College and Research Libraries


N E A L H A R L O W 

Doctoral Study—Key to What? 
Doctoral study can improve one's ability to function well in an aca-
demic situation; this is equally true of librarianship as of other older 
disciplines. At the present time much doctoral level study and re-
search interworks with other disciplines. It can be said in many 
ways to open doors, but some of these doors can lead to activities 
that are more psychically and professionally rewarding than others. 
Seekers of the doctorate should ponder the reasons for their search. 

D O C T O R A L STUDY is the key to many 
doors, some of which will not open 
readily without it. Research and teaching 
in higher education are the two most 
relevant career potentials, with a variety 
of collateral benefits available, includ-
ing position, status, tenure, and all of 
the rights, responsibilities, privileges, and 
honors thereunto appertaining. The de-
gree carries with it a certain aura in 
government, business, and industry, and 
although the title, "Doctor," may on oc-
casion raise false expectations in respect 
to setting broken bones and reviving the 
faint, it is thought to do something for 
the holder as a public figure when try-
ing to make reservations or establish 
credit. 

Doctorates, like other keys, come in 
many combinations. The PhD in physics 
opens a high-priced suite in the intellec-
tual establishment up near the front 
door, close to chemistry and mathe-
matics. The doctorate in economics is 
across the hall on the social sciences 
side, with a hot line to Washington. His-
tory is there too, often respectful to tra-
dition (less so when informed by other 

Neal Harlow is dean of the graduate 
School of Library Service in Rutgers Univer-
sity. This paper was read to the joint meet-
ing of ALA's Junior Members Round Table 
and the American Association of Library 
Schools in Kansas City on June 26, 1968. 

disciplines), with pictures of the illus-
trious dead plastered over the walls. Po-
litical science, sociology, statistics, psy-
chology—all have established recog-
nized positions. Not always does the 
family of accepted disciplines dwell to-
gether in peace and harmony, one 
branch after another gaining the ascen-
dancy as unscholarly influences—govern-
ment support, political attention, current 
events, supply and demand—affect their 
images and salaries. The professions are 
mostly segregated in bright ghettos, with 
separate and sometimes equal creden-
tials but a variety of differentiating la-
bels: EdD, JD, MD, DLS, DD. (And 
the system is of course incomplete with-
out its irrational element, the anti-sys-
tem of non-doctorates, LittD, L L D , 
LHD, and DSc, honoris causa, award-
ed without academic criteria.) Li-
brarianship is both inside and outside 
the establishment, having developed its 
own minimum disciplinary content but 
being dependent for much of its con-
text and methodology upon other sub-
stantive fields. A good many intercon-
necting doors and open transoms exist 
among the subject areas, but none calls 
for more hospitality to its friends, neigh-
bors, and relatives than librarianship, 
one of the now earnest aspirants to in-
tellectual parity. 

In librarianship, not only librarians 
but professors of librarianship have tend-

/ 483 



484 / College <Lr Research Libraries • November 1968 

ed to be practitioners whose concept of 
the field has not recognized intellectual 
discipline or scientific research as es-
sential ingredients. This isolation from 
the scholarly world is inbred, going back 
to the period when the self-made li-
brarian turned into the self-made teach-
er who had the personal qualifications 
and practical experience but no tie to 
the world of learning—a condition which 
was not necessarily rectified by eventual 
university affiliation. It has been perpet-
uated by the librarian's continuing lack 
of clarity in identifying his own dis-
tinctive area of competence as distin-
guished from the subject fields to which 
it is applied, thus confusing him about 
the sources from which his special knowl-
edge derives. To many, history and lit-
erature have been the most familiar 
studies and have therefore seemed the 
most relevant, but over the years his-
tory's cumulative and narrative tech-
niques (which librarians have character-
istically applied)—providing facts with-
out hypotheses—have contributed little 
to our theory or systematic knowledge. 
Recent association with the sciences has 
led to studies in such areas as systems 
analysis, computer science, linguistics, 
and psychology and has stimulated new 
interests and attitudes. Equally exciting 
intellectual, methodological, and tech-
nical innovations are being carried over 
from social research, opening whole new 
library worlds for exploration. Findings 
in all of these areas can infuse the spirit 
and content of research into the profes-
sion and dramatically affect the profes-
sional teacher. It is the function of the 
doctorate and of a university to unlock 
doors to new knowledge; professional 
schools—law, medicine, social work, li-
brarianship—which do not have or are 
not developing this capability hardly 
warrant a university environment. 

