College and Research Libraries BRIAN NIELSEN Teacher or Intermediary: Alternative Professional Models in the Information Age Value premises underlying the "information versus instruction" debate in ref- erence librarianship are examined in the context of technological design issues now before librarianship. Using theory developed by sociologists Rue Bucher and Anselm Strauss, it is argued that reference service is a "core task" for li- brarianship s professionalization movement. The "information versus instruc- tion'' debate is shown to address a key design issue for reference as a human s6rvice, and that issue is how the service is to be distributed. Following discus- sion of the conflicting value premises underlying this design issue, certain eco- nomic and technological developments that may affect the future of reference service are described. The development of a new model for practice, which transcends both the intermediary and teacher role, is proposed. WILL BIBLIOGRAPHIC INSTRUCTION special- ists, who have invested considerable amounts of their creative talents and time in what they saw as an up-and-coming career path, be displaced? Is the future of reference to be in online database searching and the realiza- tion of the dream in which librarians cease to teach and, instead, provide directly all the information that users need? Facing a new technological environment, "instruction types" seem to be thinking not about how they are to further develop and modify their specialty in the Online Age; they're worrying about "survival." Rather than consider the future, this paper will look into the past- the past of biblio- graphic instruction, of reference service, and Brian Nielsen is head of the Reference Depart- ment, Northwestern University Library, Evan- ston, Illinois, and a doctoral candidate, School of Library Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The author acknowledges the helpful comments made on an earlier version of this paper by Ross Atkinson and Ree DeDonato, both of Northwestern University Library, and Carol Niel- sen. of some larger issues about the status of li- brarianship. The past treated here is not the consideration of specific historical events, but an examination of certain ideas that have shaped the development of librarians and their current ways of thinking about biblio- graphic instruction and reference service. Though many do not find such "philosophiz- ing" particularly useful in day-to-day prob- lem solving, a historical and sociological per- spective can help librarians to better understand their present circumstance. Working toward a deeper understanding of the path to their current dilemmas may in the end allow librarians to see new options for the future that they didn't know existed. A brief outline of the train of thought this paper will pursue may be helpful. The con- ceptual foundation underlying the argument presented here is the well-established rela- tionship between instrumental value change and technological advance that has influ- enced many spheres of modern life, but espe- cially environmental policy. 1 The first objec- tive is to consider the professionalization issue within librarianship and to show how reference work has played a very special role in the occupation's long struggle for higher I 183 ~-------------------------------------------------------------------- --- 184 I College & Research Libraries· May 1982 professional status. This paper will argue that reference work has the qualities of what sociology has called a "core task" for the oc- cupation as a whole. The second section will comprise a fresh look at the old "information versus instruction" debate, which has occu- pied reference theorists for at least twenty years. It will argue that the information ver- sus instruction debate hides deeper issues and values that are related to librarianship's sta- tus and the "core task" nature of reference. These issues and values are not often dis- cussed at meetings and in the literature, but deserve attention because of their effect on decision making. Following discussion of how these values may shape the future, this paper will touch briefly on some of the tech- nological and economic factors that will also be important in the years ahead. It will con- clude with a call to set aside the "information versus instruction" debate and replace it with a new model for a reference role that better reflects the fundamental values shared by li- brarians. Regardless of whether the specific pro- grammatic conclusions presented here are accepted by a sizable number of librarians in the fi~ld, it is hoped that this paper will open debate on value issues that have received scant attention in the literature up to now. Like other occupational groups (and espe- cially those concerned with professionaliza- tion), librarianship has an unfortunate ten- dency to assume value consensus among its membership and is reluctant to open value debate because such debate threatens group solidarity. 