.• LI B HARY OF THE. UN IVERSITY OF 1LLI NOIS O20.TU CO p- N OT,C E : Return or renew a.. Library Materia.,. The M/n/mum Fee .or each Lost Book is $50.00. on or Wore the Latest Date stamped belo« OCT i 8 W rmhW m 22 w MAR 2 5 p32 M W fe 6 DEC 2 2002 JUN 2 8 20 L161— O-1096 . mm i 1QQQ_ 9 1990 L i61— H41 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2010 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign http://www.archive.org/details/fiftyyearsofeducOOilli FIFTY YEARS OF EDUCATION FOR IIBRARIANSHIP FIFTY YEARS OF EDUCATION FOR LIBRARIANSHIP ILLINOIS CONTRIBUTIONS TO LIBRARIANSHIP NO. 1 ■ r "T IT — «— «" — «" '» »" '*» .JunwrMnmcMrn. wt ,m MM 1ND/V StW i TOK i U L NOB U8RA;.: !00L MCMVH V KATHARINE LUCINDA SHARP Founder of the University of Illinois Library School FIFTY YEARS OF EDUCATION FOR LIBRARIANSHIP Papers Presented for the Celebration of The Fiftieth Anniversary of the University of Illinois Library School March 2, 1943 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS PRESS URBANA 1943 Copyright, 1943, by the University of Illinois Press. All rights reserved. Permission for reproduction in any form may be obtained from the Publisher. University of Illinois Library School Association Fiftieth Anniversary Committee Ida F. Tod, Chairman Librarian in Education, Philosophy, and Psychology, Emerita, University of Illinois Phineas Lawrence Windsor Director of the Library and of the Library School, Emeritus, University of Illinois Frances Simpson Assistant Director of the Library School, Emerita, University of Illinois Errett Weir McDiarmid Assistant Director of the Library School, University of Illinois Josie Batcheller Houchens Assistant University Librarian (Personnel), University of Illinois Helen M. Crane Chief, Order Department, Public Library, Detroit, Michigan Grace Emily Derby Associate Librarian, State College Library, Manhattan, Kansas Paul Shaner Dunkin Senior Cataloger, Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D. C. Margaret Hutchins Assistant Professor of Library Science, School of Library Service, Columbia University, New York Ruth C. Krueger Circulation Librarian, State College Library, Corvallis, Oregon Margaret Oldfather Cataloger, Ohio State University Library, Columbus, Ohio S. Metella Williams Assistant Professor of Library Science, Library School, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana Ida Faye Wright Librarian, Public Library, Evanston, Illinois FOREWORD GENERAL PLANS FOR CELEBRATING the Fiftieth Anniversary of the founding of the University of Illi- nois Library School were under discussion before Pearl Harbor. When the country went to war, these plans had to be recast. In May, 1942, Miss Mabel Conat, President of the University of Illinois Library School Association, appointed a committee representing the faculty and the alumni to prepare suitable plans for the celebration. The story of the Fiftieth Anniversary celebration would be, for the most part, a descrip- tion of the work of this Committee of which Miss Ida F. Tod was Chairman. That story cannot be told here, but this publication is one of the results of the Committee's efforts. Most of the papers reproduced on the following pages were prepared for oral delivery. Their original style and con- tent have been preserved as far as possible. Since they were prepared by different persons, each with his own point of view, the volume naturally lacks the unity to be expected of a work from the pen of a single writer. Nevertheless, each part bears relationship to the whole. Taken in their entirety, the papers are a contribution to the history of professional education for librarianship in America. The University of Illinois Library School appropriately receives the most attention. The result is a portrayal, not hitherto available in published form, of the development of this School from its pioneer days in Chicago to the present. It is appropriate that the first paper should be devoted to Melvil Dewey. To his influence this School, like others estab- lished by his students, is in some measure indebted for its origin. He took an active interest in it from the beginning and visited it from time to time after it was moved to Urbana. Campus tradition has it, in fact, that Dewey was responsible for a last-minute switching of location from the basement of the old library building to the spacious, well-lighted quarters which the School occupied for so many years prior to erection x Fifty Years of Education for Librarianship of the present library building where even more ample ac- commodations have been provided. Other papers describe the early beginnings of the School somewhat in detail, present the library scene at the time it made its appearance, call the roll of those who have had most to do with its history, and enumer- ate some of its more distinctive achievements. But here is more than a summary of the first fifty years of the University of Illinois Library School. Roughly, the second half of the volume deals with subjects of general in- terest in the field, ranging from recruiting to international cooperation in education for librarianship. There is a recog- nition that education, including education for the professions, cannot be static; that it must progressively adapt itself to the needs it exists to serve; and that to do so creative effort and willingness to experiment are necessary today just as they were necessary half a century ago. Like the occasion which created it, this volume thus faces toward the past and the future. It is a record — an appreciative record — of the achieve- ments of a fifty-year period, and it is, at the same time, an invitation to exercise the same resourcefulness in dealing with current problems which led to the founding of our first library schools. Carl M. White CONTENTS PAGE Melvil Dewey — Creative Librarian i Charles Clarence Williamson A History of the Armour Institute Library School, 1893-1897 9 Margaret Mann Illinois Library School — Early Days .... 25 Adam Strohm Fifty Years* 31 Phineas Lawrence Windsor The Alumni Speaking* 39 Frances Simpson A Salute to the University of Illinois Library School 45 Ola M. Wyeth The University of Illinois Library School in the "Field" 53 Miles O. Price The University of Illinois Library School Survey* 61 Carl M. White Recruiting for Librarianship 79 Errett Weir McDiarmid Library Schools After Fifty Years* .... 89 Anita M. Hostetter Suggestions for the Next Fifty Years .... 99 Jerome Kear Wilcox Library Cooperation and Education for Librarianship Beyond Our Borders .... 105 Rudolph H. Gjelsness ♦Presented at the Fiftieth Anniversary Dinner, Urbana, March 2, 1943. oo On w O Z CO H pj Q D H CO O o E O CO < cq B5 < w \ H CO E CQ Q w CO D O O erf Q D H CO MELVIL DEWEY Creative Librarian By Charles Clarence Williamson Director of Libraries and Dean of the School of Library Service Columbia University New York IT SEEMS FITTING for me to direct my brief remarks to the pioneer work of Melvil Dewey. I use the adjective "creative" in order to indicate that though in large part library work is concerned with the not unimportant function of serv- ing and conserving, the contribution of a few librarians can truly be described as creative. One of these few was Melvil Dewey. Though my three titles differ slightly from his, I have had the honor for seventeen years to be Dewey's successor in three positions. He was Librarian, Director of the School of Library Economy, and Professor of Library Economy at Columbia College, and though he preceded me by some forty years it so happens that I am the only other person who has ever borne this triple designation. The explanation is that when Dewey left Columbia in 1889, two y ears after he started the first library school, he was allowed, or encouraged, to take the School with him to Albany, where it remained until I took up my work at Columbia in 1926. I mention these facts not to claim that any shred of Dewey's prophetic mantle ever fell upon my shoulders, but merely to justify this word from me on his place in the history of professional education for librarianship. Six years ago the Columbia School of Library Service celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of its establishment by Melvil Dewey as the School of Library Economy. Although the idea of such a school had been in his mind for several years, it was not formally projected until he became Librarian of Columbia College in 1883 and the first class did not assem- ble until 1887. It would not be wholly inappropriate, however, for us to call this our sixtieth year because an informal pro- gram for the training of librarians began as soon as Dewey arrived at Columbia. From 1883 on » everything he did as Librarian of the College seems to have been in view of the establishment of formal training. The School of Library Economy was there the day he arrived, even though the bud 4 Fifty Years of Education for Librarianship did not unfold for four years. His library staff and his fellow librarians everywhere were his students, however deaf to his teachings were the ears of the faculty and trustees of the College. The establishment of three other library schools within five years of the beginning of Dewey's experiment at Columbia can be attributed with reasonable certainty to his creative genius, which invariably aroused enthusiasm on the part of his ablest students. The first of these Schools was the School of Library Economy at Pratt Institute, which grew out of a class in library methods set up in 1890 for the training of library assistants. Mary Wright Plummer, a member of the first class at Columbia, initiated and carried on the work at Pratt for many years with great success. Alice Bertha Kroeger, who though not a meml>er of either of the first two classes at Columbia, drank from the same fountain of inspiration in the first class at Albany, was appointed librarian of the newly established Drexel Institute, Philadelphia, and a year later — 1892 — became the first director of the third library school. It is quite superfluous for me even to mention the name of the third member of the trio of able women who pioneered in the professional training of librarians. Katharine Lucinda Sharp, coming from Chicago, as did Miss Plummer, sat at the feet of Dewey and his associates in the second class at Albany. She quickly showed unusual capacity for leadership and con- structive achievement. Her work at Armour Institute of Tech- nology and at Illinois is an important part of your history and tradition. It could not have been by mere chance that these three library schools were started in the early nineties by young librarians who had come under the Dewey influence. The Albany School has continued, almost to the present time. to be an incubator of library schools and the principal source of library school directors. The names of Anderson, Donnelly. Thorne, Mitchell, Windsor, and many others come to mind at once. Melvil Dewey — Creative Librarian 5 It is interesting to note that none of these four pioneer schools, except the one at Columbia College, was originally connected with a college or university. In the American Li- brary Association debates on Dewey's proposal it was gener- ally assumed that a school for the training of librarians would be organized within a university, Harvard being men- tioned as one particularly well suited for the purpose. How- ever, the first three offshoots of Dewey's experiment came to life in newly established technical institutes, a fact most likely due to their very practical aims and methods as well as to the conservatism of university faculties, with which only a Dewey could cope, and even his success at Columbia was but partial and short-lived. The school at Armour was the first to sense the importance of university sponsorship. From the beginning, Dewey himself had no doubt that librarians should be edu- cated in a university. How often do we hear it said of some creative spirit that he is ahead of his time. In a very real sense I think that was true of Dewey. Whenever I have occasion to make an intimate examination of his work at Columbia I am forced to a reali- zation of how little we are doing that he did not anticipate in thought and in aspiration, if not in actual accomplishment. I find it difficult to discover any type of library service that was not clearly presented in his teaching more than half a century ago. Our student body and our faculty are larger; our book collection has grown enormously; we have far larger budgets, more buildings and more equipment; but I am not at all sure we are better librarians, or that we are doing a better job of training creative librarians than did our pioneering predecessors of fifty years ago. Indeed sometimes I think we have a good way to go to catch up with Dewey and some of his contemporaries. Some- times we act as if we were only half convinced that library work is a profession. Dewey did not stop to debate that ques- tion. Sixty years ago he wrote of "this new distinct profession, 6 Fifty Years of Education for Librarianship affording opportunities of usefulness in the educational field inferior to no other, and requiring superior abilities to dis- charge its duties well." "The librarian," he went on to say, "is ceasing to be a mere jailer of books and is becoming an aggressive force in his community." 1 Even now when librar- ians get together they sometimes talk as if that were only a half-realized ideal. I fear the present generation of librarians is in danger of thinking of Dewey not as a creative spirit moved in all he did by a clear vision of the role of books and libraries as a tre- mendous force in society, for nowadays he is too often pre- sented as the great standardizer, preoccupied with the me- chanics and materials of the librarian's job. It is true that his fertile mind was busy with such things, but they were only means to an end. The true purpose of libraries he saw more clearly, I think, than most of his contemporaries. Though the curriculum of the school he brought into being was intensely practical, and though his own lectures may have been con- cerned very largely with the details of library management, he was remarkably successful in imparting his vision of library service to young men and women in his classes. One of our prominent librarians coming from the West as a young man to study in the early days at Albany recalls his impressions of Melvil Dewey in these words: "Here was a man who by means of education, books, and libraries was confident that he could abolish ignorance, insure happiness, and secure pros- perity to the whole human race." Dewey was a whole board of adult education through libraries more than a generation before that term came into common use. Though he himself was perhaps not so widely read as many of the leading librarians of his day, he never failed to stress the importance of reading in the lifelong process of education and in the formation of public opinion. ^Library Journal, v. 8, p. 286 (Sept. -Oct., 1883). Melvil Dewey — Creative Librarian J In the unique opportunity to guide the individual's reading, Dewey saw the professional librarian's power for good. When Dewey undertook to describe the Columbia College Library he had little to say about the books beyond their num- ber. But he let himself go in talking about the building and equipment, the heating, the ventilation, the lighting, the innu- merable devices to insure the comfort and convenience of readers, the cataloging and classification schemes, the admin- istrative methods, and the many ingenious ways he had devised to save the reader's time. Nowadays we are almost too willing to take most of these things for granted and to think that the librarian should spend his time on larger and more important things. Possibly we forget that only sixty years ago such matters were of relatively far greater importance than they are today and that even today the creative gift can make its contribution through such trifles as the form of a catalog card. Today, as in 1887, it is possible that the content of the curriculum is less important than the spirit which animates the teaching. These pioneers may not always have chosen most wisely the objects of their intense enthusiasm, but it was their faith in their mission and their enthusiasm that brought results. S. S. Green, speaking for the American Librarian Association Committee after visiting Dewey's School in 1887, praised the result of the first year's work, but ventured to suggest that the atmosphere was slightly feverish and that there seemed to be lacking a quality which in art is known as repose. To this mild criticism Mr. Dewey replied that he doubted the School would ever acquire a reputation for culti- vating repose. "In fact," said he, "some of its best work will be just the opposite; and, while we shall guard against that feverish spirit that unduly wastes energy, we hope to cultivate so much of fever as makes the pulse beat quicker and firmer with enthusiastic zeal for the great life work opening out before our pupils. . . . We shall jealously watch the health 8 Fifty Years of Education for Librarianship of our pupils, but we count a chief gain of their course that each shall go out, not in the spirit of repose, but in that of a great awakening; that none shall fall back into that partial lethargy which curses so many libraries today and contents itself with doing its required work. . . . And when our every pupil is, each in his own sphere, doing his all and his best, according to the strength that has been given him, then we shall feel that our first skirmish line has begun the march. And the end is a sure and glorious victory." A HISTORY OF THE ARMOUR INSTITUTE LIBRARY SCHOOL 1893" 1897 By Margaret Mann Associate Professor of Library Science, Emerita University of Michigan IN 1893 THE FIRST LIBRARY SCHOOL in the Middle West was launched. 1 It was one of the four schools founded between 1887 and 1893. The first, at Columbia College, later known as the New York State Library School at Albany, preceded it by six years. The new library school in Chicago was not an independent entity. It was the Department of Library Economy within the Armour Institute (later known as Armour Institute of Technology). This Institute, which was located at 33rd Street and Armour Avenue on the south side of the city of Chicago, was the gift of P. D. Armour, a Chicago industrialist who gave generously of his wealth that young people might acquire a practical education. The president of the new school was the Reverend F. W. Gunsaulus who had already cooperated with Mr. Armour in encouraging the younger generation to become self-support- ing. Dr. Gunsaulus had acquired a library of two thousand volumes which he gave to the new institution. It was the cataloging and classification of the books in this collection that furnished the practical work in those subjects for the students of the new library school. The entrance requirements were very simple. Candidates had to be over twenty years of age and had to have at least a high-school education or its equivalent. Students, except col- lege graduates, matriculating for the courses in Library Sci- ence were required to pass an examination covering books, authors, and current events. In 1 893- 1 894 a one-year course of forty hours a week was given, which thereafter was extended to a two-year course. Courses were practical rather than theoretical the first year, and the training was planned primarily for high-school gradu- ates who might meet certain demands for library assistants *In telling the history of the Armour Library School which flourished in Chicago from 1893 to 1897, I have found it necessary to bring in some unpublished recollections, and if this history seems too personal it is because (1) all records were not available, and (2) much of its history had never been recorded. II 12 Fifty Years of Education for Librarians hip in the central states. The tuition was $60 a year, advanced to $75 in 1895. No degree was granted by Armour Institute, but a certif- icate was given to students in Library Science for completion of the full course of 1893 -1894. When the course was ex- tended to two years, provision was made for granting a two- year diploma, but no diploma was issued in 1895 on com- pletion of only one year of the course. Thus the two-year diploma was awarded only to the graduating classes of 1896 and 1897. Fifty-nine students matriculated at Armour in Li- brary Science during the four years, 1 893-1 897. Twenty-five completed the one-year course, eleven received the two-year diploma (one from the University of Illinois), and six trans- ferred with the School to the University of Illinois in the fall of 1897 and became members of its first class of 1897- 1898. Katharine L. Sharp, Director of the Department of Li- brary Economy at Armour, had the happy faculty of sharing the interests of the new school with all of her friends, thus giving it a standing even before it had proved its usefulness. She sought out specialists in Chicago such as visiting librar- ians, book sellers, and book binders to lecture at the Institute, thus acquiring for the School a certain distinction. She was alert to enrich the courses and see that the School had a place comparable with other library schools already functioning in the East. Students and faculty members joined the Chicago Library Club, the American Library Association, and the Illinois Library Association. Following is a roster of the faculty: Frank W. Gunsaulus, D.D., President, 1893- 1897. Katharine L. Sharp, Ph.M., B.L.S., Director, Library Economy, 1893- 1897. May L. Bennett, A.B., Library Economy, Cataloging. 