College and Research Libraries


Editorial 
Elysian Thoughts on Librarians as Faculty 

Preceding the American Library Asso-
ciation Midwinter Conference in January 
1992, the Association of College and Re-
search Libraries (ACRL) Committee on 
Academic Status invited twelve aca-
demic librarians to participate in a Think 
Tank on Faculty Status. The participants 
were Mignon Adams, Joan Giesecke, Kathy 
Jackson, Beverly Lynch, Olivia Madison, 
Bede Mitchell, Barbara Moran, Jim Murphy, 
Lester Pourciau, Gloriana St. Clair, Janet 
Steins, and Rebecca Watson-Boone. 
Think Tank Task Force Sub-Committee 
members were Irene Hoadley, Larry 
Oberg, Gemma DeVinney, Tom Patterson, 
and Mary Reichel. They assembled the 
Think Tank to identify strategic direc-
tions for the Committee on Academic 
Status. Irene Hoadley and I made a few 
remarks to summon the sibyl. Maureen 
Sullivan, from the Association of Re-
search Libraries (ARL), facilitated to 
keep the group on its Herculean task. 
This editorial reports the substance of 
the work: relationships with administra-
tors and teaching faculty, tenure and its 
ramifications, and the roles of ACRL. 

One key relationship discussed was 
that between campus administrators 
and the libraries. Being seen as working 
in cooperation with the administration is 
a political priority for every college and 
university library director. On many 
campuses, serials price increases in the 
past decade have complicated this task 
even for the most accomplished library 
director. College and university admin-
istrators continue to face the prospect of 
either supplying scarce additional finan-
cial resources to libraries to cover serials 
cost increases or listening to faculty com-
plain about a lack of support for essen-

tial academic programs when serials 
cuts are instituted because of declining 
buying power. Like Cassandra, the li-
brary director must again and again 
prophesy doom, only to see the prophe-
cies ignored, then watch the anguish of 
a serials cancellation project with cam-
pus reverberations. 

The causes of this Sisyphean endeavor 
are better understood by communica-
tion with on-campus academic adminis-
trators. Library directors who are faculty 
do this by working as peers with other 
administrators. Nonfaculty library direc-
tors at some institutions do this by meeting 
regularly with a council of deans. The 
Think Tank's consensus was that being 
part of a legitimate, regular deans' meet-
ing facilitates communication with other 
campus academic administrators. 

Think Tank participants also valued 
relationships with teaching faculty. Fac-
ulty librarians serve as full voting mem-
bers of the faculty senate and its com-
mittees. On some campuses, librarians 
who are not faculty may have this same 
opportunity to participate in campus 
governance, but research has shown that 
that is frequently not the case. The forum 
of the faculty senate allows librarians to 
share the library's story through words 
and actions. Doing so earns them, and the 
profession they represent, respect. 

Because tenure is no longer being 
granted to academics in higher educa-
tion in Great Britain, discussion about 
not continuing that system has once 
again surfaced in the United States. The 
discussion is particularly relevant now 
because, with the country in a recession, 
job security has become a strong concern 
for librarians and teaching faculty. Yet 

7 



8 College & Research Libraries 

Think Tank participants believed that if 
tenure no longer exists for teaching fac-
ulty, then librarians must share that in-
creased anxiety about job security. 

Think Tank members also believed 
that librarians should maintain control 
over the process of judging merit in 
librarianship, professional activities, re-
search, and service. The process calls for 
a faculty peer review committee to give 
an initial recommendation on whether a 
faculty member should continue in an ap-
pointment. Non-faculty librarians fre-
quently use the same process. Difficulties 
arise when teaching faculty are judged by 
a publish or perish standard with little 
credit for excellence in teaching. However, 
Think Tank members agreed that both 
teaching and librarianship are hard to 
judge by anything more challenging than 
numbers of assignments, impressions of 
colleagues, and subjective analysis of stu-
dents. Assessment of quality performance 
needs more thought and research for 
both teachers and librarians. 

