College and Research Libraries


An Overlooked Cost of Achieving 

A Participatory Environment 

Academic librarianship has often seemed to muddle onward seemingly 
undisturbed by "gut" issues which transcend the perennial concern with 
the budget and the love-hate relationship with new technologies. Recently, 
however, evidence has mounted which clearly indicates a growing dissatis-
faction among the rank and file of university librarians with their status 
within the academic community and within the library itself. Through a 
number of channels, they are making it clear that they are determined to 
have a larger piece of the action, specifically, the salary and fringe benefits 
of full faculty status and a larger role in the decisions which affect their 
professional lives. It is the cost of achieving these goals with which this 
editorial is concerned. 

While it is clear that increasing numbers of university librarians, includ-
ing some at the top, are rallying to the position that a truly participatory 
environment can lead to a new birth of professional freedom, growth, and 
productivity, there seems to be little clear understanding that achieving 
these goals will require a radical restructuring of the library, not just a cos-
metic modification through a proliferation of committees and task forces. 
As ego satisfying as this approach may be to those who previously have 
been denied a role in the determination of programs and goals and the so-
lution of problems, the fact remains that it leaves the traditional bureau-
cratic power structure of the library essentially unchanged and with rela-
tionships between professionals still largely determined by their relative 
positions within it. Still intact are the layers of "supervisors" in the middle 
level of the library hierarchy. This stands in stark contrast to the results of 
recent research which has clearly shown that the morale and productivity 
of the knowledge worker are the highest where the amount of direct super-
vision is the least. Until the implications of this basic proposition of par-
ticipatory management theory are clearly understood and faced up to, the 
achievement of faculty status and professorial titles will b.e a somewhat 
hollow victory. For what meaning is there to the professorial title if its 
holder still "reports to" a supervisor and his performance is evaluated in 
much the same manner as the classified staff? This is an irony often pointed 
to by the established members of the faculty club. 

Reducing the middle level bureaucracy will not be an easy task. In the 
first place, the traditional reward system which ties salary and status to the 
level of administrative or supervisory responsibility and which has been 
partly responsible for its creation will have to be severely modified. If the 
system values most the bureaucratic accomplishments, it will produce bu-
reaucrats in abundance-whether they serve any useful function or not. 

Secondly, the aspirations of many within the profession will have to be 
raised. Finally, the middle level of the library hierarchy tends to be 

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~I College & Research Libraries • ](muary 1974 

staunchly conservative, and its resistance to any proposal which would radi-
cally affect its power and authority will be vigorous for the obvious and 
understandable reason that it has a major investment in the status quo. 

Given these conditions, severely reducing the middle level bureaucracy 
in order to help create a working environment in which superior/inferior 
is more a matter of the individual's contribution to the educational mis-
sion of the library than the authority of office, will require resolute deter-
mination on the part of all who are concerned with the image of the pro-
fession as it is and who have a vision of what it might become. Neverthe-
less, it is a problem which must be squarely faced if we are to avoid a situ-
ation in which the promise inherent in faculty status and a truly profes-
sional working environment becomes, in the end, a :rn,ess of pottage. 

H. WILLIAM AxFORD