2 The value issues implicit in any technological advance, however, result in the concrete expression .of values that may not be held in common by all group mem- bers, and so while solidarity may appear to be maintained on the surface, underlying contradictions may grow. This condition is exacerbated by the still-prevalent argument that technological (and professional) deci- sion making can somehow be "value free. "3 By exploring the value choices that accom- pany technological decision making in li- brarianship, librarians may in the long run clarify considerably their grounds for deci- sion making. With these preliminaries out of the way, attention is called to a social fact of librarian- ship that, over the years, has had an enor- mous influence in how librarians act, talk about themselves, and relate to the larger so- cial world around them. That social fact is the tenuousness of their collective claim to professional status. Social status for librari- anship has for most of the past hundred years been bound up with the fortunes of women in our society. The demeaning but wide- spread stereotypes, the low salaries, the orga- nizational arrangements that so frequently make males the administrators and females the underlings, all attest to the status prob- lems with which librarianship continues to struggle. As a "feminized profession" librari- anship has encountered a variety of problems related to self-concept, problems that have at their root the same issues now being con- fronted quite effectively by elements of the contemporary women's movement. 4 A common response in dealing with prob- lems of self-concept is to diagnose the diffi- culty as an "image problem," which is what much of librarianship has done. When trapped into thinking of its status condition as the result of "image problem," it retaliates by creating counter-images, like the image of the high-technology "new librarian," the oc- cupation's equivalent of a . Virginia Slims commercial. A key rhetorical device librarianship has used to legitimate itself and raise its status has been to seek in the occupation parallels with other higher-status fields. 5 An important means librarians use to draw those parallels involves reference work and what sociolo- gists Rue Bucher and Anselm Strauss have called "core professional tasks. "6 "Core professional tasks" are those tasks that are shared by large numbers of a partic- ular occupation's membership and that serve to make the members distinctive as a group to the lay public. For lawyers, the core task is arguing in a courtroom, for doctors it is in- teracting on an intimate basis with clients- the so-called doctor-patient relationship. Never mind that most lawyers seldom come close to a courtroom, never mind tl;lat doc- tors' interactions with patients may more of- ten be perfunctory or through an EKG chart rather than face-to-face; the symbolic power of the "core task" in the public mind provides a ready identification for the profession as a whole that conveys status, the performance of special and esoteric skills, and a sense of ' "( the critical role that the professional mem- bers play. The performance of reference work is a "core professional task" for librarianship as a whole, and as such, all of librarianship (and particularly its professional leadership) has a stake in defining reference work to suit rhe- torical purposes. Though reference is only one of many specialties, it is a unique spe- cialty that resonates in so many ways with that other "core task" of a most high profes- sion, the doctor-patient relationship. This paper attempts to show how librarianship as a whole benefits from the image that that particular specialty can convey. There are a number of features of refer- ence work that reveal the sense in which this task mirrors tasks of higher-status occupa- tions. First of all, reference is a librarian role that involves a "professional-client" relation- ship, unlike other task areas such as catalog- ing, book selection, and administration, where the contact with library users is not of- ten direct. Because there is user contact, ref- erence is the "public face" of the occupation. It is the most visible occupational model, if one discounts the person who checks books out at the circulation desk, who is more often not a librarian, anyway. Reference work is also a specialty area in which the "applica- tion of special and esoteric knowledge," that criterion so important to achieving profes- sional status, is patent: the public perception of the all-knowing reference librarian (which coexists with other, less flattering im- ages) is testimony to this special characteris- tic of reference. Still other qualities of refer- ence work that give weight to its "core task" nature are that the work is not reducible to rules, it is difficult to measure, and its prac- tice relies on intuition, hunches, and bits and pieces of information that only long experi- ence and a retentive mind- not a textbook- can develop. Finally, there is a "private prac- tice" character to reference work that is not shared with other library specialties. The