Opening the door to research compe-
tence through doctoral study means 
more than making the individual a good 
research methodologist, and an advanced 

degree ought not to be conferred upon 
persons who are ignorant of the issues 
involved. But although the librarian's 
concerns are specialized, they often 
prove to be new focuses upon problems 
which are already known to older dis-
ciplines and are therefore equally per-
tinent and attractive to them. We go to 
the statistician for needed assistance, and 
he not only discovers that our problems 
are fascinating in their own right but 
that they also suggest new possibilities 
for him. W e consult a geographer, and 
he quickly replies that the proposed 
study is in his field, not ours, and he 
wonders why he did not think of it 
first. Or we make a joint research pro-
posal with urban studies, and it does 
not matter whether they help us or we 
them, the study and findings are equally 
important to both. And the computer 
specialist adds librarianship to his aca-
demic qualifications to fill a basic gap 
in his professional education. 

But although a librarian can get help 
from a specialist in methodology, and 
often needs it, he cannot develop a re-
search problem without the capability to 
design his own research procedure, col-
lect and analyze the data, and draw ap-
propriate inferences. A knowledge of sta-
tistics enables him to reduce large 
amounts of actual or potential data to 
comprehensible form, aids in the study 
of relationships and the testing of hy-
potheses, assists in making adequate in-
ferences about the findings, and tells 
something about their reliability.1 There 
is no substitute for a knowledge of sta-
tistics, and, fortunately, modern statistics 
is full of intellectual excitement. Ac-
quaintance with a variety of research 
techniques and with computer and pro-
gramming theory are likewise essential. 
No one can collect the data and lay the 
methodology on afterwards. 

A fundamental part of the process of 

1 F r e d N. Kerlinger, " T h e Doctoral Training of Re-
search Specialists,'' in Teachers College Record, L X I X 
( F e b r u a r y 1 9 6 8 ) , 4 7 7 - 8 3 . 



Doctoral Study-Key to WhatP / 485 

admission to the field of research is a 
period of actual apprenticeship to a sea-
soned and responsible research profes-
sor. Of all the requirements, this may 
be of the most practical importance; and 
the main reason that research does not 
"take," that doctoral students do not be-
come fascinated with research and de-
velop into competent and productive 
research people, may be that they have 
not served under sufficiently capable, 
committed, and communicative faculty. 
Learning methodology, even in a rich 
substantive context, without the oppor-
tunity to develop competence and there-
by acquire freedom and confidence in 
its use opens the door to the promised 
land but does not pass the candidate 
through. The doctorate is the key to con-
tinuing discovery, and if the process does 
not prove to be the most absorbing, sig-
nificant, and enriching experience in the 
student's life, either he or his professors 
were somehow not up to it. 

A working knowledge of research, 
built upon a sound substantive base— 
with whatever other qualifications indi-
vidual institutions may specify—is the 
key to academic appointment. And with 
research-oriented teachers, the schools 
are more likely to lead the profession 
than to follow it, this being why the 
universities may even seem to overdo 
their emphasis upon the doctorate as 
the minimum qualification for academic 
advancement. The attitude and habit of 
research alter the outlook of faculty, 
and the character and level of graduate 
education are vitally affected. Doctoral 
study may not be an open sesame to 
academic achievement (there are other 
requirements), but successful academic 
careers are unlikely without it. 

What about the PhD as a passkey 
to administrative position in the scholar-
ly library? The degree is evidence the 
holder has the same kind of stamina as 
other academic people and a similar 
background in research techniques, sug-
gesting that he will be sympathetic to 

their needs (if not to those of the more 
inarticulate student). It is a common de-
nominator of academic existence, giving 
the librarian a kind of parity with facul-
ty, a higher acceptance rating with ap-
pointment committees, and a status 
which his later performance will not too 
adversely modify. But as it requires the 
use in a substantial way of the compe-
tencies he has developed through doc-
toral study, it may be like specifying 
nursing credentials for an airline hostess 
or a librarian's qualifications to preside 
at a loan desk. It should give the head 
librarian a clearer understanding of the 
objectives of practice, a distrust of many 
of the assumptions upon which practice 
is based, an urge to study new ap-
proaches and to guide investigation, and 
an administrative organization which en-
courages library research and experi-
mentation. If, however, his qualifications 
for research are not called upon in a 
fairly sustained way, requiring the PhD, 
pro forma, for administration, is a waste 
of precious manpower. If the D L S is 
indeed a professional rather than a re-
search degree, perhaps without the rig-
orous research requirement, its relation-
ship to administration is more obvious 
and meaningful. 

Doctoral study is indeed the key to 
many doors, some of which will not open 
readily without it. Research and teach-
ing in higher education are indeed the 
two most relevant career potentials, with 
a variety of collateral benefits available, 
including position, status, tenure, and all 
of the rights, responsibilities, privileges, 
and honors thereunto appertaining. The 
key will also open doors not necessarily 
intended because in places it outranks 
all others. Some uses, however, are more 
appropriate than others, more pro-
ductive, currently more essential, even 
more honest professionally. Holders of 
the doctorate will want to be sure not 
only that the key fits a lock but also 
that it opens the door prescribed in the 
architect's specifications. • •