1 893- 1 896. Thomas C. Roney, A.M., English Literature. 1893-1895. Edith E. Clarke, A.B., Dictionary Cataloging. 1804-1805. History of Armour Institute Library School 13 Louis Monin, Ph.D., German Literature, 1 894-1895. H. C. Learned, A.M., Current Events, 1894-1895. Jessie S. Van Vliet, Selection of Books, 1895-1896. Pitt So Relle, Typewriting, 1895- 1896. Margaret Mann, 2 Cataloging, Public Documents, Library- Economy, 1 896- 1 897. Cornelia Marvin, Teacher of Reference and Bibliography, and Reference Librarian o f Armour Institute, 1 896- 1 897. W. Irving Way, History of Printing and Binding, 1896- 1897. The Director — Katharine L. Sharp The greatest force and inspiration of the Armour Library School was its director, Katharine L. Sharp. Her splendid mind, her dignity, her gracious bearing, and her love for her profession won the constant admiration of her students. Library students at Armour were immediately aware that they were being trained by a person who understood her work, her students, and herself. She never lost an opportunity to share with her students all the learning she had acquired ; her influence was not a passing incident in their lives — it was something which went far deeper; she aroused in them a certain determination to succeed and gave them glimpses of things far beyond their own work and their own horizons, thus inculcating in them a strong desire to attain the greatest possible success. All who came under the influence of Kath- arine L. Sharp were richer and stronger because of the asso- ciation, and her memory will always be an inspiration. The Curriculum In planning its curriculum the Library School at Armour did not follow the rigid requirements of the Institute of which it was a part. It was left free to plan new courses and these 'Transferred to Illinois as instructor in 1897. 14 Fifty Years of Education for Librarianship naturally followed the program of the junior class of the New York State Library School. In looking back at it now it seems very elementary, but when one realizes the dearth of books on the teaching of library science and the meager emphasis which had been placed on uniformity in practice, it is not strange that the faculty taught, in general, only the routines which had been tried at least one year. Slight attention was given to a balanced curriculum. Too much was happening in the field at the time to stop and analyze trends. About all that was known was the fact that the courses of study must be flexible and allow for some out- side field work. While the program at Armour was informa- tive, it was not well balanced. In all of the early library schools the emphasis up to 1893 was on the duties which are now regarded as chiefly clerical. Comparatively little time was spent on administration, exten- sion work, or even on bibliography. Students heard a great deal about "library economy," but little about "library sci- ence." Mr. Munthe, after his visit to America, called it "The missionary period" of library science. Great emphasis was given to technique, which was the only part of the work which had become in any way standardized, and too little emphasis was given to the orientation of the student who was to become the dispenser of books and infor- mation. Technique was introduced before the new student knew its purpose or could evaluate its usefulness. Nomenclature for the new science of librarianship was cumbersome, and definitions were wanting at that time ; in fact, no real study had been made of a curriculum for the schools of library science. The New York State Library School had set the pace, but its fundamental policies had little challenge since it was under state regulations which some- times obstructed progress. Nevertheless, its courses were more advanced than those at Armour Institute. History of Armour Institute Library School 15 As Mr. Reece has said in his treatise on The Curriculum in Library Schools: "Armour was reported early as surpass- ing the original library school in the stress 'laid upon the practical things of library life.' All this is not to suggest that the reasons underlying procedures were ignored, for the teaching unquestionably was too intelligent to permit that. Moreover, there is some evidence that the original library school [in the West] was not universally regarded as bound to the practical lines laid down for it. The predominant intent, however, doubtless was that echoed in the initial announce- ment of a later school, namely, that its courses were 'practical rather than theoretical'. . . . Armour included liberal studies, since . . . [the School] considered it impossible or undesir- able to insist upon any specified amount of education as prerequisite for entrance." 3 It was the policy of the School that each instructor should be engaged in active work, since special training consists in developing methods of handling particular situations. Mr. W. W. Bishop early called attention to the new trends in library work when he wrote: "Up to the time of the World's Fair at Chicago in 1893 . . . attention had been — I think we may safely say — largely centered in the internal management of . . . libraries, on such matters as bookstacks and binding, cataloging and classifying, charging and registra- tion systems. Of course I do not mean that other matters did not occupy thought and receive attention, but we may truly say that the emphasis was on the internal side. In the next few years two other matters began to forge ahead — buildings and library extension. And then followed with almost alarm- ing rapidity a sudden expansion of the activities of the library in every external relation. First the story hour and children's work was the great discovery, then traveling libraries and 'Reece, Ernest J., The Curriculum in Library Schools, 1936, p. 32-33. 1 6 Fifty Years of Education for Librarianship commission work, then branch libraries sprang up almost like the dragon's teeth of the fable, work with schools, with clubs, with every form of social organization which could use books." 4 Curriculum of the Library School of Armour Institute first year 1 893 -1 894 Order Work This included a brief study of book sellers, methods of ordering books and serials. Students had experience in filling out order cards. Trade Bibliography was given as a separate course. The Armour Institute Library lacked the tools to make this course effective. Elementary Reference Groups of subjects were assigned to students to look up in reference books, and a comparative study was made of the reference books in the Armour Library. Selection of Books Entries from the Publishers' Weekly were clipped and evaluated. The books themselves were not always available for inspection. Shelf Listing Dewey's Library School Rules was used as a text for mak- ing shelf list records. The care of the shelves and shelf appli- ances, such as dummies, book supports, etc.. was touched upon. Cataloging The texts were Dewey's Library School Rules; Cutter's Rules for a Dictionary Catalog; and the American Library Association's List of Subject Headings. 4 Bishop, W. W., Cataloging as an Asset, 1896, p. 6. History of Armour Institute Library School ij Instruction was first given for the classified catalog since the Armour Institute catalog was classified in form. The dictionary catalog was touched upon briefly. The Armour Li- brary catalog was later changed to the dictionary form. Loan Systems This course included a study of lending systems, traveling libraries, inter-library loans, and home libraries. Library Handwriting Since few typewriters were in use at this time, library handwriting was very important. The vertical hand was taught. Binding Study was made of durability and cost of materials, also, specifications, and binding records. Book repairing was also included. General Information The course included many single lectures on questions of administration, such as access to shelves, legislation, and architecture. Apprentice, or Practice Work, in the Armour Library This included mending books, filing cards, reading shelves, practical work in accessioning, order work, cataloging, etc. SECOND YEAR 1 894 -1 895 Comparative Classification Comparison was made of classification systems including Perkins, Cutter, Schwartz, Fletcher, Dewey, and Rowell. Bibliography Each student was assigned a subject on which he compiled a list of references. 18 Fifty Years of Education for Librarianship Inspection Visits Students visited and reported on Chicago libraries for the study of organization, routines, and service. Lectures Many outside lectures were given by librarians of Illinois and Wisconsin. Second-Year Courses — 1895-1897 The second year's work was an elaboration of the courses given in the first year. Less emphasis was given to technique and more to the general problems of administration and li- brary development. The following subjects were covered by lectures from members of the faculty and librarians in the vicinity of Chicago: Reference Work, Selection of Books. Advanced Library Economy, Bibliography, History of Libra- ries, Comparative Classification, Advanced Reference, Exten- sion Work. Time was always left open for an occasional visitor who was willing to address the students and many lectures were given by librarians from Illinois and Wisconsin who were in- terested in the development of libraries in the rural districts of these two states. Library Tools Bibliographical tools were meager at this time. The Linked States Bureau of Education had issued as a government docu- ment, in 1876, Public Libraries in the United States of America, which was a large volume of approximately two thousand pages. The very full bibliographies in the volume were especially useful. The Decimal Classification appeared in this volume for the first time, and Cutter's Rules for a Dic- tionary Catalog was also included in the final pages of the book. The Zcntralblatt fiir Bibliothekswesen was available in History of Armour Institute Library School 19 1884, and though it was too expensive for most library schools, it was available in Chicago libraries. The Library Journal, covering the years from 1876 on, was the students' first source. In 1896 the new journal, Public Libraries (later changed to Libraries), began publication in Chicago under the editorship of Mary Eileen Ahern. This was the first periodical devoted to library work to be published in the West. The first American Library Association Catalog was issued in 1893, the year Armour Institute was opened. This gave the students an example of both a dictionary and a classified catalog in book form, and all titles were classified both by the Dewey and the Cutter symbols. The Mudge Guide to Reference Work was not yet pub- lished; so the reference courses were conducted by students examining the few books available at Armour Institute and in other libraries of Chicago. Fortunately, the Armour Li- brary had on its shelves the catalogs of the Peabody Institute and the Boston Athenaeum libraries. Edward Edwards' Li- braries and Founders of Libraries, 1865, and also his Memoirs of Libraries, 1859, were to be found in Chicago libraries as was the catalog of the British Museum Library. The Library of Congress had made but few contributions to either library science or bibliography at this time, and the H. W. Wilson Company had not been established. One of the very few textbooks came as a result of the Columbian Exposition of 1893. I refer to the Papers Prepared for the World's Library Congress, commonly known as the "World's Fair Papers," edited by Melvil Dewey and issued by the United States Bureau of Education in 1896. This proved to be a most valuable and interesting handbook of library economy. Nearly every phase of the work which libraries had met up to this time was treated by authorities in the field, and library school students for the first time had a treatise covering general library work. There is every reason 20 Fifty Years of Education for Librarianship to believe that the Library School at Armour had created a demand for more literature in the field of library science. Extracurricular Activities There was great opportunity in the Middle West at this time for students to take part in developments in the field. They also had many chances to hear and meet librarians who at- tended the World's Fair. Louisa S. Cutler of the Xew York State Library School was in charge 5 of the American Library- Association's model library at the Exposition, and her booth became a rendezvous for librarians from abroad as well as from the United States. Armour Institute was very fortunate in receiving the nucleus of the museum prepared for this exhibit after the World's Columbian Exposition was closed. Miss Sharp organized and conducted a summer course in library training at the University of Wisconsin for the Wis- consin Library Commission in 1895 and 1896, and delivered the first course of library lectures in the university extension work in Cleveland in 1897. She took an active part in exploit- ing the model library at the World's Fair in Chicago in 1893 and always introduced her students to visiting librarians. In 1896 F. A. Hutchins of Baraboo, Wisconsin, gave an account of his trip through the rural districts in the interest of traveling libraries. The Wisconsin Library Commission, of which Mr. Hutchins was a member, was beginning to take the lead in matters of the Northwest and had initiated a most unique and successful phase of library extension, and one most stimulating to students of library science. Lutie E. Stearns was very generous of her time and gave many exhilarating lectures to the class about the pioneering work which was going on in Wisconsin. "Louisa S. Cutler was in charge of the American Library Association's "Model Library" of 5000 books at the World's Columbian Exposition. Katharine L. Sharp was in charge of the Association's "Comparative Ex- hibit" of library appliances, forms, models and equipment. For details, see Library Journal, v. 18, p. 280-284, 1893. History of Armour Institute Library School 21 W. W. Bishop, then Librarian of Garrett Biblical Insti- tute at Evanston, became a very good friend of the Library School at Armour Institute. His stimulating lectures were a great inspiration, and Miss Sharp sought his advice on many subjects. In 1897 Melvil Dewey gave an informal talk on "The Possible Future of the Congressional Library" and it was in that year that Miss Sharp spoke before the Women's Club at Aurora, Illinois. The Illinois Library Association held a meeting at Armour Institute in November 1896 and in the same year created a bureau of information which for a time was conducted by the students of the Library School. Later, when the Association met in Peoria May 13, 1897, Armour students gave a practical demonstration of reference work, cataloging, and the work at the delivery desk. In the same year the libraries in Milwaukee were visited. The senior class of 1896 took part in the programme of the Wisconsin State Library Association at Racine by giving a history of the book from the time of looking up reviews, through ordering, buying, accessioning, classifying, catalog- ing, lending, binding and repairing. This demonstration came out in print in the Library Journal {Wisconsin Supplement) April 1896, edited by Lutie E. Stearns, Secretary of the Com- mission. Topics presented were: Reviews and Bookbuying, Sarah Dickinson; Ordering, Irene Warren; Accessioning, Eleanor Roper ; Classification, Mary J. Calkins ; Cataloging, Margaret Mann; Lending Systems, Virginia Dodge; Bind- ing, Maude Henderson; and Repairing, Maude W. Straight. Extracurricular Lecturers Those giving extracurricular lectures included: 18P3-1894 — W. W. Bishop; Edith E. Clarke; Louisa S. Cutler; John C. Dana; Mrs. Zella Allen Dixon; Constantin 22 Fifty Years of Education for Librarians hip Norrenberg, University of Kiel, Germany; Lutie E. Stearns; John Watson ; Irving Way ; and G. E. Wire. 1894-1895 — W. W. Bishop, Mary E. Robbins, Lutie E. Stearns, and G. E. Wire. 1895-1896 — W. W. Bishop, Eliza Browning, J. C. Dana, H. L. Elmendorf, F. A. Hutchins, J. N. Larned, Lutie E. Stearns, Irving Way, and G. E. Wire. 1896-189/— W. W. Bishop, Almon Burtch, F. A. Hutch- ins, Thorwald Solberg, Lutie E. Stearns, and G. E. Wire. Students in Armour Institute Library School Class of 1894 Almy, Ida B. Cory, H. Elizabeth Craney, Mary E. Davidson, Charlotte E. Hardinge, Margaret A. Mann, Margaret 6 Class of In 1894 the course was changed class of 1895. Class of Calkins, Mary J. 6 Clark, Mrs. Martha B. Coffin, Helen L. Dickinson, Sarah S. Dodge, Virginia R. 6 Forstall, Gertrude Gale, Mary E. Green, Janet M. Gustorf, Harriet M. Moore, Evva L. ^impson, Elizabeth F. Swan, Lizzie P. ^ Tyler, Alice S. Wales, Elizabeth B. Warren, Irene 6 1*95 to two years, so there was no 1896 Henderson, Maude R. 6 Marvin, Cornelia Ogden, Jessie F. Root, Mrs. Ella G. Roper, Eleanor 6 Shields, Kate F. Stickle, Ellen A. Straight. Maude W. 6 Williams, Sarah N. 'Two-year - diploma. History of Armour Institute Library School 23 i&hern, Mary E. Aikins, Ida D. (1895- 1896) Bisbee, Harriet H. Clarke, Elizabeth P. Foye, Charlotte H. Marvin, Mable A. Class of 1897 Milner, Madeleine W. 6 Odor, Virginia N. Shuey, Elizabeth M. Warwick, Elma 6 Wing, Elizabeth R. 6 First Class That Registered at the University of Illinois 1897-1898 Bryant, Grace W. Chapin, Artena M. Chase, Adelaide M. 7 Dwight, Agnes L. Edwards, Grace O. 7 Furness, Elizabeth M. Gibbs, Laura R. 7 Gregory, Julia Jordan, Mary J. Krause, Louise B. 7 Kumli, Anna B. Loomis, Metta M. Pierce, Mary T. 7 Skinner, Eliza J. Stern, Renee B. 7 Tobias, Ella F. Waddell, Nina T. Weston, Katharine Transfer of the School The last class in Library Science at Armour Institute was graduated in June 1897. The commencement address on this occasion was delivered by Daniel C. Gilman, President of Johns Hopkins University. All the students who had com- pleted the required courses were successful in securing positions. It was in the spring of 1897 that requests came from both the University of Wisconsin and the University of Illinois to consider the transfer of the School. Miss Sharp was looking 'Two-year diploma. 'Transferred with the School to the University of Illinois in the fall of 1897. 24 Fifty Years of Education for Librarianship for more commodious accommodations, but the University of Wisconsin could not offer suitable quarters for at least two years. It was therefore decided in April 1897 to accept the invitation from the University of Illinois which offered a new library building and the administration of the University Library. In September of 1897, with the good will of Armour Institute of Technology, the School moved its equipment, a part of its faculty, and some of its students to Urbana, and became the University of Illinois State Library School. The Place of the Armour Library School The Armour Library School had great influence in determin- ing the trend which library training was to take in the Middle West. During the four years in which it functioned, studies were made of the possibilities of expansion in the field of library science, and through her own experience and obser- vation, the Director was able to measure and evaluate certain needs which the Armour School had disclosed. It was very apparent that the School had great influence in stimulating interest and in proving the need for trained librarians. These facts alone allowed Miss Sharp to carry to her new work, in the State Librarv School at the Universitv of Illinois, new friends, new ideas, and a very definite plan for future devel- opments. As I review the work at Armour Institute and add to it my forty-three years in library work and in library teaching, I feel as did Bliss Perry when he said: "How many of us conductors of courses there are under the great hospitable roof . . . each one of us convinced, naturally, of the trans- cendent importance of our own theme! We could never have gone on without that faith." 