ref- erence librarian, though a member of the li- brary staff like the cataloger or the circula- tion librarian, performs work on the behalf of specific, identifiable users rather than di- rectly on behalf of the organization as a whole. Such a position enables the reference librarian to bend the rules, take shortcuts, and in other ways demonstrate autonomy in Alternative Professional Models I 185 relation to the bureaucratic red tape with which the public sees the library organiza- tion encumbered. All of these characteristics of reference work combine to provide librarianship as a whole with a set of images that serve to en- hance the occupation·s status. Librarians know that reference work is not any more important or necessary than cataloging, cir- culation, administration, or any other area of librarianship. One can•t provide good li- brary service without all of the different spe- cialties working together. Yet in all this, it is reference that provides a number of paradig- matic work roles which give considerable ammunition in the occupation·s fight for higher social status. The problem of the status of librarianship and this special role that reference plays in the striving for professional recognition has had a subtle but important influence on an old debate in the reference field. I refer to the "information versus instruction·· debate. 7 For those unacquainted with this debate, the basic positions may be stated very simply. The information side argues that it is the role of the reference librarian to concentrate practice on the delivery of information ex- tracted from the source in which the infor- mation is found in as complete and digested a manner as possible-in short, "question- answering." Teaching users how to retrieve information themselves, it is felt, falls short of the ideal professional goal of maximum service delivery. 8 The instruction side argues that an appropriate and desirable reference activity, though not the sole activity, is to help users by teaching them how to find an- swers for themselves. A key element of the in- struction side of the debate is the advocacy of self-reliance. 9 In their extreme forms, the two sides of the debate define two alternative role models for the reference librarian: the information in- termediary on the information side, and the teacher on the instruction side. It is difficult at this point to see whether one role model will win out in acceptance over the other as more relevant to our time. It is possible that the two will come to coexist, resulting in two specializations competing between each other for resources, and the likely decline of general reference service as we have known it. Through describing some of the techno- '-----------------------------------------~---_J 186 I College & Research Libraries • May 1982 logical, organizational, and social factors in- volved in the "information versus instruc- tion" debate, the present situation will be made a bit clearer, and in the end, a resolu- tion that fashions a new role (which is neither teacher nor intermediary, but which com- bines some of the features of each) will be proposed. The growth of online bibliographic searching, in which librarians play out to the fullest the intermediary role, has been an im- portant causal factor in reopening the "infor- mation versus instruction" debate. Reference librarians are now having to decide which area- online searching or bibliographic instruction- will better further their indi- vidual careers, and reference administrators are being forced to decide how best to allo- cate scarce resources between these two ex- pensive functions. 10 Making decisions re- quires some projection into the future, and any projection is based on assumptions and values presently held just as much as on as- sessments of technological and economic trends. Because the trends in technology are for the most part outside the domain of li- brarianship, we can have some notion of their nature but little control over their di- rection. Although assumptions and values too often go unexamined, it is time we look at and articulate them more carefully, for through such examination librarians can not only better predict the future, but also per- haps take part in shaping it. The intermediary role has always had the edge as a role model among those who have a strong interest in the status aspirations of li- brarianship. The reason for that advantage is plain: the intermediary role expresses the "core task" nature of librarianship. The in- termediary role, if fully implemented, would provide considerably more status value to li- brarianship than the instruction role, just as the doctor has higher status than the teacher. Advocates of the intermediary role, such as Samuel Rothstein, Bill Katz, and Tom Galvin, seem often preoccupied with image; they speak of the role in glowing terms that have limited correspondence to practice, for in practice, answering questions often seems closer to Band-Aid dispensing than to brain surgery. Bibliographic instruction is fre- quently attacked on grounds of the poor user evaluation it receives, but these critics totally ignore the few careful evaluations of question-answering in libraries, evaluations which are so distressing that we all often pre- tend they never appeared in print. 