Librarians as professionals must edu-
cate academic administrators and fac-
ulty colleagues about the value and 
contribution of librarianship to the en-
tire education process. Several' recent 
ACRL presidents have identified dia-
logue with campus constituents as a 
high priority. And the ARL has worked 
to increase the visibility of librarians in 
the education press. The Think Tank 
members reiterated the necessity of com-
municating the message of libraries and 
librarianship beyond the profession. 

The Think Tank ascribed to the convic-
tion that ACRL played several key roles 
in furthering a goal of faculty status for 
librarians. These roles are publication, 
continuing education, and defense of 
those with threatened faculty status. 

PUBLICATION 

Professional organizations foster change, 
establish professional mores, and direct 
the growth of the discipline through the 
publication of a professional literature. 
Through the process of selecting an edi-
tor, editorial board members, and refer-
ees, association officers imprint their 
vision of the future on the permanent 

January 1993 

literature in their field. C&RL plays out 
a role apropos of librarians as faculty by 
providing a top-ranked journal to legit-
imize and disseminate research done by 
librarians. 

CONTINUING EDUCATION 

ACRL does not depend on publication 
alone to keep member competencies cur-
rent. The association also sponsors a 
large number of programs on local, re-
gional, and national levels. In these 
forums, members have an opportunity to 
discuss their research, to share strategies 
on common problems, and to cooperate to 
improve library services. The Committee 
on Academic Status may increase its offer-
ings to members by focusing in future pro-
grams on how to do research, how to 
prepare understandable librarian dossi-
ers, and how to validate librarianship as a 
substitute for teaching in promotion and 
tenure evaluations. 

DEFENSES 

In the open forum of the Think Tank, 
representatives from two campuses re-
ported on attempts by new provosts to 
change librarians' status from faculty to 
staff. The Academic Status Committee 
typically provides guidance for librari-
ans in such situations. Proven defense 
strategies are suggested and attempts 
are made to discover the cause of the 
threat. ACRL may send letters outlining 
the Association's position and remind-
ing administrators of the consequences 
of their actions. Think Tank members 
believed that more activities such as 
these should be developed to educate 
provosts about the benefits of having 
librarians who are faculty. 

Recently, ARL published Spec. Kit 182, 
titled Academic Status for Librarians in 
ARL Libraries.1 In the flyer, editor Jack 
Siggins reports that sixty-six out of 
ninety-nine responding ARL libraries 
have faculty or academic status for 
librarians who are, thus, eligible for 
tenure or continuing appointment. The 
extent to which these numbers reflect the 
circumstances of college and other uni-
versity librarians is not known. With 
ACRL's stated goal in mind that all aca-



demic librarians should be faculty, the 
Think Tank members concluded the day 
by working on a vision statement. That 
vision is to achieve parity with teaching 
faculty at all academic institutions. For 
the Think Tank, parity included protec-
tion through the due process of tenure, 
equitable compensation, a faculty estab-
lished process for promotion, and par-
ticipation in campus governance. The 
preferred method for achieving parity is 
by becoming faculty. 

Think Tank members agreed without 
discussion that being faculty was the 
most valuable mode of participation in 
campus life. I value my faculty appoint-
ment because I believe that research is 
necessary to the provision of excellent li-

Editorial 9 

brary service and because I can interact 
more effectively for the library with cam-
pus colleagues. Campus society is not egal-
itarian; scientists look down ort engineers 
and social scientists, who look down on 
liberal and fine arts faculty. All look down 
on librarians. However, I would rather 
serve at the bottom of the faculty hierarchy 
than in some "other'' status. 

For me, being faculty is the Olympian 
solution to where librarians fit in the 
university. From that peak, librarians 
have the best view of the evolving cam-
pus contours. The climb is difficult, the 
atmosphere is thin, and the opportuni-
ties to fall off are numerous, but the per-
spective makes it all worthwhile. 

GLORIANA ST. CLAIR 

REFERENCE 
1. Jack Siggins, ed., Academic Status for Librarians (Washington, D. C.: Assn. of Research 

Libraries, Office of Management Services, 1992), [flyer]. 

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