8 "Bliss Perry in his And Gladly Tt\uh, p. 262. ILLINOIS LIBRARY SCHOOL Early Days By Adam Strohm Supervisory Secretary Wayne County Library Board Detroit, Michigan (Formerly Librarian Detroit Public Library) THE END OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY was the beginning of various social and cultural movements launched on the river of optimism and buoyancy. The era of great world wars seemed to have passed, even the American Civil War had lost its sting. People felt more confident about the future ; progress stepped out on the highways of freedom and good will. This "land of opportunity" had mastered material success. Ground should now be broken for other harvests ; enlightenment must be more widespread ; the riches of an idealistic democracy could be realized only if we could conceive of a horizon not bounded by our geographical fron- tiers but compassing the inheritance of ages past and the dawn of tomorrow. Endowments for altruistic causes and foundations to improve the life of mankind came into being, with resources reaching impressive figures. The public library of America was a child born in those days of generous impulses, articulated in slogans such as "equal opportunity," "knowledge is power," "I will," "adult education," etc. The library discarded some of its dignified robes of old and appeared on the common as an institution chartered for popular education. Library staffs, no longer chained to work tables, no longer immured from mundane interests, stepped out on the floor, ready for a public recep- tion, and for conducting free excursions in the world of books. The librarians who took possession of this book service were a merry crew trained in specialist schools; many were novices, but they proved adepts in courteous informality. The guests of the library departed fortified mentally and certainly no worse for their experience. The public library was probably never conscious of being one of the earliest and most painless instruments in blasting the hard rock of isolationism and national intransigence. A small group of exploring spirits were conferring at the curb. A young voice called out: "Let's go!" Main Street with its colorless smugness had become a new Front Street of open- mindedness and mental curiosity. The operators of this new 27 28 Fifty Years of Education for Librarians hip popular institution did not displace their forbears. The scholar, the scribe, the assayer still were the solid trunk from which these new twigs broke out in unblushing greenery. They won their place as "travellers' aid" to the common man, to the youngsters. They were the exhibitors, placing their books on the conveyor belt for all to see. The library with its cheerful arcades and comfortable equipment left its doors open; all comers were free to read and free to think. This new experiment in unconventional democracy made friends quickly. With Andrew Carnegie grubstaking American communities from coast to coast, the erection of new libraries went forward steadily. The dis- covery of a new America by Americans was imminent, the blinds were thrown open, the sun beamed in, spirits rose. The age of enlightenment ! Training schools to meet the demand for this new type of technicians came into being, enrollments followed quickly, attracting a new type of students interested in popular edu- cation and the liberation of the book from its goldfish im- prisonment. The New York State Library School under Melvil Dewey was the pioneer of its kind. It was followed in 1893 by the Library School at the Armour Institute in Chi- cago under the leadership of Miss Katharine L. Sharp, a disciple and follower of Melvil Dewey. The latter was a rugged trail breaker and cheerful iconoclast; his interest in library service was indicative of his temperamental zest in life as a pioneer. Miss Sharp equalled her mentor in intel- lectual powers and lofty conceptions but surpassed him in grace of personality, in the interpretation of objectives and vision of the new service field thrown open to a new generation. ^VVhen the Library School was transferred from the Armour Institute to the University of Illinois its dignity was enhanced, its future secured. Under the wings of a state insti- tution the boundaries of its usefulness were widened. Miss Sharp assumed her position in the academic field as a scholar AW ^u ^i^f Illinois Library School — Early Days 29 who returns from studies abroad. The atmosphere of her new surroundings was that of a new day. The persuasive clarity of her enthusiasm impelled hearty cooperation from the Univer- sity, spontaneous loyalty from her associates, and eager inter- est on the part of her students. As the official Director of the School Miss Sharp possessed qualities that gave indelible grace to the hour. The educational and technical processes that had to be mastered in order to fit one for service were adopted with confidence. She made it abundantly clear that there must be a plan, there must be order, not least so in concept and thinking. Valuable as were these pedagogical counts, the marginal and implied objectives in library service — prescient rather than experienced — were even more stimulating and beckoning. Academic libraries were old ; the public library at the turn of the century had but a brief history, and the library school even less. Recognition was still to come, performance still had its unique record to make.'-'The Illinois School was fortunate in its chief officer. At no time was Miss Sharp a mere peda- gogic master, though she knew the mechanics of teaching thoroughly. She was the leader, as she was also the hostess at whose table sustaining nourishment was graciously served. Endowed with grace of carriage and an attractive appearance — never emphasized by synthetic overtones — her intellectual honesty called forth the best that was in the students. During the class hour they did something more than take notes. They planned to take to the road as Miss Sharp pointed to the career that lay ahead for those of courage and generous motives. These recruits Were ready to give, to share their best experience, the satisfactions and strength which stem from understanding minds. The highway to new freedom! It was a new career, a career for youth in a youthful country. From year to year new groups were articled for service. They departed with grateful hearts, conscious of having been in the presence of one who faced the future with head erect. They stepped out, resolved to keep faith. FIFTY YEARS By Phineas Lawrence Windsor Director of the Library and of the Library School, Emeritus University of Illinois PHINEAS LAWRENCE WINDSOR Director of the University of Illinois Library and Library School 1909-1940 THE WORLD'S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION in Chicago in 1893 gave the opportunity to the alert Ameri- can Library Association to arrange a library exhibit as one of the educational features of that Exposition. This exhibit was placed in charge of Miss Katharine L. Sharp, a recent graduate of the New York State Library School at Albany. Her work in connection with the exhibit came to the atten- tion of Dr. Frank W. Gunsaulus, at that time organizing the newly established Armour Institute in Chicago. Conferences with Miss Sharp followed and in the fall of 1893 resulted in the establishment of the Department of Library Economy at Armour Institute under her direction. In the very beginning the curriculum extended over one academic year and was open to high-school graduates. Two years later, in 1895, a second year of courses was added to the curriculum, and two years later still, in 1897, the School was transferred to the Uni- versity of Illinois. The transfer to Illinois was made only after also con- sidering advantages offered by the University of Wisconsin. Miss Sharp had organized and directed a summer library school at Wisconsin in the summers of 1895 and 1896. The balance was probably turned in favor of Illinois by the fact that a new university library building was completed in Ur- bana that summer, and Miss Sharp was offered the position of University Librarian in addition to that of Director of the School, both the School and the Library to occupy the new building. This combination of opportunities for work in a more distinctively academic atmosphere was exactly to her liking. In September, 1897, then, forty-six years ago, the School began its work here in Urbana as a part of the growing Uni- versity of Illinois, and instituted a two-year curriculum with two years of college work required for admission. On the com- pletion of the two years of professional courses the University agreed to confer on the student the degree of Bachelor of Library Science. 33 (^f 34 Fifty Years of Education for Librarianship During her four years at Armour and her ten years at Illinois, Miss Sharp, full of enthusiasm, untiringly energetic, and always an example of forceful character and personal charm, made a record which constituted a notable contribution to the professional education of librarians at a time when the methods and aims of that education were still in the formative stage; when the necessity, or even the desirability, of such specialized training schools was admitted not even by all li- brarians, to say nothing of college professors. The faculty of the School in those early years were usu- ally also members of the University Library staff. Among them were Miss Margaret Mann, who began teaching in 1896; Miss Mary L. Jones; Miss Maude Straight (now Mrs. A. P. Carman), 1897- 1900; Miss Isadore Mudge, 1901-1903; Miss Frances Simpson, 1901-1931; and Miss Anna May Price, 1905- 1912, to name only a few. Even in those early years some distinctive courses and methods were begun which have made for themselves an enduring place in our educational scheme. Two of these courses may be mentioned. First, from the very beginning at the University of Illinois, in 1897, and down through the years, often with the help of members of the University Library staff who had no other teaching duties, the School has offered a course for undergraduate college students on the use of the library. That course carried credit toward the degrees given in the colleges of the University and in the opinion of many of the faculty of those colleges, has fully justified itself. Second, Miss Mann, in 1900, conducted a course in the reference use of public documents and the cata- loging of them — the first of such extended courses in public documents given in any library school. During the years since 1900 this School has continued and extended its work in docu- ments, foreign, federal, state, and municipal, and has by many been looked upon as foremost in this work. Ten years after the inception of the School, that is in 1903, admission requirements were raised to three years of college Fifty Years 35 work. By arrangement with the College of Literature and Arts and the College of Science those colleges accepted the first year's work of the Library School as their fourth or senior year and conferred the degree of A.B. in Library Science or B.S. in Library Science upon students who completed the first year of the Library School curriculum. After three years this arrangement was discontinued at the request of the Library School. Miss Sharp, after ten years at Illinois, resigned in 1907 to enter other work with her long-time friend Melvil Dewey. A few years later she lost her life in an automobile accident in the Adirondacks. Her distinguished work is commemorated by a bronze portrait tablet which, commissioned by the alumni of the School and executed by Lorado Taft in 1922, hangs on the wall of the Library School quarters. When Miss Sharp left, Albert S. Wilson was put in im- mediate charge of the School, serving from 1907 to 19 12, when he resigned. He did not have the professional library training nor the library experience to make him satisfactory in a school with Miss Sharp's ideals of professional training. He was succeeded as assistant director in 19 12 by Miss Frances Simpson, who served nineteen years in that capacity, making a total of thirty years of service to the School. Miss Simpson made an indelible impression upon the work of the School, both by the high standard of her teaching and by skill in administering the school office. Rarely, indeed, does one find such loyalty to a school, to its alumni, and to their pro- fessional work as she embodied during all those years and still embodies. She was followed in 1931 by Miss Amelia Krieg who continued the good work for the School and its alumni in a period beset by unusual problems incident to much heavier enrollments, by marked changes in methods of teaching in library schools and in the demands upon the profession, until she resigned in 1942. She was succeeded by Dr. E. W. McDiarmid. The School has offered its courses in summer sessions vHr 36 Fifty Years of Education for Librarianship of the University since 191 1. For the first few years these courses were intended for librarians who were high -school graduates and who were employed in Illinois libraries. Such courses were not credited toward the degree given in the Library School but were nevertheless an important contribu- tion to the work of libraries in the State of Illinois. Since 1919 summer courses for college graduates have been offered for credit toward library degrees. During recent years these courses have been offered in a sequence that enabled a student carrying the work of four consecutive summers to complete the requirements for a Bachelor's or, since 1927, a Master's degree if the first year's Library School work had previously been completed. Much of the School's more recent contribu- tion to professional education has been through these summer sessions. / The chief contribution of the School to the profession has naturally been through its alumni, who have come to the School from practically every state in the union and have as graduates scattered to every part of the country for their professional careers, thus establishing a nationwide reputation for the work of the School. They have been elected or ap- pointed to the highest positions in both national and state library associations; they have been librarians of many uni- versity, college, high school, public, and special libraries; they have been on the faculties of nearly all the library schools of the country; and to a lesser degree their good work has gone out to foreign lands as well. Though largely unpublished, the Master's theses, written by students of the University of Illi- nois Library School, beginning in 1027, have constituted a noteworthy contribution to professional literature. Through all the years, the School has enjoyed the dis- tinction of having a strong faculty, a changing group, who have followed the highest ideals of the profession. They have had the active cooperation of both the staff of the University Library and of many members of the faculties of the other colleges of the University. With such cooperation, especially Fifty Years 37 by the librarians on the staff of the University Library, the instructional work has been enriched and the tone of the work has been more easily kept at high levels. Throughout my in- cumbency I was keenly aware of the value of this cooperation. Since my own retirement in 1941, Dr. C. M. White has carried on with conspicuous ability. With him and Dr. Mc- Diarmid at the helm, the Illinois Library School will continue to be one of the leaders, forging ahead in its own great tradition. THE ALUMNI SPEAKING By Frances Simpson Assistant Director, Emerita University of Illinois Library School o z 3 5 CO < Pi CQ a j o X H 2 O o Pi Q D H C/D o o o >H Pi < CO IN SPEAKING THIS EVENING, I should like to do so through the alumni of our Library School. First, I wish to introduce to this audience several former students who are with us this evening, coming, in some cases, from quite a dis- tance. Of course, I need not add that each has made a distinct and distinguished contribution in her chosen field. I might also add that I am doing this without having consulted the — shall I say victims? 1 — and that I trust they will forgive me. Since the Committee sent out its first notices with regard to this anniversary, it has been the recipient of many letters from former students and ex- faculty members, and letters are still arriving almost daily. It has been my duty and privilege to read most of the letters, and their content has been a reve- lation. I knew, of course, that we have a genuinely loyal and enthusiastic group of alumni, but I was not prepared for the flood of appreciative reminiscences which this correspondence has opened to me. I wish I might read all of them this evening, but as there must be between sixty and seventy, and some are quite long, that would be quite impossible; we still must try "to live on twenty- four hours a day." I have, however, se- lected paragraphs from a few, which, with your permission, I shall read. These are from persons who found it quite impos- sible to be with us tonight but who are with us in thought, I am sure. The first is a citation from a member of one of the early classes at Armour Institute, the class of 1896, the first two- year class. The writer is Eleanor Roper, for many years a valued member of the staff of the John Crerar Library, and for the past several years a member of the staff of the Queens Borough Public Library at Jamaica, New York. Miss Roper writes: As a member of the graduating class of the Armour Institute Library School, in 1896, I have been able to watch not only the growth of the School but also the growth of library work as a whole. 'The ones introduced were Anna May Price, Anna V. Jennings, Ida F. Wright, and Mary J. Booth. 41 42 Fifty Years of Education for Librarianship . . . Those were the days of the beginnings of many projects which are now taken for granted. There were no children's rooms, no branch libraries, no library commissions. . . . "Open shelves" was a pro and con discussion; such an innovation, that conservative per- sons felt it would be disastrous to allow the public to go freely to the stacks. . . . The graduating class was small — but eight of us! Through the entire course the basic principle was service. Miss Sharp was inspired herself and she was gifted in transmitting this inspira- tion to her classes. Grace Derby, a student at the University of Illinois Li- brary School in 1905 and 1906, my assistant in the Reference Department for part of the time, and for many years in her present position, that of Associate Librarian of Kansas State College at Manhattan, contributes the following: I want to add a word about the place the Library School has had in the development of college and public libraries, especially in the central states. The work of the students who have gone out from the School can never be measured. During the last thirty years, the majority of our college library staff have had their training at your library school. Perhaps I am . . . partial to them. However, in my opinion, they have rated equal to and, in many cases, above those from other schools, in their efficiency, adaptability, and spirit of work with others. To me it is a reflection of the training they have received with you. Emma Felsenthal of the class of 19 12, a member of our own faculty for ten years and more, and since leaving Illinois, Medical Librarian and Instructor in Library Methods at the State University of Iowa, wrote a most delightful collection of reminiscences of her connection with Illinois. Among other facts, she recalls the following: Several times each year a "visiting lecturer" came to address the School. Miss Ahern, from the Library Bureau, and Editor of Public Libraries; Mr. Root, the beloved "Professor Root" of Oberlin: Mr. Carleton, then Librarian of Newberry Library in Chicago; Miss Tyler, our own Alice Tyler, Dean of the Library School of Western Reserve, Emcrita; Dr. Bostwick, so long Librarian of the St. Louis Public Library; Mr. Utley, then Secretary of the American Library Association and until recently Librarian of Newberry; and Mr. Roden, Librarian of the Chicago Public Library, come first to mind. The visitors usually spoke, in the study hall quite informally, and the lectures were in almost every case extremely stimulating, bring- ing to the students as they did experiences from the library world, and incidentally bringing them in touch with prominent library The Alumni Speaking 43 personalities. These lectures were, it seems to me, a very important feature of the School. . . . Miss Felsenthal also speaks of the course in Children's Reading, given each spring by Edna Lyman Scott, and she has not forgotten a number of lighter memories connected with the social life of the School, notably a mock athletic meet held in the Woman's Building by the Library Club, which no doubt Mr. Windsor will recollect, since he took part. It is time now to hear from some of the men. Miles Price, Librarian of the School of Law, Columbia University, who spent several years here as a student and a member of the staff, has this to say: The Library School has played two major parts in my career. First, of course, it taught me the fundamentals of library work. Second, and about as important, its diploma has been an open sesame wherever library training is known and understood. An Illinois diploma prepares the groundwork in a way that the average student cannot perhaps appreciate. The School's prestige is immense. Fur- thermore, the confidence of the profession in P. L. W. gave his rec- ommendation of a former student very great weight indeed. Dr. Windsor was never the showy, self-advertising type, but among librarians who