11 A significant boost to the intermediary role was provided with the innovation of online searching in the early 1970s, because the technology was sufficiently complex and the economics were such as to make intermedi- aries attractive to both librarians and end us- ers. It was great for those who were con- cerned about high status for the field because of the status value provided by the visible and public association with computer technol- ogy . 12 Early experiments by some research- ers to provide users with direct access met in failure, a very welcome result in the eyes of many librarians who enjoyed the newfound status. User dependency on librarians seemed assured by the new technology. But what about the consequences of the in- termediary role for service? What other val- ues does the choice express? The most basic organizational issue in reference service, like any social service, is how it is to be distrib- uted. Although this has long seemed to be a nonissue in reference- those who receive the service are those who ask for it- it is a genu- ine and serious issue that is unfortunately hidden under the debate over appropriate modes of reference practice. As a service that has seen little, if any, de- sign change since its origin in the late nine- teenth century, librarians tend not to think of the value choices implicit in that design that they have also inherited. 13 They all accept as a basic postulate that reference service is use- ful to anyone, at least potentially. Almost every user walking in a library door has one or more questions to which a librarian could provide answers. 14 Yet it is known that many if not most library users do not ask questions of librarians, and are actually only vaguely aware of the range of services a reference li- brarian may perform. Those few questions that are asked relative to the much larger number which users choose to keep to them- selves are thus typically of a lower level than the questions for which answers are sought; and most questions go unasked of a reference librarian. 15 Serious questioners are a small minority of users. This leads to the realiza- tion that reference service as it is classically performed in an intermediary role is a service for the few. The intermediary role model, of necessity, advocates providing information only to those who ask, and promises maxi- mum service to that minority. The maximum service that the intermediary promises can be delivered only if there is a substantial limita- tion on demand, that is , if most questions don't get asked of a librarian. That limitation on demand is provided quite conveniently by the learned behavior of users to not ask ques- tions.16 With online searching as it is presently practiced (the logical extension of the inter- mediary role), other means of limiting de- mand have been found, such as charging fees, providing minimal publicity for online, and creating the impression that the service is only appropriate for advanced and sophisti- cated researchers. In contrast to the value choice of service to the few, which is implicit in the information- giving mode of service, those who advocate instructing users make the opposite value of distributing reference service in as egalitar- ian a manner as possible. Helping users to help themselves provides for a wide distribu- tion of service, though of course not all of the service is provided by librarians. Those who have had experience in mounting effective instruction programs know, too , that such programs do not reduce the number of ques- tions reference librarians must answer across the desk; the programs increase the number , and, as well, typically make the questions more interesting. By allowing users to be- come their own question-answerers, instruc- tion advocates to some degree blur the dis- tinction between librarian and layperson, a blurring that has caused problems for those anxious about the occupation's status. The information side of the debate values self- reliance and devalues the dependence on ex- perts which results in service disequilibrium and general service scarcity .17 Technological advances such as online tend to clarify the implications of value choices that were made long ago without full awareness of their ultimate consequences. These advances require librarians to look harder at their values and perhaps seek change in them. The choice between service to the few and service to many implicit in the "intermediary versus teacher" decision pro- vides just one more example of this general Alternative Professional Models I 187 phenomenon. Medicine, of course, provides the best-known example. The notion of the doctor as the all-responsible healer led to the development of high-technology medicine, and now we are realizing the huge economic and social costs of the dependency relation- ship fostered by that kind of medicine. 