, bibliographers, etc. "'} un- ior" librarians are those whose classifica- tion level is .. assistant librarian" or ""li- brarian I" in their respective organiza- tions ... Senior" librarians are those clas- sified as .. Librarian II or above." As can be seen from the table, ap- proximately two-thirds (weighted mean across all subsamples ) of the duties per- formed by the librarians in this sample are professional. As one might expect, a greater proportion of professional duties are performed by college librarians than noncollege, by nonpublic service than public service, and by senior librarians than junior librarians. The only excep- tions to this rule seem to be the three junior nonpublic service college librar- ians who indicate no nonprofessional duties and the one junior nonpublic ser- vice noncollege librarian who indicates that only four of her nine significant duties are professional. It is obvious that neither of these two samples are large enough for serious consideration. A word of caution is put forth regard- ing these findings: an underlying as- sumption of this study is that the pro- fessional and nonprofessional items on the questionnaire represent enough available choices in both areas to obtain a true picture of the proportion of pro- fessional duties performed by each par- ticipating member. There is reason to believe that this condition has not been met. Catalogers, acquisitions, and tech- nical service librarians almost universal- (Continued on page 591) TABLE 1. NUMBER IN TOTAL* PROFESSIONAL SAMPLE E ACH SAMPLE DUTIES DUTIES Total Sample . 163 1770 1150 Total College Sample 58 397 286 Total Noncollege Sample 105 1373 864 Total Public Service . 114 1559 1002 Total Nonpublic Service 49 211 148 Total Junior Librarians 23 253 149 Total Senior Librarians . 140 1517 1001 College-Public Service . 24 274 200 Noncollege-Public Service 90 1285 802 College-Nonpublic Service 34 123 86 Noncollege-Nonpublic Service 15 88 62 College-Public Service-J uniort 5 35 24 College-Public Service-Senior 19 239 176 Noncollege-Public Service-Junior 14 201 113 N oncollege-Public Service-Senior 76 1084 689 College-N onpublic Service-J uniort 3 8 8 College-Nonpublic Service-Senior . 31 115 78 N oncollege-N on public Service-J uniort 1 9 4 Noncollege-Nonpublic Service-Senior 14 79 58 * Total number of items checked as being performed more than three hours per week. t Sample too small for significance. PER CENT OF PROF. DUTIES 64.97 72.04 62.93 64.28 70.14 58.89 65.98 72.9 62.41 69.91 70.45 68.57 73.64 56.2 63.56 100.00 67.82 44.44 73.41 Ellsworth writes about school libraries, the reader may well take issue with his thesis that school libraries were moribund until the 1960's. The American Association of School Librarians' Standards for School Li- brary Programs was based on levels found through research in good school libraries, yet Ellsworth seems to imply that until 1960 good school libraries were virtually nonexistent. Ellsworth rightly criticizes the quality of the literature of school librarianship, but at the same time ignores important and influ- ential documents. One publication of great import, and one that would have strength- ened his case but which he has not men- tioned, is Responsibilities of State Depart- ments of Education for School Library Ser- vices; a Policy Statement issued by the Council of Chief State Officers in 1961. The council's policy statement, defining the school library as a part of instruction, is one of the most important publications in creating a favorable attitude toward im- proving school library services. Mr. Ells- worth has overlooked other important con- tributions to the description of goals for school library programs. Nowhere does he indicate that he is familiar with the writings of Mary Helen Mahar, nor for example, of the original and significant research of Mary V. Gaver. Ellsworth begins with an enumeration of the factors which have hastened the recent development of school libraries, following with an analysis of "negative forces" which hindered them. Subsequent chapters deal with the proper role and characteristics of school libraries. The book closes with a short look into the future. Two sections dealing with censorship give disproportionate weight to this prob- lem. The chapter, "The School Library and Community Relations," except for its open- ing and closing paragraphs, relates exclu- sively to censorship. More than half of the final chapter is also concerned with cen- sorship and is out of keeping with the tone and method of the rest of the book. If in- cluded at all, the final ten pages should have been an appendix. As a book for school administrators, The School Library will be valuable in present- ing a modem and lively concept of library service for secondary schools. Since it is a part of a subscription series, "The Library Book Reviews 1 531 of Education," in which individual volumes are not sold separately, it may not, however, reach many of the administrators who most need its message. For school administrators seeking a rationale for elementary school library programs, it will not do at all. A book which .encompasses school library ser- vices at elementary, junior, and senior high school levels remains to be written.-Rich- ard L. Darling, Montgomery County Public Schools, Maryland. • • GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING (Continued from page 489) and incomplete printing, publishing, and distribution programs are serious. The problems connected with these pro- grams, while not susceptible to easy or cheap solutions, can be overcome pro- vided vigorous, high-level attention is focussed upon them. In any case, their resolution should not be beyond the ca- pacity of a government which can count the number of chickens in Sagadahoc County and send rockets to the moon. •• PROFESSIONAL OR CLERICAL ... (Continued from page 526) ly complained that their job duties were not adequately represented among the professional items on the questionnaire. In this case it is not reasonable to expect the proportion of professional duties in- dicated to be a true representation. In conclusion, the findings of the study seem to verify the results obtained by Griffith and Hart that librarians prob- ably perform more nonprofessional du- ties than they should. • • . . . UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES (Continued from page 524) chives has been stimulated by the writ- ing of a history of the university.35 The archival collection in the university ar- chives is as helpful to the historian as the supplementary nonarchival materials attracted to it. • • 35 Fulmer Mood and Vernon Carstensen, "Univer- sity Records and Their Relation to General Univer- sity Administration," CRL, XI (October 1950), 339- 40.