know, I have discovered he enjoys a following rarely equalled. Some of the letters from more recent students stress a lighter view of their experience at the Library School quite refreshing to read. Poets seem to have sprouted their wings, for in the class of 1939, the following effusion was found tacked on the School bulletin board that spring. I could name the poet, but I shall not. He calls it a Spring Song! There is a lad who'd like to sing. (Sing Mudge, Sing Dewey.) Of trees, of bees, of birds, of spring; (Sing Mudge, sing Dewey!) But joys of these are to him closed Except in books of reference; The call of Nature is opposed; Unseen her green magnificence. One tune his voice must only sing; (Sing Mudge, sing Dewey!) To swell in one unyielding ring Of Mudge and Dewey! A SALUTE TO THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY SCHOOL By Ola M. Wyeth Librarian Public Library Savannah, Georgia OUR FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY! and it is some- thing of a shock to realize that those of us who knew the School in the first decade of the century may almost, if not quite, be classed as pioneers. At least we had the good fortune to be introduced to Library Science by the first Direc- tor of the School, Miss Katharine L. Sharp. Perhaps most of us entered the School with little ambition beyond preparing ourselves for an agreeable way of making a living (although it is a pleasant confession to make that a small group of en- thusiasts of the Library School class of 1903, encountered at an Urbana boarding house during my undergraduate days, contributed not a little to my final choice of a profession). However, we could not remain long under the influence of Miss Sharp and Miss Simpson without looking beyond the daily task and somewhat meager financial returns in prospect, to the broad opportunity for service in the social and intellec- tual fields; and without acquiring that intangible something called "library spirit," which is a prerequisite to successful librarianship, whether in the public or school field, or in a large or a small library. Some of us had the further privilege of continuing our library education, either as students or as members of the Library staff, under Mr. Windsor, whose devotion to the School, and whose personal interest in everyone connected with it, strengthened our feeling of loyalty and pride in its progress and accomplishments. Our new Director, Mr. White, has taken charge with a good foundation upon which to build and, in spite of the vicis- situdes of war, we look confidently forward to years of ac- complishment for the Library and the Library School. Looking back over the years, it is encouraging to see the unfolding of the library program. When Andrew Carnegie, a few years before our School was started, made his mag- nificent offer of library buildings as his expression of gratitude for the help he had had from libraries, he probably thought 47 48 Fifty Years of Education for Librarianship that, given a building, an adequate collection of books, and a custodian, the "swimming tenth" that he described as his field of interest would, without further help, make adequate and profitable use of them. Perhaps the "swimming tenth" would, if they were expert swimmers, but librarians and the trustees of the Carnegie Corporation now shaping its policy have shifted the emphasis from buildings to readers; and, far from being satisfied with the patronage of the "swimming tenth," they devote much of their thought and energy to ways and means of attracting the other nine-tenths and making them conscious of the world of books. The first step in that direction has been taken by the library schools. While I must confess that I have not kept myself very well posted on curricular changes, it is evident from results that less emphasis is being placed on perfection in technical details and more on an understanding of the library's place in the community. The library school student of today has hardly heard of that "library hand" which we spent so many labori- ous hours mastering, but he can tell just how many people in the United States have access to public libraries, and some- thing of the social significance of those figures in terms of preparation for good citizenship. Upon graduating, the young librarian no longer considers it becoming to stay inconspicuously in the background. He makes constructive contributions to the work of the state and national associations through the junior librarians' group — a very live organization. The School's affiliation with the State University in no way limited its graduates to positions within the State of Illi- nois. A considerable number of them have been attracted to various parts of the country, and wherever they go or what- ever type of library they are connected with, they are found among those trying to raise the standards of the profession and to conquer new frontiers. In Georgia, for instance, one Illinois alumna has been Salute to the Library School 49 supervising the W.P.A. library work for the state, and the most active member of the committee working for state aid to retain the gains in library extension made through this agency is a university librarian, who also studied at Illinois. Still another graduate is making a notable contribution to edu- cation for librarianship as head of the library school for Negroes at Atlanta University. It is generally conceded that library progress in the South has been retarded for a number of economic reasons, and it is doubtful whether some sections of Georgia will be able to support libraries entirely from local funds for a long time to come. The opportunity to demonstrate the advantages of di- rect library service came through the W.P.A. ; and a system was set up with professional supervision, which has meant much to the rural sections of the state, so much, that public- spirited citizens gladly made the journey to Atlanta to join the library committee in seeking the Governor's help in secur- ing state aid. What the final result will be is not yet known. In a few instances, permanent county and regional systems, adequately staffed and supported, have resulted. If state aid is not forthcoming, some libraries will cease to function, and others will go on with a limited budget provided locally. In any case, the people of the state know about libraries and, if not now, inevitably in the future, they will see that they get them back again. This is just one example of a library situa- tion in which the School can see the fruits of its teaching, and similar ones could be cited by residents of other states. We have seen our profession take an active part in two wars. In World War I, the American Library Association, through its Library War Service, was given the task of estab- lishing libraries in camps and hospitals and of making books available to our men overseas. In this undertaking many Uni- versity of Illinois Library School graduates took part and through that contact with men from every walk in life gained a deeper realization of the meaning of democracy. 50 Fifty Years of Education for Librarianship Whether many permanent recruits were gained for library support, it is hard to say, but we cannot help feeling that their library war experiences made men turn more naturally to the libraries when in need of practical help, and the emphasis on stocking libraries with technical and business books came as a direct result of the use made of that sort of material during the war years. The depression did not catch us altogether unprepared, and the insistent calls today for books to help build ships, maintain aeroplanes, and defend our shores are causing deep inroads in our book budgets. We are not neglecting our part in the Victory Book Cam- paign, and we can only wish God speed to our young assistants who feel the urge to offer their services to the Army and Xavy libraries, but, as the latest step in our evolution, we feel still more keenly the obligation to make the library not only a source of information about the war and its underlying causes, but an inspiration to those hoping for a better world after the strife is over. We are encouraged to go beyond the old con- ception of service to groups active in educational and social lines and to become leaders ourselves in our communities, bringing into prominence the important issues at stake in this war, "not telling people what to think, but helping them decide what to think about." This goes a long way beyond the definition of librarian- ship with which we started and will be a challenge to our teachers in library schools, as well as to us in the field. We have been fairly well satisfied with knowing the tools of our profession by which we could produce information for others to use. We have even accepted the theory that we need not confine ourselves to books. So far as time and the budget have permitted, public libraries have added music rooms and phono- graph records, moving picture films, and other audio- visual aids ; they have also sponsored lecture courses and conducted film forums. To be a "teacher," however, implies more than all of this; more than a superficial knowledge of a subject; Salute to the Library School 51 more than a book review acquaintance with the literature of that subject. That librarians have the ability to play this role, we do not question. To use up what leisure time is left in acquiring the background to inspire confidence in our teaching would seem a war service suitable to our calling, but, presumably, this new role would carry over beyond the war years, and will not some rearrangement of library hours be required to give the time for such intensive preparation? The value of the new concept is unquestioned, but just what present service can be sacrificed to make way for it is not clear. Can the library schools help in working out the practical details? Perhaps part of the answer lies in the pre-library school curriculum. With so much emphasis being given in high schools to vocational guidance, students may grow more ac- customed to planning their careers before entering college and could be encouraged to devote some time to sociology and po- litical science as a foundation upon which to build a surer knowledge of their own times and its problems. All of these new developments — and they have been merely touched upon — make the library field an attractive one. Incentives to entering this profession today are: that it is still young, comparatively speaking, and growing; its po- tentialities are just beginning to be realized; and it calls for brains, initiative, and high purpose. There are plenty of hurdles ahead. Motion pictures and baseball have priority over reading, with a large part of our population ; librarians like to insist that there is a book in the library for everyone, but that statement needs proving ; public officials, in a discouraging number of cases, are unconvinced of the value of library service, as shown by the reaction in Washington to all attempts to get Federal aid for libraries, even in defense areas. Many would add to the debit side the fact that three- fourths of our circulation is fiction, but who among us would give up willingly the privilege of enjoying 52 Fifty Years of Education for Librarianship a good novel in our hours off duty, and should we apologize for contributing to the recreational as well as to the educa- tional needs of our clientele? The dividing line is very nar- row in many cases. All of these obstacles, coupled with the knowledge that each generation has managed to move a little nearer the goal of library service to all, will act as stimulants for the coming graduates of our library schools. THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY SCHOOL IN THE "FIELD 1 1 By Miles O. Price Librarian School of Law Columbia University New York IN MY DAY in the University of Illinois Library School we students sometimes used to poke gentle fun at our be- loved Assistant Director for her frequent admonitions about what we should do when we went out into that fabulous place called, always with bated breath, the "Field." We ir- reverent young people, believing our conduct after leaving school to be a purely personal matter between us and our hoped for employer, were prone to regard this as Sunday- school talk not really appropriate for grownups, and were often something less than thrilled by it. Looking back over twenty -one years spent in this field, I realize, as any thoughtful alumnus must, the vast importance of what Miss Simpson meant to impress upon us, as bearers of the University of Illinois Library School spirit and builders of the Illinois reputation. For, as the years go by, the workers in the library world must be more and more impressed by the impact of our School upon the increasing number of li- brarians and employers of librarians, who know what good library training means, largely because of the missionary work of the graduates of such schools as Illinois. ^Half a century ago when our fledgling School began its instruction in "library science," that science was practically unrecognized as such, and it was the task of the Library School to justify its continued existence by the excellence of its product. This it has done through the years by a merciless insistence upon the maintenance of high standards which the students carry over, as a matter of ingrained habit, from the School into the work in the field, building up over the years an ever increasing body of good will for the School and its graduates. Most of us, while appreciating the extreme helpfulness and good will of the faculty, used to complain bitterly to each other at the rigorous mental discipline imposed to achieve the required results, without realizing the fierce pride which these teachers felt in their school. To them, each of us as we went 55 56 Fifty Years of Education for Librarians hip out into the field was to be custodian of an important part of the reputation of that school, so slowly and carefully built up since 1893, with power either to enhance or mar it by our own professional conduct. As the whole is equal to the sum of its parts, they wanted to be certain of the high quality of each part. Kindly and helpful in the highest degree, the faculty were none the less unrelenting in their demands that we stu- dents carry away with us techniques as near perfection as possible, as well as professional standards and ideals of the highest order. As every man is a debtor to his profession, so those of us who have been long in the field realize what it means to be the beneficiaries of the Illinois spirit and reputation. A manufac- turer of typewriter paper has for several years emphasized in his advertising that introductory letters sent to prospective customers by business firms, announcing the impending visit of their traveling salesmen, ensure for them a better reception by thus throwing behind them the prestige of the home office, which is presumably well known in the trade though the sales- man may not be. That is what the University of Illinois Li- brary School diploma does for us alumni. It puts behind us the influence of half a century of honest instruction and high library ideals, as exemplified by a succession of successful graduates in every kind of library position in this and many other lands; and it is accepted at par wherever the value of library training is recognized. Those of us in the field know, perhaps even better than the faculty in Urbana, that this diploma gives its holder an initial advantage difficult to over- estimate. The employer of assistants knows that the alumnus thus armed is in all probability one possessed of adequate technical attainment and of habits of work which do not re- quire close supervisory checking. Once placed in a job, the alumnus is strictly on his own responsibility, and this is what Miss Simpson had in mind in her talks about our professional conduct. She wanted to be The Library School in the "Field" 57 certain that each of her students by the high quality of his work would add to that reputation so precious to the faculty and to all of us. One important tabu of learned professions, shared by our own, is that against advertising, but there never can be any barrier to spreading the good word about a school by the good work of its alumni. This was impressed upon me during the six years I was library personnel consultant to the United States Personnel Classification Board in Washington. The hopes of librarians for professional recognition following the enactment of the Classification Act of 1922 had been dashed by the Board's placing of all but half a dozen government librarians in the clerical instead of the professional service at little or no ad- vance in salary. As a result of organized protests on the part of librarians, the Board finally consented to reopen the matter provided a librarian were assigned to it as consultant. I was chosen, with the duty of re-examining every government li- brary position in Washington and its incumbent, allocating each to grades and services within the act, writing job speci- fications and persuading the Board to reverse itself by accept- ing them. A Since the Board was wholly unconvinced of the existence, ' let alone the utility, of a real library professional training, I and the time was so short, it became necessary to storm the barriers of its ignorance and hostility in a dramatic manner, to gain its attention swiftly, and then to hold it by convincing example and argument. As a strategist in a campaign usually finds it impracticable to advance his whole line simultaneously but forces salients here and there at pregnable points in the hope of rectifying his entire line as soon as these positions are ■ consolidated, so here the whole government library field in Washington was surveyed for strong points. Certain people were selected — departmental librarians, division chiefs, cata- logers, reference librarians, etc., in all classes and grades it was hoped to establish — who were so outstanding in the 58 Fifty Years of Education for Librarianship service rendered in their respective positions that it was im- possible for an open-minded Board to ignore their signifi- cance. Gradually the Board was persuaded to concede a point here, another there, until, on July 1, 1924, when the Classi- fication Act went into effect, librarians in all professional and subprofessional grades were fully recognized as such, and salaries appropriately increased nearly a third. Librarianship then received perhaps its first official recognition as a profes- sion, and government standards and salaries have since been high enough to be of material assistance to the profession as a whole. The pertinence of this ancient history here is that in almost every instance the librarians of all grades whose outstanding work was such that it could be used as an entering wedge in convincing the Board of the utility of professional library training, were themselves professionally trained, and that many indeed were Miss Simpson's Illini children, doing their daily best in the field to justify her faith that they would not let her nor Illinois down. It was possible with all confidence and sincerity to point out to the Board the fundamental tech- niques and points of view employed by these people: that they were necessary to the work done, that they were of profes- sional grade, and that they could best be secured from good library schools where they had received professional training of high order. Upon the occasion of my objecting to taking a certain re- quired course on the ground that it probably never would be used by me in practical work. Miss Simpson once cited to me the statement of a prominent Illini who had also objected as a student to some of his Library School courses for the same reason. He had retracted everything, admitting that all of his courses had proved useful in his professional career. By the same token, let us hope that Dr. McDiarmid and his succes- sors will continue Miss Simpson's frequent reminders to stu- dents that the alumni are the guardians o\ the Illinois reputa- The Library School in the "Field" 59 tion in the field, to the end that that reputation may continue to grow in favor and significance. Considerable emphasis has been laid herein on the high standards required by the Library School and the rigorous mental discipline necessary to attain them. As one who had probably more cause than most to be grateful to them, I wish to conclude by paying tribute to the faculty of my day, from Director Windsor down, for their cordial and sympathetic attitude at all times, which made a respected institution one which we can also remember with love. THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY SCHOOL SURVEY By Carl M. White Director of the Library and of the Library School University of Illinois THE "CARNEGIE" SURVEY is so closely linked with original plans for the celebration of the Golden Anni- versary of the founding of the Library School that some reference to it deserves to be made on this occasion. When I first thought of speaking of