18 The economics of information retrieval technol- ogy, however, which librarianship has only very limited control over, 19 will result in a lessening necessity for information interme- diaries. With computer costs still dropping and the information producers seeing a need to in- crease the size of their markets, the develop- ment of more user-friendly systems seems highly likely. The information industry has used librarians as effective and cheap retail- ers up to now, but only through direct appeal to end users can the industry achieve the size market it needs. New systems are being de- veloped for the growing home computer market , and terminals are becoming about as common as the family encyclopedia. New pricing structures may be implemented to ensure that maximum market saturation is achieved. Although current pricing methods for online now favor the utilization of inter- mediaries, changes may be in the offing. Pro- posals have been made to charge a flat up- front admission fee to a database plus a "viewing" charge for partial output, which would virtually eliminate the economic ad- vantage that highly skilled intermediaries now have over novice end users. 20 Many other technical innovations in online search- ing combined with new economic conditions make end-user access more and more likely. 21 The president of Dialog Information Ser- vices , Inc., has recently mounted a new counter-argument to the economic argument for end-user access. 22 Since Dialog's experi- ence has been that providing telephone as- sistance to naive end users is very expensive, it is argued that end-user access is not viable. What such an argument neglects, of course, is the factor of alternative system design cri- teria. Systems such as Dialog have made con- siderable developmental investment in a market of trained librarian searchers; there- tooling of these systems to accommodate a new market of nonintermediary users may require more capital than is now available to Dialog. Thus, while the older established 188 I College & Research Libraries· May 1982 commercial search systems may not move into the end-user market, other newer sys- tems are likely to do so. 23 In academic libraries the development of online catalogs may also lead to the interme- diary role becoming an anachronism. Cata- logs must be user friendly, or at least have the appearance of friendliness; if they were not, the amount of time required for staff assist- ance would be staggering. At Northwestern, for example, there is now an online author- title catalog reflecting virtually all of the li- brary's monographic holdings processed since 1970, and all of its serial holdings, in- cluding the latest issue checked in, can easily be displayed on public terminals. Subject ac- cess to the online file is now available in a test mode. With members of the Reference De- partment and other public service staff mem- bers working closely with system developers to design online instructions into the catalog itself, the teaching functions of reference again come to the fore. As the library staff members gain more experience with such sys- tems and machine costs continue to drop, it may be from there but a simple step to ac- quire tapes from other database producers, load them onto their systems, and let their us- ers search them as they do the library's cata- log.24 The present competition between those who advocate the intermediary role and those who advocate the teaching role is un- fortunate and unnecessary. It divides the ranks of reference librarians at a time when unity of purpose on behalf of user needs has never been more important. Those who fa- vor exclusive practice of an intermediary role lock themselves into the practice of a spe- cialty that is rapidly approaching obsoles- cence due to continuing economic and tech- nological change. The intermediary role also cannot hope to satisfy the information needs of more than a small minority of library us- ers, and thus cannot meet a critical social need for greater equity in the distribution of knowledge. Attempts to foster a dependency relationship between librarian and user may promise short-term gain for librarianship, but they are, in the long run, counter to the interests of both librarians and users. 25 Though the critique presented here has fo- cused principally on the intermediary role, it must be said that the teaching role as it has been implemented is also in need of much critical examination. Much of what is being taught in biblio- graphic instruction programs is mind- deadening. Teaching about the problem of information retrieval can be intellectually challenging, as the problem toucheS on some of the most difficult questions in philosophy, linguistics, psychology, and sociology. The bibliographic instruction curriculum should be broadened to treat more thoroughly and creatively basic principles, including such things as set theory for online searching. At the same time, it should take the teaching of technique out of the classroom and into self- instructional learning packages, hands-on experience, and other less expensive medi- ated methods. Above all, advocates of the teaching role should not make a cult out of teaching. Librarians provide many helpful and necessary services besides teaching, and the totality of that contribution deserves rec- ognition in its own right. Attempts to emu- late academic faculty roles can be just as dys- functional as attempts to mold reference into a doctor-patient model. The teaching cult also tends to divide instruction librarians from all other librarians, which is harmful to alllibrarianship. For all of these reasons, li- brarians must work toward defining a new role for reference service. Forging a new role model for reference li- brarianship requires first the disabusing of the idea that reference must be a "core task" of a status-seeking profession. The intermedi- ary role is the embodiment of the "core task" idea, and as such serves the status interests of librarianship at the expense of the informa- tion needs of library users. If librarians truly wish to work toward the best interests of their users, it is absurd to continue to advo- cate the old · classic professionalism, which places users in a dependency relationship with librarians. Such a relationship does a disservice to users and ultimately retards the development of library services, of librari- ans, and of much library technology. The intermediary role still has a powerful appeal to many in librarianship, especially to many library school faculty members, be- cause of the professionalization interests that the role serves. Librarians cannot work to discard it without offering an alternative that is also powerful and intellectually sound. Pauline Wilson is essentially correct in her critique of the teaching role as being inadequate, and even harmful in some re- spects, for our field, 26 so further search for a new role is in order. Though no alternative model adequate to librarianship has yet been fully developed, there are movements afoot in other human service fields that bear close watching for the examples they may provide. These move- ments all have in common a characteristic that lies at the heart of the ideals of librarian- ship: they value the sharing of information. The movements are also radically humanis- tic and show a healthy skepticism toward technological fixes, though they are not anti- technology. The holistic health movement is perhaps the best known of these, but other occupational areas besides physical health are involved in forging a new role model, among them psychotherapy, social work, media and computer activism, and eco- nomics. Some useful texts that may help li- brarianship explore new models for reference service include the book Helping Ourselves: Alternative Professional Models I 189 Families and the Human Network by Mary Howell, Theodore Schultz' new book Invest- ing in People: The Economics of Population Quality, a very interesting article by Paul Hawken in the spring 1981 CoEvolution Quarterly called "Disintermediation," the work of Ivan Illich, and that of Gregory Bateson. 27- 31 Their message calls upon ex- perts of all kinds to rethink their relationships to nonexperts, and to work toward the shar- ing of knowledge rather than its opposite, the monopolization of knowledge implicit in the classic professional model. Undertaking the project of redefining ap- propriate helping roles for librarians will re- quire the work of many individual librari- ans, experimentation and research in libraries, and 'much communication with us- ers. Such redefinition cannot be merely a pa- per exercise practiced by authors in library journals. 32 But the undertaking appears valuable and librarians, in the end, might not only provide better service for our users but also be the happier for it. REFERENCES S 3 fll tf l. Emmanuel G. Mesthene, Technological Change: Its Impact on Man and Society (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Pr., 1970); Jon Wagner, "Defining Technology: Political Im- plications of Hardware, Software, Power, and Information ," Human Relations 32: 719-36 (1979); Victor Ferkiss , Technological Man: The Myth and the Reality (New York: Brazil- ler , 1969) . 2. An interesting illustration of this avoidance of value debate is provided by Carolyn F. Etheridge, " Lawyers versus Indigents: Con- flict of Interest in Professional-Client Rela- tions in the Legal Profession, " in Eliot Freid- son , ed ., Th e Professions and Their Prospects (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1973), p.245-65. 3. For some discussion of this point , see Manfred Stanley, The Technological Conscience: Sur- vival and Dignity in an Age of Expertise (New York: Free Pr., 1978), p.23-24. Also very use- ful is Hazel Henderson , "Systems, Economics , and 'Female', " CoEvolution Quarterly 7:61-63 (Fall1975). 