it, I visualized the possibility of showing you a typewritten copy of the final report and of reviewing it. But as with other plans for the celebration of this University -wide occasion, this plan also had to be changed. To date the report has not arrived although it is, I am pleased to state, in the final stages of preparation. Our disadvantage in not having the report as yet will, we may hope, turn out to be an advantage in the end. Taking the long-range view, Illinois will profit more by having a good re- port than by having a report ready by a given date. From time to time, when the Committee has expressed regret that the war, committee discussions, and schedules packed with other pro- fessional responsibilities have caused delay, I have offered en- couragement by dwelling on that advantage — namely, that we are, with the Committee, interested more in having a good re- port, a report which will be a milestone in professional educa- tion for librarianship, than we are in adhering to any schedule of dates. It is sometimes difficult, in speaking of a subject, to make a correct guess as to how much all of those present know about that subject when one is positive that some, if not most of them, know a good deal about it. I believe I can, by starting at the beginning and assuming nothing, tell the whole story elliptically enough not to tire those who know most about it and fully enough to give a connected account to those who know least about it. Some months ago — to begin at the beginning — we de- cided that we could well afford to examine carefully the present program of the Library School. We concluded that the most fruitful approach to such an examination would be not by proceeding piecemeal and examining one phase or a 63 64 Fifty Years of Education for Librarianship few phases but by passing in review the program in its en- tirety, beginning with basic objectives and extending to the learning experiences used to translate them into systematic study leading to the Bachelor's and the Master's degrees. Finally, as to procedure, we concluded that decisions as to subtracting from, adding to, or otherwise changing our present program ought to depend on and await the outcome of this process of evaluation. We also concluded that we were going to need outside help; that those of us on the Library School faculty were too busy to see through, alone, a study so thorough ; and that an outside Committee would, in addition to relieving the pressure on schedules already well filled, bring to the study a freshness and detachment which should prove beneficial to the School. Since no funds were available for honoraria, plans were drawn on a very modest basis at first, as will be seen from the following memorandum under date of October 11, 1940, to the President of the University: The movement to provide professional education for librarians is a little more than fifty years old. The University of Illinois Library School, one of the oldest schools in America, will round out its first fifty years in 1943. With the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the School so close at hand, . . . the time seems to be appropriate for an appraisal of the work of the Library School and for drawing up plans for the future. Accordingly. I am asking the faculty of the Library School to devote some time with me this year to a considera- tion of what we are doing now, and what we ought, in the light of all factors we find to be relevant, to plan on doing in the future. My purpose in writing this letter is to raise the question whether it would not be desirable to have a committee from the faculty at large appointed to study the problem with us. . . . In recent years some little thought has been given to the subject of professional education for librarians. Library schools have been criticized. In itself, of course, this fact tells us very little, for library schools, along with other professional schools, can ill afford to plan their work with a view to stilling the voice of every critic. The more important point is that professional education for librarians is still developing, conditions in the field are still changing, and it is there- fore incumbent on those schools which expect to maintain the lead in the field to be sensible of all that is going on about them and to make intelligent adjustment wherever adjustment is in order. The Illinois Library School Survey 65 . . . Some of the problems we shall consider are of direct interest to other members of the faculty — the Dean of the Graduate School, the Dean of the College of Education, and others. Many of the prob- lems, while they do not relate directly to the work of other officers of the University, are of the sort that have been studied rather carefully by various men on the campus, and the Library School could, I am sure, benefit by their experience. I have in mind, for example, such matters as recruiting of students, the curriculum leading to the degree of Bachelor of Science in Library Science, the advanced curriculum and its relation to other work at the graduate level, encouraging the growth of members of the faculty, promotion policies, inbreeding, standards to be used in selecting future members of the Library School faculty, etc. Besides bringing to the considera- tion of these and other problems involved in the effectiveness of the work of the Library School a valuable background of study and experience, a committee made up of scholars outside the field will also bring a fresh viewpoint and a detachment, both of which would be useful in maintaining perspective. In spite of the cordial personal interest of President Wil- lard, Dean Carmichael, and others, plans to utilize the assist- ance of local scholars did not materialize and, in consequence, means were sought for enlisting the aid of a committee from outside the University. This step was made possible when, a few months later, the Carnegie Corporation generously granted a request for funds to finance the project. The next step, once financial support was assured, was the selection of the Survey Committee. At that point it became necessary to discuss the basis on which the selection should be made. Should members of the Committee be chosen on the basis of their experience as teachers in library schools, sex, the type of position they hold, membership in this or that organization ? It was decided that the selection should be based not on any of these factors so much as on the qualifications to do the job — and that obliged us to review what was to be done. The scope of the Survey — it had been stated earlier — was to be broad enough to include any factor or factors that may be deemed relevant to successful performance as a training center for librarians. To this end a formal report will be presented, but it should be stressed that the result sought is not a lengthy report but a penetrating analysis. Such an assembly and organization of data and expert 66 Fifty Years of Education for Librarianship opinion will enable this institution to gauge more effectively than by- other measures of comparison now available, its present and potential services in training for librarianship in terms of regional obligations. What was sought, then, was a study of the total problem of professional education for librarianship and a fair but frank appraisal of the performance of our own School which would be of assistance in drawing the blueprint for our future program at Illinois. The qualifications which seemed to be de- sirable included capacity for penetrating analysis, familiarity with the personnel requirements of modern library service, grasp of the problems of higher education and education for the professions, and acquaintance with the history and the work of library schools, particularly in America. We were fortunate in securing as members of the Committee Keyes D. Metcalf, Director of the Harvard University Library. An- drew D. Osborn, Chief, Catalog Department, Harvard Col- lege Library, and John Dale Russell, Professor of Education, University of Chicago. In view of the fact that the duration of the Survey has been longer than was anticipated, we have not been able to hold consistently to our original decision to postpone changes in our program till the final report of the Survey Committee had been received. The first exception made was a decision respecting the administration course. To take the place of this four-hour course, the two courses, Backgrounds for Li- brarianship, two hours, and Introduction to Library Adminis- tration, two hours, were set up in 1941-1942, and a second- semester course, Public Library Administration, three hours, was added. Backgrounds for Librarianship might be described as an orientation course. It is an interpretation of the develop- ment of libraries and of the library profession, of the role of libraries in modern life, of the qualifications, the assorted duties and varied opportunities of librarians, and of the chal- lenges and the rewards of library service. The title, Introduc- tion to Librarianship, was considered; but, since first-year courses, particularly those offered the first semester, may be The Illinois Library School Survey 67 said to play considerable part in introducing the profession to the student, it did not seem sufficiently distinctive. Another title considered was History of Libraries. While recognizing the fact that the historical approach can be used to orient the student, such an approach sometimes results in treating his- torical developments rather too much as ends in themselves. What the typical student needed was, we agreed, a background reflecting light from sociology, education, psychology, and philosophy, as well as history, against which the meaning of his special training and of a prospective career in library service would unfold in clearer perspective. In 1942- 1943, to strengthen the work for the Master's de- gree, two other courses were added, Library Trends and Audio- Visual Aids and Library Service. Library Trends is really a substitute for a former course entitled Social Trends ; but, as the title implies, it has a sharper focus on libraries than its predecessor. The course on audio -visual aids is offered under the auspices of the Library School on the assumption that library materials properly embrace all of the most im- portant sources of information and need not be narrowed to printed and paper materials. The uses, actual and potential, of audio-visual materials justify increased attention to these sources of information on the part of agencies which train librarians and teachers. It is not possible to appraise a survey before it is com- pleted and I shall not attempt to do so. We are far enough along, however, to mention two of its values. One is its value to us as a faculty. Some would say that studies of this sort have their greatest value in the stimulus and guidance they give a local faculty. The line of reasoning followed is some- thing like this: in the end, the strength or the weakness of a given educational program resolves itself into the vision, the enthusiasm, and the skill of those directly in charge of that program. Outsiders can advise, criticize, or point the way; but the advice, if sound, has first to be acknowledged as sound; the criticism, if well founded, has first to be accepted 68 Fifty Years of Education for Librarianship as well founded; the directions, if well defined, have first to be received voluntarily as a faculty's own marching orders to itself — or the effort is about all in vain. Comradeship with professional colleagues in a study of common problems stimu- lates self -development and growth on the part of all who par- ticipate, and the exercise is proving beneficial to those of us who carry day-to-day responsibilities in the program of the University of Illinois Library School. The Survey has excited discussion, thrown into relief divergent viewpoints, imposed the necessity of considering unexamined assumptions and, in general, stimulated thinking among us. Another benefit of the Survey has been the impetus it has given to discussion of library training among librarians the country over. During the last two years discussion of this sub- ject has been rather active. Two state library associations have devoted general sessions to library training, using speakers from Illinois, while someone connected with the Survey has been invited to discuss it at every A.L.A. meeting, annual and midwinter, held since the Survey was first announced. From various sections of the country inquiries continue to come from librarians as to the progress of the Survey, whether it is to be published, etc. These inquiries reflect interest in the train- ing problems of the profession which, we believe, will justify publication of the main report. There are no plans to publish the more specialized portions of the report. Since the Survey was launched, our country has entered the war. Peacetime pursuits are being profoundly affected, particularly those which do not serve directly the needs of the hour. When the first plans were laid for the celebration of the Golden Anniversary of the founding of the Library School, we envisaged the possibility of announcing plans for strength- ening and expanding the work of the School — steps which presuppose funds not within our reach in times like these. While such plans must be set aside for the duration, the changes which the war is sure to bring sharpen the necessity of looking ahead. The "Carnegie" Survey, when completed, The Illinois Library School Survey 69 should prove beneficial to the Library School in drawing its blueprint of action for the future, and, at the same time, may confidently be expected to be a worth-while permanent addi- tion to the literature dealing with the preparation of librarians. Since writing the preceding paragraphs, I have had an op- portunity to read the Survey report. With the kind permis- sion of the Director of the University Press, I am adding the following summary of it. The report begins with a review of the half century of education for librarianship since the inauguration of sys- tematic training at Columbia by Melvil Dewey. The conclu- sion reached is that improvement in instruction has lagged behind other advances made by library schools. It is this con- clusion which sets the problem for the present study and which gives to the first part of the report the title, "The Pro- gram of Instruction in Library Schools." Instruction in library schools is treated under three main headings: (1) the first-year program, (2) the second-year program, and (3) library school administration. The most significant questions about the first-year program which claim attention are: preprofessional training, the library school curriculum, methods of instruction used in library schools, class size, the section system, the work load of students, and possible improvement in instruction procedures. The problems presented by the second-year program are more basic; the Survey staff finds it correspondingly more difficult to deal with them. The report covers such questions as the basis for admitting students to advanced work (including whether students are to be admitted who lack the first professional degree), joint first-year and second-year classes, the function of the seminar, theses, the present responsibilities and the prospects for the future of second-year library schools. The discussion of library school administration deals with a se- lected list of practical questions, among them the following: yo Fifty Years of Education for Librarianship joint versus separate administration of the library and the library school; centralized versus decentralized control of ad- missions for such professional schools within a university as a library school; the place of the faculty in administration; standards for recruiting, selecting, and advancing members of the faculty; and problems of student personnel. The printed section of the report is general. It lays the foundation for the second part which is devoted specifically to the University of Illinois Library School. Since the more general section of the report is published, this summary will be devoted to the more specialized section entitled "A Program for the University of Illinois Library School." It should be stressed that what follows is an application of con- clusions drawn in the antecedent portion of the study and should, to be properly evaluated, be read in conjunction with the phase of the study which is presupposed. Thus prepared, let us proceed with the summary. The Williamson Report The pattern for the present day library school was set by the Williamson report and the first recommendation of the Survey committee to the Universitv of Illinois Librarv School is a continued study of that report. The most significant doctrine to be considered is that Illinois, with other library schools, should teach from a broad professional point of view rather than emphasize routines that so often are of a purely clerical nature. First- Year Curriculum orientation It is recommended that the orientation of first-year students begin with a talk by the Director of the School at a meeting early in the first week, this meeting to turn into a social gather- ing at which the students can meet the various members of the faculty. More formal introduction to librarianship should The Illinois Library School Survey Ji then be provided by a course on the History of Libraries. To make the total experience of the beginning student a unit and to round out the process of orientation, it is further recom- mended that each instructor, at the start of the course, make its aims and objectives clear and show how the course fits into the program of library studies as a whole. ADMISSION TO COURSES A more liberal policy of admitting first-year students to ad- vanced courses seems desirable and represents one way by which the first-year curriculum can be enriched. Approved first-year students might be admitted to any advanced course that is not a seminar. Even with a seminar, auditing should be allowed to a few who give promise of being able to take full advantage of the opportunity. The course in Government Publications should be open to first-year students, since the placement work shows that there is a distinct need in certain quarters for beginning librarians with some knowledge of documents. It is suggested that the old plan of listing courses, as first- year, advanced, and graduate be discontinued. Instead, there should be a list of first-year courses and second-year courses. In the statement of some second-year courses, there might be a note, "Open to approved first-year students." Correspond- ingly, some of the first-year courses could be marked, "Open to second-year students with additional work." COURSES OFFERED The following curriculum is proposed for the first-year work: First Semester (All courses required) COURSES HOURS Cataloging and Classification 3 History of Books and Printing 2 History of Libraries 2 Library Administration 2 Reference and Bibliography 3 Selection of Books 3 72 Fifty Years of Education for Librarianship Second Semester (Electives are starred) COURSES HOURS Cataloging and Classification 3 Children's Work 2 *Government Publications 2 or 3 *History of Books and Printing 2 or 3 Library Administration 2 or 3 * Reading Guidance 2 Reference and Bibliography 3 *School Libraries 2 or 3 *Special Libraries 2 The principal recommendations for the reorganization of the curriculum are: The existing course in Classification should be merged with Cata- loging to form a course in Cataloging and Classification. The existing course in Subject Bibliography should be merged with Reference to form a course in Reference and Bibliography. The total amount of credit should be reduced for the four major courses. The course in Library Administration should be kept general and comparative through both semesters. Selection of Books should be given the first semester only, but Reading Guidance should be changed so as to constitute a satisfactory second-semester continuation of the Selection of Books. The practical course in Printing and Binding should be replaced by a course in the History of Books which should be required in the first semester and an elective in the second. The courses in Books and Libraries and in Backgrounds for Librarianship should be superseded by the History of Libraries. The provision of credit for Individual Problems should be dropped, since such work can be undertaken as a paper for the History of Libraries or as the extra credit for courses with variable credits. If the Library School continues to offer work in Special Li- braries, the course should be in the first-year program. It is very possible, however, that the School should leave the special library field to the new Library School at the University of Chicago. The content of the various courses should be thoroughly revised, correlated, and in many instances extended. A faculty committee on the curriculum should be appointed to study the detailed recommendations made in the two reports and to suggest the ways in which the new program might be put into operation. The Illinois Library School Survey 73 SPECIAL LECTURES AND NON-CREDIT COURSES With relative isolation from important library centers, the School can well afford to make ample provision for special lectures. These may be of two kinds: the first, talks by out- standing librarians; the second, a series of lectures of value both from the standpoint of subject matter and of acquainting students with leaders in their profession. Non-credit courses might take the form of reading clubs or language-study groups. METHODS OF INSTRUCTION The question is raised as to whether the section system can not be improved upon. It is recommended that consideration be given to a form of the tutorial system as a means of ef- fecting such improvement. Large classes would then replace the present sections and teaching devices not well adapted to the section system (the use of the projector is an example cited) could add to the effectiveness of the instruction. Two types of tutor could be utilized, one concerned with a student's program in general and the other with a particular course. Faculty members responsible for most of the instruction would serve as general tutors, other members as course tutors. The tutorial system should be flexible so that, whenever desirable, the tutor would meet with a single student; but, for much of the work, groups of students could be handled effec- tively. At times these groups might be as large as one of the present sections, but more commonly they would be restricted to some such number as five. Attendance in class would be optional under the tutorial plan while the performance of as- signments would not call for a strict schedule. Care should be taken that the art of skillful teaching is applied in the lectures. Inductive and deductive methods should be exploited to help in training the student to think about his work. Visual methods should be used freely. Prob- lem and laboratory work should be re-evaluated. 74 Fifty Years of Education for Librarianship EXAMINATIONS With the introduction of the tutorial plan, examinations in particular courses would assume less importance and, as time goes on, might disappear altogether. In their place, a system of comprehensive examinations might be found to be sufficient. Second Year Assuming that the second year is to be continued, the curricu- lum, it is pointed out, needs to be strengthened. The heart of the second-year program should be in the seminars and, as things stand at present, more particularly in a very strong seminar in University Library Administration. There should likewise be a seminar in Public Library Administration, while Advanced Cataloging should become a seminar in Cataloging and Classification, and Advanced Reference should become a seminar in Reference and Bibliography. New courses should be added such as Adult Education, Library Cooperation, Li- brary of Congress Classification, and Serials. Unless work at this level is abandoned, care should be taken not only to strengthen course offerings, but to see to it that the work is of graduate caliber and that it is directed by persons of demonstrated intellectual power. Administration and Organization of the School The University of Illinois statutes set up the distinction be- tween legislative and executive functions. The legislative func- tion is properly the sphere of the faculty as a whole, while the executive function is vested in officially designated officers of administration. control of graduate work Policies concerning graduate work at Illinois are controlled by the Graduate executive faculty, and the administration of graduate work is under the Dean of the Graduate School. This arrangement has to date worked no discoverable hardship on The Illinois Library School Survey 75 the Library School, but the fact that the autonomy of the faculty most directly concerned with advanced work in librar- ianship is limited in this manner is noted without comment. UNIVERSITY LIBRARY AND LIBRARY SCHOOL The essentially close relation of the Library School and the Library justifies placing them under one director. However, this method of organization introduces questions which de- serve mention. The first is the possibility of overloading the director. The load carried by an officer reflects a distribution of functions, and overloading may, in consequence, be avoided if the director is provided with assistants qualified to carry responsibility for managing major phases of the work. This is the general plan followed at the University of Illinois, and its principle is undoubtedly sound. Another difficulty to be avoided is the neglect of one unit, the Library or the Library School, in favor of the other. This is not something to be solved by the mechanics of administra- tion. It resolves itself, in the last analysis, into the interests and the initiative of a director himself. INTERNAL ADMINISTRATION In administering a library school, the problem is to bring the maximum of trained intelligence to bear on policy forma- tion and, once policies are formed, to carry them out with a maximum of ease and care. For guidance in assigning func- tions, the following general principles are laid down: A. There should be a clearly understood arrangement for the as- signment and delegation of every function. B. Final responsibility for a function involving the establish- ment of a policy, especially on academic matters, should be lodged in the faculty as a legislative body. C. Executive action as distinguished from policy formation should be assigned to administrative officers or to individual members of the staff rather than to committees or to the faculty as a group. j6 Fifty Years of Education for Librarianship D. Committees of the faculty may be used: (a) To give consideration to policies in the formative stage, and (b) To give advice and counsel to executive officers, when the executive officers wish to have such counsel. E. The executive functions should be retained by the individual school when they can best be handled by the School, and sur- rendered to an appropriate central agency within the Univer- sity when they can best be handled there. F. The allocation of functions should take into account the special capabilities of the persons available for the assignment. G. Like functions should be assigned to a single officer. Faculty In order to avoid "inbreeding" on the faculty, it is recom- mended that for a time new members be selected from among those whose professional education has been obtained in other institutions. Future appointments might also aim at building up the number of staff members in the lower age groups. It would also seem desirable to consider the enlistment of more persons with experience in public and school libraries. Placement Work Placement work is a service to the profession and constant attention should be given to making it as effective as possible. Everyone from the Director to individual members of the faculty shares responsibilities for the success of the placement service and, hence, the desirability for intelligent cooperation among all concerned. Geographical Area Served Finally, the survey staff states that, while it must pass over various problems relating to the area to be served, it calls the attention of the School and the University to these problems. The primary area for the Library School to serve in its re- cruiting and in placement is: the home state of Illinois; the The Illinois Library School Survey JJ West and the North, until the sphere of Denver, Wisconsin, and Minnesota influences is reached; Indiana; and the South, particularly Kentucky and Missouri. Over and beyond this, the School has the potentialities and the strategic location to be able to serve national needs. It seems especially desirable for the School to attract as many students as possible from outside the primary area of service so it will not become too local in character. RECRUITING FOR LIBRARIANSHIP By Errett Weir McDiarmid Assistant Director University of Illinois Library School THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY SCHOOL has built up an impressive record of accom- plishment during its fifty years of existence. There are two reasons why I can testify to this. First, my connection with the School has been for such a short part of this period that I believe I can be objective and impersonal. Second, during the past few months I have seen a large amount of material which gives eloquent testimony to the great heritage of achievement by those who have gone from the School to make their mark in their chosen profession. I am speaking of the material being collected by the School to provide complete information regarding its students and to establish a new set of placement records. Here, for instance, is a young librarian who has re- ceived his community's Junior Chamber of Commerce dis- tinguished service award. Here is an Illini who has com- pleted a reorganization and revitalization of a, shall we say, slumbering institution. Here is an Illini who has completed an outstanding cataloging project, thus making available to scholars valuable material previously inaccessible. I could multiply such instances many times over. But it is not my purpose, nor my responsibility, to recapitulate the achievements of the past. With the customary brashness of youth I propose to look into the future — not to try to give a picture of the University of Illinois Library School in 1993, but to raise the question: How can the achievements of the School during the past fifty years be equalled, nay surpassed, during the next fifty years? The answer to this question involves many factors. Illinois must continue to attract, develop, and retain a faculty of out- standing scholars. The School must have funds adequate to provide the best of physical equipment and teaching materials. There must be inspiring and forward-looking leadership. But most important, it seems to me, the School must continue to attract to its classrooms students of ability, vision, and person- ality. The final test of the School's contribution to society will 81 82 Fifty Years of Education for Librarianship be the record made by those it prepares and sends out to take their places in society. I remember once overhearing an uncle joshing my father about his sons and rather jokingly suggesting that some day they might turn out to be better men than their father. My father's answer surprised me. He replied that he not only hoped we would but expected us to surpass his achievements. "Unless," said my father, "our sons and our sons' sons are better men than we are, there will be little progress." I often recall that incident when a member of a library school class of several years previous asks about the current class. One always feels that the expected answer is, "We have a fine class, but not so fine as your class." And yet. I always feel like saying, "I certainly hope that this year's class is better than last year's, or that of the year before, or the class of three years ago." For unless, year after year, we can attract and develop superior young men and women, each group in turn superior to the previous one, there is little chance of progress. There are three factors which are a part of the making of a librarian: selection or recruitment, education, and experi- ence. Each of these factors has its place and it would be fruit- less to argue the relative importance of each. I propose to con- fine my remarks to the problem of selection or recruitment, and since it infers a positive program, I shall use the term recruitment. Stated simply, my proposition is that one way to assure a second fifty years of outstanding achievement is to maintain a positive program of recruitment. We must secure, year after year, students of higher calibre than those of previous years. I say this not in any derogatory sense to the many fine classes of the past fifty years. I say it because I believe that our classes of the next fifty years must be superior if the University of Illinois Library School is to maintain a position of progressive leadership in the profession. In discussing the problem of recruitment we should first look at our balance sheet. What are our assets and liabilities Recruiting for Librarianship 83 with respect to the problem of trying to attract to the profes- sion outstanding young men and women? On the debit side of the ledger is, first, the fact that mone- tary compensation is not high. We hear from many sources the statement that librarians are underpaid. Regardless of whether or not this is universally true, it is perfectly apparent that librarianship cannot compete on this score with such vocations as law, medicine, and business where, for the present at least, there is no upper limit on the amount of money a person can earn. Second, librarianship has, deservedly or not, the reputation of being a profession for, shall we say, "bookworms." I have encountered people who are surprised that one can become a librarian and not be "queer" or "bookish." Happily this mis- conception is rapidly being cleared up but it still exists too widely. Third, librarianship does not offer much opportunity for personal prominence or publicity. The actor, the public official, and the prominent businessman are all legitimate subjects for widespread publicity, but the educator, the librarian, and simi- lar public servants must expect their rewards from other sources than the plaudits of the public. Fourth, the fruits of librarianship are largely among the intangibles, and the person who wishes to see the results of his work in stone or steel must look to other vocations. A corollary to this lies in the fact that in the daily work of librarianship one is dealing primarily with ideas and knowl- edge, rather than with mechanical tools or material objects. So much for the liabilities, what are our assets in recruit- ing promising young people for library service? First, al- though monetary compensation is not high, it is in many cases enough to provide a comfortable living. One is not likely to get rich in librarianship; neither will one starve. Second, librarianship offers a certain kind of security which one does not find in some vocations. The librarian does not have to "sell" so many items or suffer financial reverses. 84 Fifty Years of Education for Librarianship Nor is the librarian's compensation dependent upon the whims of the buying public. The demand for his services is relatively- stable and severe fluctuations which result in financial losses are not very frequent. Tenure conditions have usually been good and are, I believe, improving further. Third, librarianship brings one in contact with congenial people in a congenial atmosphere. There is little of the sordid or degrading in library service, and both one's fellow staff members and the public one serves are "the salt of the earth." I do not mean by this that one's contacts are limited to any one group. On the contrary there are all types of library service and all types of people to deal with ; for the person with scholarly interests there is the research library, for the lover of children there is children's work. Fourth, librarianship offers rewards which though intangi- ble are none the less great. One's satisfactions lie in furthering the dissemination of a great idea, or in aiding someone to pre- pare for a new vocation, or in sharing the tangible evidence of a great cultural experience. Such rewards can and do have a great attraction for the individual who is socially-minded. Fifth, librarianship has a high prestige value in the minds of the public. This is borne out by the testimony of leaders in various fields as well as by at least one study including the general public. Sixth, librarianship has a significant opportunity to come in contact with young people at the very stages when they are beginning to lay plans for their life work. The wide extent of public library service to children, school libraries, and college and university libraries makes it certain that most young people have many opportunities to come in contact with libraries. Not only do they come in contact with libraries but, as student assistants, many actually participate in their activi- ties. Few other professions are in such a strategic position to present their merits as a lifetime career. In preparing our balance sheet with regard to assets and liabilities for a recruiting program. I have tried to be as ob- Recruiting for Librarianship 85 jective as possible. It seems clear to me, however, that our assets greatly outweigh our liabilities. The question therefore arises: What can we do by way of recruitment to attract steadily superior young people to the library profession? First, we must work continuously to improve the general professional position of librarianship. Obviously one point at which there is great room for improvement is with respect to the salaries paid to librarians. In order to be able to attract outstanding young persons, we must remove such salary in- equities as exist and endeavor to raise the general salary level to a point more in keeping with the requirements of a profes- sion. There are other points in the general professional picture where improvements must be made. We must strengthen those libraries which are inadequate and which convey a wrong impression of librarianship as a profession. We must establish library service in areas where service is nonexistent. We must steadily improve the quality of personnel in libraries. All of these matters are part of the total professional picture; a picture which modern youth considering librarianship as a profession will study critically. We must be able to stand up under this scrutiny. Second, we must capitalize on our assets. The security of tenure which most library positions afford compensates in part for salaries which are somewhat low. At this point, too, we can emphasize the rewards of librarianship ; rewards which will have a great deal of drawing power for the type of recruit we want in the profession. We can, in addition, em- phasize the congenial nature of library work and the high quality of one's fellow workers. Third, we must make recruiting for librarianship a co- operative enterprise. Too often in the past, library schools have depended upon libraries to encourage worthy students to go to library school. Many libraries feel no responsibility with regard to recruiting, and indeed, sometimes condemn library schools for the type of student which they occasionally accept. There is no point in arguing over the relative responsi- 86 Fifty Years of Education for Librarianship bilities of libraries and library schools for the conclusion is inescapable that the responsibility is a joint one. If either group falls down, the job will not be done effectively. Fourth, some way must be found to enable worthy but financially dependent students to secure a professional educa- tion. There are many worthy students who find it difficult to finance the four years of college. At the end of such a period an additional year of study with its accompanying expense does not present a pleasing prospect. We must make it pos- sible for such students to have a library education without undue financial strain. Fellowships and scholarships are one answer, and it is to be hoped that library schools can in the future offer much more in the way of scholarship aid than they have in the past. Another possibility is that of part-time employment during the library course. This does not always provide a satisfactory solution, for most students need all of their time to devote to their studies. Perhaps a few selected students of superior ability might be released from some of the classwork and given time to earn a part of their expenses while attending library school. Fifth, to carry on an effective recruiting program we must utilize every possible channel of recruitment. One cannot but be amazed at the number of requests received from high school students asking about preparation for librarianship. Indeed, some requests for such information are coming from students just entering high school. In schools all over the country young people are being introduced to the various vocations open to them, and already there are numerous voca- tional guidance procedures throughout our educational sys- tem. We must not only see that information about librarian- ship is available for those who are interested but. in addition, must take vigorous steps to see that librarianship receives the proper attention it deserves. Sixth, every librarian must regard himself or herself as a recruiting agent. Numerically we are not a large profession, Recruiting for Librarianship 87 but, as I have pointed out before, we have exceptional oppor- tunities to come in contact with young people at critical stages in their careers. School librarians have an excellent oppor- tunity to start young people thinking about librarianship as a career. College librarians have an opportunity to follow this up and help worthy students come to an intelligent decision regarding their life work. Library school