4. A useful historical explanation of the current condition is provided by Dee Garrison , Apos- tles of Culture: The Public Librarian and American Society , 1876-1920 (New York: Macmillan, 1979). Some interesting prescrip- tions for change are presented in Pauline Wilson, "Librarians and Their Stereotypes" (Paper read at the Library Research Round Table, American Library Association Annual Conference , Dallas , 1979). Kathleen Weibel , "Toward A Feminist Profession," Library Journal101:263-67 Qan. 1, 1976) has articu- lated some linkages between librarianship and the women's movement. 5. Acknowledgment is made here to Donald w .. Ball, "An Abortion Clinic Ethnography," So- cial Problems 14:293-301 (Winter 1967), from which the author has borrowed a way of look- ing and the idea of a "rhetoric." 6. Rue Bucher and Anselm Strauss , "Professions in Process," American Journal of Sociology 66:328-30 (1961). 7. Robert Wagers , "American Reference Theory and the Information Dogma, " Journal of Li- brary History 13:265:-81 (Summer 1978) , pro- vides excellent complementary historical per- spective on this point. 8. A large number of papers supporting this posi- tion have appeared over the years , among them , Samuel Rothstein , "Reference Service - The New Dimension in Librarianship ," College & Research Libraries 22 :11-18 Qan. 1961); William Katz , Introduction to Ref er- 190 I College & Research Libraries • May 1982 S 3o'l . ence Work, Volume II: Reference Services and Reference Processes (2d ed.; New York: McGraw-Hill, 1974; Thomas Galvin, "Educa- tion of the New Reference Librarian," Library Journal 100:727-30 (April 15, 1975); and Anita Schiller, "Reference Service: Instruction or Information," Library Quarterly 35:52-60 Oan. 1965), which is the best reasoned. Other papers support the position in passing, such as Mary Lee Bundy and Paul Wasserman, "Pro- fessionalism Reconsidered," College & Re- search Libraries 29:5-26 (Jan. 1968), and Her- bert S. White, "Growing User Information Dependence and Its Impact on the Library Field," Aslib Proceedings 31:74-87 (Feb. 1979). 9. Useful texts in support of this position are pro- vided by Harvie Branscomb, Teaching with Books: A Study of College Libraries (Chicago: Association of American Colleges and Ameri- can Library Assn., 1940); Patricia Knapp, The Monteith College Library Experiment (New York: Scarecrow, 1966); and Evan Farber, "Library Instruction throughout the Curricu- lum: Earlham College Program," in John Lu- bans, ed., Educating the Library User (New York: Bowker, 1974), p.l45-62. 10. Trudy A. Gardner, "Effect of On-line Data Bases on Reference Policy," RQ 19:70-74 (Fall 1979), highlights the competition, though the paper fails to address the value premises that might form the basis for deciding appropriate relative emphases on online and instruction. 11. F. Wilfrid Lancaster, The Measurement and Evaluation of Library Service (Washington, D.C.: Information Resources Pr., 1977), p.91-109. 12. James M. Kusak, "Integration of On-line Ref- erence Service," RQ 19:64-69 (Fall 1979), provides a good illustration of the status and image issues advanced. 13. Writing on the history of reference service has suffered from an ahistorical approach that is biased toward a high degree of professional- ization. Frances L. Hopkins, "A Century of Bibliographic Instruction: The Historical Claim to Professional and Academic Legiti- macy," College & Research Libraries 43:192-98 (May 1982), has fortunately broken new ground to provide a more objective view- point. See also Burton Bledstein, The Culture of Professionalism: The Middle Class and the Development of Higher Education in America (New York: Nocton, 1976). 14. Patrick Wilson, Public Knowledge, Private Ig- norance: Toward a Library and Information Policy (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1977), has persuasively argued the error in that pos- tulate. His prescription for remedy merits dis- cussion in the field; it may be that through such discussion, values different from Wilson's alone will be seen to bear on the issues pre- sented. 15. Mary Jane Swope and Jeffrey Katzer, "The Si- lent Majority: Why They Don't Ask Ques- tions/' RQ 12: 161-66 (Winter 1972), provides some empirical verification that a small per- centage of user questions are posed to refer- ence librarians. 16. Gregory Bateson, "The Logical Categories of Learning and Communication," in his Steps to an Ecology of Mind (New York: Ballantine, 1972), p .279-308, explains the sense in which such behavior is learned. Erving Coffman, Be- havior in Public Places: Notes on the Social Organization of Gatherings (New York: Free Pr., 1963), p.l06, proposes an alternative ex- planation, that of an "implicit contract" be- tween questioner and answerer. Both theories have merit. 17. John McKnight, "The Professional Service Business," Social Policy 8:110-16 (Nov.-Dec. 1977), provides a good summary of the general argument. 18. Everett Mendelsohn, Judith P. Swazey, and Irene Taviss, eds., Human Aspects of Biome- dical Innovation (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Pr., 1971), especially the essay by Victor Sidel, "New Technologies and the Practice of Medi- cine," p.l31-55. 