faculties located almost without exception on university campuses have a splendid opportunity to touch the lives of undergraduates and help them consider the advantages of librarianship as a pro- fession. But, because there are not many of us, each one of us must do his bit. We cannot leave it to the other fellow. The number of graduates of the University of Illinois Library School is approximately two thousand. If each one of these graduates took the responsibility of encouraging one promising young person to consider librarianship as a pro- fession the result might be, shall we guess, around two or three hundred applicants for admission to the Library School. From these the Library School with the help of its alumni could select the best qualified of those applying. The resulting class, I feel sure, would be the outstanding class in the history of the Library School, and would be a landmark in the history of the profession. Finally, implicit in the above is the necessity of undertak- ing a positive program of recruitment. We cannot adopt a passive attitude, for outstanding students will not just come to us. They must be informed of the advantages of librarian- ship and urged to consider it as their life's career. We must utilize all of our initiative and intelligence, and our action must be vigorous and positive. If we fail, the next fifty years will reveal a record of mediocrity. If we succeed, the 1993 celebration will give evidence of unparalleled achievement in librarianship. LIBRARY SCHOOLS AFTER FIFTY YEARS By Anita M. Hostetter Chief of the Department of Library Education and Personnel and Secretary of the Board of Education for Librarianship of the American Library Association AT THE INAUGURATION of the president of Colgate ii. University a few months ago Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick spoke for the alumni. In the course of his remarks he said: "A college celebration is usually a time of happy self- satisfaction and self -congratulation — everybody proud of Alma Mater and full of her memories. At a recent meeting of a genealogical society, where everyone was rejoicing that he was the descendant of his ancestors, the Chaplain offered this prayer — 'O Lord, justify, if it be possible, the high esteem in which we hold ourselves.' " Whatever the pride we as alumni feel in the accomplishments of the University of Illi- nois Library School — and I am sure that we are justly proud of the School — I do not believe that we shall permit a senti- mental attitude toward the past to obscure our concern in its future. As the fourth in order of establishment, the University of Illinois Library School has had an active part in the full history of education for librarianship in this country. With other pioneer schools, it has passed through two stages of de- velopment and has now entered upon a third. In the first period, before 1925, library schools developed under several forms of organization and at various levels of education; in most of them the instruction placed emphasis upon library procedures. Since 1925 a pattern of education has taken form. Dis- tinctions between preparation for professional positions and that for nonprofessional positions were recognized. A major accomplishment of this second period was the integration of library schools as departments or schools in institutions of higher education. Progress in graduate study, investigation and publication became apparent, and preprofessional educa- tion was steadily lengthened with general approval of the library profession. The third and present period is marked by a concern with the curriculum and with ways and means of emphasizing the principles of library service more than its 9i 92 Fifty Years of Education for Librarianship procedures and of presenting libraries in all their social and educational relationships. The major problems confronting the library schools are the same that are being met by professional schools in other fields. Basically, these problems are the same that have faced the library schools from the beginning, and they will con- tinue to be before the schools as long as the education of librarians exists. They are concerned with the students, the curriculum, and the faculty. Other categories could be added but these three seem to have special significance today. The specific questions which are related to any one of these general problems at any given time are obviously colored by current conditions and trends in the organization and services of libraries, and these in turn reflect changes in the social and educational scene in which libraries take an increasingly im- portant place. / The success of a professional school in any field must be measured in terms of the success of its graduates. A library school, therefore, succeeds or fails or merely jogs along to the extent that its graduates are successful in meeting the changing needs of their library constituencies with flexibility and imagination. The University of Illinois Library School has little cause to question its record in such terms. The roster of graduates bears the names of many leaders in the pro- fession, of many whose contributions are substantial and valuable, and of many who show promise of achievement. This is not to say that recruiting and the selection of students require no special consideration today. On the contrary the effect of present conditions on library school enrollments points first to the importance of greater activity in recruiting for the profession and second to an insistence upon main- taining or even extending the present standards of admission. No library school can now afford to waste its resources on students who do not meet its qualifications for admission at least as well as have the students in other vears. Library Schools After Fifty Years 93 Except in general terms librarianship has never prescribed the education which should precede professional study in li- brary schools. The reason is inherent in the nature of library service which deals with all fields of knowledge and supplies information and printed materials to readers of widely diver- sified interests, purposes, reading abilities, and educational backgrounds. A liberal education, excluding too much that is narrowly vocational and including specialization in at least one subject field, has been generally accepted as desirable for a librarian. At its best such background will give the prospec- tive librarian an acquaintance with fields of knowledge which are relevant to his professional activities and a familiarity with subjects of social significance as well as professional utility. It will develop desirable mental habits and skills and facility in expression through writing and speaking. Speciali- zation in one subject field and actual facility in at least one foreign language are now too often required for definite positions to be minimized in selecting prospective librarians. Under the pressure of wartime demands, college students, both men and women, are being urged to point their education toward goals directly related to the war effort. As a result the sciences and other subjects of immediate practical value are receiving great emphasis. For the library schools this trend may mean a welcome opportunity to recruit young people with training in the sciences, a field largely lacking in the education of librarians as we now realize when positions requiring such preparation beg for qualified candidates. In a technological society like our own, the need for librarians with preparation in the sciences has long been recognized, and efforts have been made to recruit such persons. The war has served to make this need more acute. An opinion unsupported by any investigation suggests that the college student who concentrates in the sciences usually does so with a fairly definite vocation or profession as a goal. In competition with these professions, librarianship has not 94 Fifty Years of Education for Librarianship been successful enough in presenting to such a student the opportunities in library service for which his preparation is a requisite. Experiments in several library schools suggest that the time may be opportune for the schools to undertake more generally the direction of the undergraduate study of prospec- tive librarians. Without narrowly specifying an undergraduate program to be followed by all such students, a library school might chart to advantage the program of an individual stu- dent, building upon his special interests and abilities and at the same time providing the general background believed to be necessary for his success as a librarian. A closer relation- ship between general education and professional education might result. The plan would at least prevent the spotty prepa- ration of the student who concentrates heavily in one sub- ject and scatters his electives over too wide a range. Someone has described such a student as an intellectual tourist who remembers just enough of the places he visits to prove that he has been there but who really knows only his home town. It must be kept in mind that the library school students of today and the next few years will be the librarians upon whom the responsibility for library service and library de- velopment in the postwar period will rest heavily. Librarians must obviously be made ready for their tasks in wartime, but it is equally important that they be capable of performing the tasks of a peacetime which we cannot wholly foresee. Xo one can predict what changes in library services and organization may take place, nor what opportunities, now unexpected, may come. Can we afford, then, to accept students who have little thought for the tremendous achievements in science or who are not much concerned about the sweeping changes now evident in the social and political scene and in world relation- ships? How can we emphasize most effectively that they, as librarians, must help their communities to understand and to be concerned about these things? Library Schools After Fifty Years 95 Like education in other fields, education for librarianship must look ahead and plan ahead within the limits of our vision. We know, for example, that thousands of the Ameri- can people have suddenly become more world conscious under the impact of the war, and that after the war the relationships between the United States and other countries are likely to be closer than in the past. It is not difficult to believe that librar- ians will need a working knowledge of the history, govern- ment, customs, and languages of other peoples upon which to base their contributions to world understandings. Perhaps we cannot now describe the exact services which will require such knowledge, but we can cite a few recent developments and imagine others designed to bring to readers a competent interpretation of the peoples of other lands. Even today in- ternational library service is gaining headway, and the op- portunities in the future may be greater than can easily be visualized. In the education of women, a certain type of education popular at one time was obtained at a "finishing school." No library school can hope to "finish" a librarian in one or two years or even longer. The best it can do is to start its gradu- ates along professional pathways that lead into untried fields. Its first concern should be to stimulate in the librarians of the future the ability to recognize new opportunities for serv- ice, to adapt methods, and to devise procedures and organi- zation in relation to the ever-changing needs of a library community. The librarian who is continually learning and in- vestigating, experimenting and testing throughout his profes- sional career is one who contributes most to his profession and who becomes a leader among librarians and other educators and community workers. /Librarianship involves much more than the performance 01 standardized procedures by which the necessary operations of a library can be accomplished with machine-like efficiency. The professional librarian will see such operations in their true relationships as contributing to the total program of the li- 96 Fifty Years of Education for Librarianship brary with all its implications for the library's social and edu- cational significance. From the background and stimulus of his professional education, the forward-looking librarian will draw those principles of service which in their application give life and spirit to the practice of librarianship. The person without this background may perform competently his duties as a library employee, but he will usually lack breadth of pro- fessional outlook and will fail to contribute through his position to the progress of the library or of the library pro- fession. In other words, he will merely work in the library. Students in most of the library schools today are given the opportunity to investigate special aspects of librarianship, to work on projects which utilize local resources and situations which bring them in touch with actual library service in ways distinct from traditional practice work. They are permitted and even encouraged to combine study in other departments with that in the Library School. All these methods have the effect of unifying the curriculum and of providing an appli- cation of theoretical instruction at the most opportune time. This feature of present-day instruction together with certain gains made in setting up a unified curriculum in distinction from accumulating a collection of separate courses seems to me to hold promise for much progress in the years ahead. Most librarians will agree that the increased specialization in the services rendered by libraries has sharpened the need for specialized training for these services. The question of specialization in the education of librarians is a perennial problem, not easily solved. In the future each library school will undoubtedly find it highly desirable or even necessary to define its objectives more closely in terms of the selected types and levels of service for which it will undertake to pre- pare its graduates. Only by such means are the library schools likely to develop programs of instruction attractive to persons whose competency in public administration or in scholarly fields suggests them as desirable contributors to the progress of librarianship. Library Schools After Fifty Years 97 Finding qualified faculty members for the library schools is a crucial problem. In general, librarians are not teachers, either by inclination or training. They have been more inter- ested in directing the ways of learning informally through the library than formally through the classroom. Successful ex- perience in informal education gives essential background for teaching in a library school, but beyond such experience the prospective teacher should be familiar with accepted educa- tional methods and developments. Each library school will need to define more closely than in the past the qualifications necessary and desirable for members of its faculty, and then to canvass its own alumni group and those of other library schools for possible candidates. Among the students of each class may be individuals who show promise of becoming ac- ceptable instructors after they have acquired sufficient ex- perience to give point to their teaching. •After fifty years, or a little more, education for librarian- ship has progressed from an apprentice type of training to the status of professional education offered wholly in insti- tutions of higher education. The accomplishments of the li- brary schools have been substantial and they indicate con- tinuing steady progress with promise for further advance- ment toward desirable goals. We who are concerned with the education of librarians might easily permit this evidence of progress to lead to complacent satisfaction with library schools as they are. On the other hand we might insist that education for librarianship has failed in most respects and shows little indication of loosening the bonds of tradition. I do not think that we shall take either of these positions. Instead we shall find somewhere between the two a more wholesome and con- structive attitude which fosters continuing progress based upon an impersonal appraisal of accomplishments. We shall expect that education for librarianship in the future, as in the past, will be responsive to the needs of libraries as they at- tempt to meet the requirements of a changing society. SUGGESTIONS FOR THE NEXT FIFTY YEARS By Jerome Kear Wilcox Associate Librarian University of California Berkeley HALF A CENTURY of the life of a great library school has now passed. Many things have been accomplished, and great changes have occurred in these years. But rather than attempt to review this past, which speaks for itself, I should like to consider some future problems. Except, possibly, for studies of reading habits of indi- viduals, begun by the Chicago school, the lion's share of library school instruction has been confined to technical proc- esses. As a result, we might be said to be approaching the perfect catalog card and to have evolved at least two classi- fication schemes, the Dewey Decimal and the Library of Congress, which have all appearances of being permanent. We have also developed card catalogs which are strangling us as would octopuses, and before long many libraries will devote more space to card catalogs than to books. To complicate this situation further, at the present time extensive movements are on foot to develop the Union Catalog idea in many of the larger libraries. Is it not possible that we have been placing too much emphasis on technical processes and, above all, staked too much on making the card catalog itself the perfect tool? That the card catalog is not the perfect tool is evident from the appalling fact that a large percentage of the collec- tions in research and university libraries is used very little, yet we keep expanding our buildings to include more and more material. What can be done about it? First, with respect to the Union Catalog idea, something very definite can be done. All the university, college, and re- search libraries should immediately supply, and continue to supply, the Union Catalog of the Library of Congress with cards for all titles not already represented there. This project should be speeded up, and, ultimately, the Union Catalog of the Library of Congress should be published in book form. We would then have an all inclusive Union Catalog available to all research and university libraries which would occupy considerably less space than our present Union Catalog card IOI 102 Fifty Years of Education for Librarianship development. After once being printed, periodic supplements should be issued. Fortunately, part of this idea is already well under way, and all we can do is to hope that it will be com- pleted. With the publishing of the Library of Congress cata- log of printed cards, subscribing libraries have been requested to check the items listed for items in their collection not in this catalog, these entries to be supplied to the Union Catalog of the Library of Congress. In the second place, I personally believe we should start seriously to consider ways and means to de-emphasize the im- portance of technical processes. The Library of Congress card, in its present form, can be used not only to supply the library with the Dewey or Library of Congress classification for the book, but also the main author entry. But what libraries ac- tually use the Library of Congress card in this way? At times there is doubt in the mind of the cataloger of the accuracy of the author entry; and then, generally, the classification num- bers printed at the bottom of the card are too minute for use by all libraries. It might be more practical if classifications were made in larger subject groups, leaving the card catalog, or its equivalent, to bring out as many additional subject headings as are necessary. After all, it is impossible to place every book received in so exact a spot in any classification scheme that all seekers after it will always think in terms of the classification adopted. While we are on the subject of the catalog card, I believe we could greatly simplify the biblio- graphical data on each card with little or no loss to anybody. The problem of decreasing the size of the card catalog itself is not a simple one. If it were possible to make the catalog purely an author index to the library's collection, its growth would not be so rapid as when the subject approach to the collection is incorporated. Since at least half of the use of any library's collection is through a subject approach, the more detailed this subject approach is, the greater will be the use of the collection itself. Unfortunatelv, most of us have Suggestions for the Next Fifty Years 103 attempted to take as patterns the subject headings of the Library of Congress or those used in the H. W. Wilson Company's indexes. While some standard system is always advisable so that there may be a general uniformity in library practice, greater consideration should nevertheless be given to the public's subject approach, which, in many instances, means speedier adoption of new subject headings. Unfortu- nately, in the minds of many librarians this means reclassifi- cation, which in itself is a wasteful procedure, to say the least. Why not let the classification stand, and take care of new subject approaches entirely by new subject headings? Turning now to the subject approach to books, we find in libraries, generally, one of three types of catalogs: first, a dic- tionary catalog with subject and author all in one alphabet; second, a separate author and subject catalog; and finally, an author and classed catalog. In every instance, however, we do find that the subject approach is where the great increase in the card catalog takes place, and that there are at least twice as many subject as author cards. It is through the subject ap- proach that many books which otherwise would never be used are drawn to the attention of the users of libraries. One pos- sible way in which we might eliminate the subject cards in the catalog would be to develop comprehensive or complete subject bibliographies on a national or international basis. If this were done, we might add library call numbers throughout such bibliographies and continue the practice for all new titles as acquired. Bibliographies would serve as comprehensive bib- liographies on the subject and, at the same time, would com- pletely index the library's collection on that subject. Such com- prehensive subject bibliographies ought to be developed with the larger subject approaches in mind, such as Physics, Chem- istry, Biology, History, Political Science, etc. If we, as li- brarians, would take time out to see that these bibliographies were compiled, they undoubtedly would be of inestimable value. At the same time, they might eliminate the subject catalog, or its equivalent, in the library. 104 Fifty Years of Education for Librarianship The public would be able to make much greater use of our files of periodicals, as well as the publications of the sci- entific and learned societies, if complete subject indexes to them were developed. If such comprehensive tools existed, I have no doubt that daily there would be a rediscovery of the contents of many serials which are now either lost or forgot- ten because of the lack of adequate indexing. This same type of indexing is also a necessity in the public documents field. Whether these comprehensive indexes materialize in the near future or not, library school students should turn their attention to devising means of correlating the bibliographical collections of the library with the public catalog. This should be done with the object of lessening the number of subject entries in the card catalog and still making available to the public a wider subject approach to the library's collection. With a decrease in the emphasis on technical processes in the library school, more time might be spent with the book itself. Who among us leaves college and, later, library school and knows what the classics are in all subject fields? In ad- dition to a knowledge of the classics of each major subject field, how many of us know the important periodicals, indexes, abstracts, and public documents in those fields? If this subject approach to books, periodicals, public documents, etc., were offered in library schools, we, as librarians, would not only be better informed, but we would be better able to unlock the vast storehouses of knowledge contained in libraries. To sum up briefly, therefore, I should like to see the Illi- nois school begin its next fifty years thinking about the re- duction of technicalities and technical processes, attempting to place greater emphasis on the subject approach to all types of materials, and devising more and more methods of making library collections more useable to the public. LIBRARY COOPERATION AND EDUCATION FOR LIBRARIANSHIP BEYOND OUR BORDERS By Rudolph H. Gjelsness Chairman Department of Library Science University of Michigan ON LOOKING BACKWARD at the library development this country has experienced in the last fifty years, it becomes clear that slowly and inevitably the radius of a li- brary's relationships, along with its responsibilities and op- portunities, has been a widening one. From isolated institu- tions sometimes rather jealously serving a restricted clientele, each one developing in its own distinctive way its methods of best serving that clientele, has come a pooling of experience and concerted action which has made libraries interdependent in a very real sense. What has been found good in one has been made known, and subsequently adopted elsewhere with salutary effect. This testing in actual operation of the methods and means of achieving specific goals, along with a continuous exchange of experience between libraries, has been the basis of library development and has incidentally provided library schools through the years with an essential part of their in- structional stimulus. Library schools have had to evaluate this experience of libraries and systematize it before they could economically pass it on to new generations of librarians, and this they have been able to do through teachers who for the most part have been experienced practitioners before they became teachers. tfae library schools have given conspicuous service to the profession by carefully selecting prospective librarians and by giving them basic instruction. In providing the new recruits with similar preparation, they have been a factor in the stand- ardization of methods and practices so necessary to effective cooperation and the efficient development of services. The library school graduate has had the opportunity to enlarge his vision of what librarianship offers as a professional career, and has been encouraged to think and look beyond the im- mediate confines of his own particular activity. From this has come progress. yTYom the beginning of library schools, it has been noted that their graduates have been remarkably independent of geographical restrictions in their professional movements. I recall vividly the lament of a prominent Illinois librarian some 107 108 Fifty Years of Education for Librarianship twenty-five years ago that the University of Illinois Library School graduates went out to libraries in all parts of the nation and did not stay within the State and develop Illinois libraries. This dispersal of its graduates to all parts of the country is no doubt a fact, although there can be no question that Illinois libraries have profited immeasurably from having a school of such eminence within the State. A survey of the positions held by Illinois graduates would undoubtedly demonstrate the ex- tent to which the School has contributed a professional per- sonnel to the nation as a whole. It is to be noted that always the library school graduate has tended to go where the best opportunity lay, without regard to location. This free move- ment of personnel has had no little part in raising the level of performance and in keeping the profession from stagnating in the ruts of a narrowly circumscribed experience. Library schools and libraries together have achieved within the United States a high degree of correlation of library ac- tivities. Looking beyond our own borders, however, the pic- ture is a different one. One could draw up a fairly impressive list of the instances where Canadian and United States li- brarians have joined hands in cooperative projects, but with other nations we have little to compare with that. Is not this a future frontier? One of the lasting convictions I carried with me from my student days in the Illinois Library School was of the essen- tially international character of library work. This has only been confirmed by later experience. To some degree, every library has the character of an international collection since no nation has a monopoly on genius or creative effort. This be- comes particularly true in libraries which attempt to keep their clientele informed on world developments in specific subject fields, and in those few libraries which still attempt a degree of universality in their collections. But no library can hope to secure all printed matter. There must be selection, and in this difficult process libraries should aid each other ; and that aid should extend bevond national boundaries. Library Cooperation and Education 109 With a tremendous reduction in travel time, with im- proved facilities for the transportation of mail, express, and freight, as well as cheaper and quicker methods of repro- ducing materials, we can look forward to a day when the special resources of a library in Buenos Aires or in Cape Town will be as readily available to the special need in New York as is now a book on the Pacific Coast of our own country. Before there can be effective collaboration between libraries of different countries, however, it will be necessary that they have a better understanding of each other's needs and re- sources. It is also necessary that there be a greater degree of uniformity in methods of handling and recording materials. First responsibility for the preservation of a country's pub- lished materials rests with that country's libraries. They can- not escape that. A second responsibility which they must also assume is that of making known to the world through publica- tion both the current and past production of printed matter. Their next aim should be adequate organization of their col- lections and adequate records of holdings. Until these respon- sibilities are met in comparable ways in the nations of the world, there can be no effective cooperation. With this done, it is possible that a further step might lead to the provision of expert selection service to libraries of other nations in building up their foreign collections. International congresses of librarians and an international federation of librarians will continue to be important factors in promoting library activities in a world now being drawn so close together. Exchanges of personnel and formal library instruction may be still more effective aids to collaboration and to the promotion of a world community of librarians. Our long experience in training for librarianship has re- sulted in the development of a curriculum, teaching tools, and methods of instruction whose value is unquestioned. This experience and these tools should be made available to the countries now eager to develop libraries along the lines found no Fifty Years of Education for Librarianship so successful in the United States. Training of librarians beyond our borders as well as training of our own for foreign service surely will be a necessary part of a postwar world and the inevitable reconstruction of libraries and other cultural institutions which will follow. Bogota, Colombia, was the seat last summer of an inter- American experiment in training for librarianship which should furnish encouragement and, to a small degree, a model for similar projects in the future. The Colombian government, through its Ministry of Education, collaborated with the American Library Association in a summer school for Latin- American librarians. Funds for the staff from the United States were provided by the Rockefeller Foundation; the Colombian government provided a co-director to serve jointly with the director from the United States, and also furnished an instructor, quarters, and equipment. Dr. Samper Ortega, President of the Gimnasio Moderno and formerly Director of the Biblioteca Nacional, was liaison representative of the Colombian Ministry of Education ; Dr. Uribe White, Director of the Biblioteca Nacional, was co-director, with the writer as the United States director; Dr. Manuel Jose Forero, Chief of the Cataloging Section of the Biblioteca Nacional gave the course in Book Selection. The instructors from the United States included Sarita Robinson, University of Iowa; Mrs. Clara Newth de Villa Sainz, New York State Library; Jan- eiro Brooks, Pan American Union ; Manuel Sanchez, Library of Congress, all librarians of competence and wide experience, who were prepared to give instruction in Spanish. Registration was restricted to librarians in service. Even with that limitation and further selection of applicants, the original enrollment was more than ninety. Eighty completed the six-week course and received certificates. They came chiefly from Bogota, although there were two from Caracas, Vene- zuela, two from Medellin, Colombia, and one from Ibague. They represented many types of libraries, the majority in- stitutions under government control as the following table suggests : Library Cooperation and Education 1 1 1 Men Women Total 1. Biblioteca National 7 18 25 2. Universidad Nacional 1 8 9 3. Universidad Javeriana 5 Universidad Javeriana Femenina. ... 3 8 4. Other educational institutions 5 5 10 5. Libraries of Ministries 8 3 11 6. Others 8 9 17 Total 34 46 80 The greatest emphasis in the instruction was placed on cataloging and classification, as these were the subjects for which there was most demand. By a careful scheduling of sec- tions, it was possible to give each student two hours of in- struction in cataloging each day, including Saturday, in groups not exceeding fifteen. There were two lectures on general topics related to librarianship each week, three meetings of the classes in Book Selection, and three of the classes in Public Services. Elementary instruction in bibliography was included in the Book Selection course, some reference work was in- cluded in the Public Services course along with problems related to the general administration of libraries. Classes were necessarily conducted in Spanish. While many of the students had some knowledge of English, relatively few could profitably have followed lectures in English. Interest in the work was very high at all times. There was intelligent questioning of the principles and practices which were taught, and a serious and, I believe, relatively successful effort to make application of instruction to particular needs. These needs were evidently as diverse as would be found in any group similarly brought together in the United States, including librarians from the scholarly libraries with many specialties, the small collections in the offices of the Ministries, the school libraries, and the special libraries. Bogota is a proud old city which, throughout its four cen- ii2 Fifty Years of Education for Librarianship turies of existence, has enjoyed a high degree of isolation, broken only within the last twenty years through the develop- ment of air travel. On a high plateau, nine thousand feet above sea-level, this Shangri-La of South America has grown and prospered in spite of the difficulty of travel facilities to the outside world. There is even now no direct rail connection with the seacoast nor even with the second largest city, Medel- lin. The building of roads in a country so mountainous is a gi- gantic problem which perhaps may never have to be met if air transport has the development it now seems destined to have. This quickening of contact with other parts of the world through air transportation has given a stimulus to many new developments within the city, as is evident from its phe- nomenal physical growth. Traditionally a city of deep-rooted cultural interests, it has a flourishing book trade, obviously a considerable reading public, and valuable private libraries. There are numerous libraries connected with public institu- tions and offices. These for the most part have been developed along individualistic lines with little uniformity in their ad- ministration or management, some serving their public very well, others with less satisfaction. In the late nineteen thirties, the Biblioteca Nacional under the direction of Dr. Samper enjoyed development and progress in many directions. A new building was erected in 1938 which is one of the most attractive and successful modern buildings in Bogota. It gives ample facilities for growth and for the development of services ; it has the physical plant to become a model of its kind for other libraries in the city and the nation. Some reorganization is now in progress, including the reclassi- fication of the collections into the Dewey Decimal classifica- tion. Two significant additions were made to its services in 1942: the opening of a circulating collection on the plan of an American public library, and the organization of a general open-shelf reference collection. Both these projects were supervised bv Miss Dorothy Reeder, formerly Director of the American Library in Paris, who was loaned to the Colombian Library Cooperation and Education 113 National Library by the Library of Congress. For the students and faculty of the summer session, the Circulating Library provided a working model of a popular library and was a useful adjunct to the instructional work. Miss Reeder also took charge of registration and served in general as assistant to the directors. Classes were held in the Biblioteca Nacional where many of the public services had been suspended to permit staff mem- bers to attend classes. In its light and spacious rooms, looking out on a mountain vista of majestic beauty, the North Ameri- can teachers met for several hours daily the Colombian li- brarians who came to learn about North American library methods. Much information was packed into the short six weeks and a substantial beginning was made in training in specific skills. More than that, however, it was a means of bringing librarians together ; they learned to know each other and each other's libraries, and, we feel confident, began to see what a library movement, cooperatively supported, might mean in Colombia. They formed a library association, called the Asociacion de Bibliotecarios de Bogota, which will un- doubtedly result in a national association. There is no lack of initiative and interest, and with the impetus already given, they are sure to progress. In the words of one of the students who commented at length on the school: Its achievement will be evident when Colombian libraries are tech- nically organized, a circumstance which will appreciably promote the intellectual success of these American nations. The libraries will then become bonds of union of increasing strength, the creators of a con- tinental conscience which will make clear that in America there is the culture and the civilization to oppose itself to barbarism. As evidence of the desire to promote better library service, a desire which promises to be translated into action, I can do no better than to quote from another student, Simon Castro Padilla, who wrote in the periodical San Simon for Septem- ber 1942. After making an impassioned plea for library serv- ice for the general public, he concludes: In place of the concept of the "public" as an amorphous mass, we must substitute a complex body of individuals with distinct tastes, of ii4 Fifty Years of Education for Librarianship varying age groups and cultural levels: in place of the concept of the library as a storehouse of books, we must see it instead as a systematic arrangement of materials, where each book has a place and a function to perform in the service of readers. Each reader, each book, should be studied for its individual qualities. If we do not do this, we run the risk of placing ourselves in the position of the builder who does not know the strength of his materials. This experience in Colombia put into bold relief the ma- terial progress made by our own libraries, showing the ways in which that progress has affected library instruction and in a real sense simplified the task of training librarians. We have an extensive literature in English ; in Spanish there is little. We have full and comprehensive catalog rules and classifica- tion schemes which are followed in most of our libraries. We have standard lists of subject headings, regular book selection aids, printed catalog cards available at small cost. The librar- ians in Latin America have few of these advantages. In cata- loging, for instance, each cataloger must do independent work; that makes for self-reliance but not for economy or uniformity. They still have to develop a comprehensive list of subject headings in Spanish ; they need a Spanish translation of at least one general classification scheme such as the Dewey Decimal ; they need book selection aids, and above all regu- larly published lists of the national book production. They are no doubt equal to tasks that lie ahead of them, but they are arduous tasks and they will take time. Those librarians in Latin America who are now at the forefront of library de- velopment in their various countries, the students who have studied in our library schools and have returned to their own countries, and the eighty graduates of this first inter-Ameri- can library school will be leaders in that development. They deserve our wholehearted sympathy and cooperation. We can only hope for them that soon they will go forward under good leadership to organize their libraries and to train librarians to follow those who are now the pioneers of a new day.