19. Anita Schiller, "Shifting Boundaries in Infor- mation," Library ]ournall06:105-9 (April!, 1981). A contrasting but in some ways similar viewpoint can be found in Arthur D. Little, Inc. (Vincent Giuliano, project director), Into the Information Age: A Perspective for Fed- eral Action on Information (Chicago: Ameri- can Library Assn., 1978), and Isaac L. Auer- bach, "The Information Industry: An Invisible Industry," in Information Demand and Supply for the 1980's (Proceedings of a seminar organized by the International Coun- cil of Scientific Unions, Abstracting Board at the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C., June 23-24, 1976) (Paris: ICSU AB, 1978), p.91-97. 20. P. L. Holmes and C. B. Wooten, "An Alterna- tive Approach to the Pricing of Online Ser- vices," 2nd International Online Information Meeting Proceedings, London, Dec. 5-7, 1978 (Oxford: Learned Information, 1979), p.115-21; T. P. Barwise; Online Searching: The Impact on User Charges of the Extended Use of Online Information Services (Paris: In- ternational Council of Scientific Unions, Ab- stracting Board, 1979). 21. Brian Nielsen, "Online Bibliographic Search- ing and the Deprofessionalization of Librari- anship," Online Review 4:215-24 (Sept. 1980). 22. Roger Summit, "Popular Illusions Relating to the Costs of Online Services" (Address deliv- ered at the ALA RASD MARS Program, "Co- operation: Facilitating Access to Online Infor- mation Services," New York, June 29, 1980). The argument is also touched on in Roger Summit, "The Dynamics of Costs and Fi- nances on Online Computer Searching," RQ 20:60-63 (Fall1980). 23. A. K. Kent, "Dial Up and Die: Can Informa- tion Systems Survive the Online Age?" Infor- mation Scientist 12:3-7 (March 1978) argues for a governmental policy that would encour- age alternative system designs to those that presently exist and dominate the market. 24. The soon-to-be-available GPO Monthly Cata- log on RLIN may be cited as an example. 25. For a more general perspective on the future of service delivery, see Milan Zeleny, "The Self- Service Society: A New Scenario of the Fu- ture," Planning Review 7:3-7, 37-38 (May 1979), and Jonathan Gershuny, After Indus- trial Society? The Emerging Self-Service Economy (Lor,don: MacMillan, 1978). 26. Pauline Wilson, "Librarians as Teachers: The Study of an Organizational Fiction," Library Alternative Professional Models I 191 Quarterly 49: 146-62 (April1979). 27. Mary Howell, Helping Ourselves: Families and the Human Network (Boston: Beacon Pr., 1975). 28. Theodore Schultz, Investing in People: The Economics of Population Quality (Berkeley: Univ. ofCaliforniaPr., 1981). 29. Paul Hawken, "Disintermediation," CoEvo- lution Quarterly 29:6-13 (Spring 1981). 30. Ivan Illich, Toward a History of Needs (New York: Pantheon, 1978). 31. Gregory Bateson, Steps to an Ecology of Mind (New York: Ballantine, 1972), especially the essays "Effects of Conscious Purpose on Hu- man Adaptation" and "The Roots of Ecologi- cal Crisis." 32. For insight into the is point, see Paolo Freire, "Extension or Communication," in his Educa- tion for Critical Consciousness (New York: Seabury, 1973). This is not to say that critical writing is not helpful. For a useful discussion paper, see Ray Lester, "Why Educate the Li- brary User?" Aslib Proceedings 31:366-80 (Aug. 1979). Lester, unfortunately, makes a curious separation between culture and work. Statement of Ownership and Management College & Research Libraries is published six times a year by the American Library Association, 50 E. Huron St. , Chicago , IL 60611. American Library Association, owner; C. James Schmidt, editor. Second-class postage paid at Chicago, Illinois. Printed in U.S.A. As a nonprofit organization authorized to mail at special rates (Section 132.122, Postal Service Manual) , the purposes, function , and nonprofit status of this organization, and the exempt status for federal income tax purposes , have not changed dur- ing the preceding twelve months . Extent and Nature of Circulation ("Average" figures denote the number of copies printed each issue during the preceding twelve months; "Actual" figures denote number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date-the May 1981 issue.) Total number of copies printed: Average, 13,317; Actual, 13,045 . Paid circulation: not applicable (i.e., no sales through dealers and carriers, street vendors and counter sales). Mail subscriptions: Average, ll,427 ; Actual , 10,608. Total paid circulation: Average, 11 ,427 ; Actual , 10,608 . Free distri- bution by mail, carrier, or other means, samples, complimentary and other free copies: Average, 1,428; Actual, 1,367. Total dis- tribution : Average, 12,855; Actual, ll,975. Copies not distributed: office use, left-over , unaccounted , spoiled after printing : Av- erage, 462 ; Actual , 1,070. Returns from news agents: not applicable. Total (sum previous three en tires): Average, 13,317; Actual, 13,045. Statement of Ownership , Management , and Circulation (PS form 3526, June 1980) for 1981 filed with the United States Post Office , Postmaster in Chicago , Illinois, September 30, 1981.