ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries March 1 9 9 4 /1 4 5 Rethinking Ring and Shapiro: Some responses By Larry R. Oberg, Douglas Herman, Virginia Massey-Burzio, and Carol Schroeder The debate on faculty status and reference service continues Tiered reference and faculty status redux The current unstable and rapidly changing aca­ demic library environment appears increasingly to mimic the world’s political scene: it ferrets the conservatives out of their closets, puts them on the peck, and reopens old wounds. Two recent frontal attacks published in C&RL News — one on faculty status by Beth Shapiro ( “The myths surrounding faculty status for librarians,” November 1993) and the other on tiered refer­ ence by Daniel F. Ring (“Searching for darlings: The quest for professional status,” December 1993)— underscore librarians’ long-standing penchant for denial. The defensive nature of these pieces reminds us that before automa­ tion pulled the rug out from under our plain, comfortable work shoes, we librarians had en­ joyed a long history of stability and conserva­ tism. A number of our colleagues appear to yearn for a return to those halcyon days of yore. In my opinion, the subtext of the Shapiro/ Ring “contribution” is nothing less than whether this profession is going to make it intact and smiling into the 21st century. It is certainly not whether some of us (“Oberg and Company,” as Ring puts it) have the unmitigated gall to question practices that our more genteel col­ leagues prefer to avoid addressing. In an impassioned defense of the traditional “sit and wait” reference model, Ring assumes that only librarians can do reference compe­ tently. Triage, the critical process of interpret­ ing often ambiguously phrased reference ques­ tions, requires “minds constantly nourished and honed by interaction with students and pro­ ductive and sustained reading.” Reference work, he asserts, is “simply not for the graduate stu­ dent or the dilettante.” (Read nonprofessional.) This kind of nonsense insults not only gradu­ ate students, but also the many capable and competent library paraprofessionals who for decades, and mostly without significant restric­ tion, have worked alongside their terminally degreed colleagues at reference desks in a majority of our university libraries. As immediate past-chair of the ACRL Aca­ demic Status Committee, I never ceased being taken aback by the vehemence with which a small minority of librarians oppose faculty sta­ tus. While insisting that faculty status is a dead horse, they beat it mercilessly. Clearly, this is an issue that cuts to the quick of who we think we are. I find the traditional arguments against faculty status (Shapiro and Ring borrow copi­ ously from them) all too often specious: librar­ ians do not do what “real” faculty do; librarians are not paid enough and do not have enough time to do research, serve on committees, etc.; tenure protects incom petents (h en ce, we should reject tenure); librarians’ research is of poor quality (hence, we should reject research); faculty work is not the “real” work of librar­ ians; on and on, ad nauseam. Fred Hill and Robert Hauptman ( “Faculty status for librarians? A response,” C&RL News, January 1994) have clearly and succinctly deconstructed Shapiro’s minimalist model of librarianship. The scope of their rebuttal did not, however, permit them to highlight the advantages of faculty status. I suggest that librarians should have faculty status for the same reasons that our teaching faculty colleagues require and prefer it. It gives Larry R. Oberg is university lib rarian a t W illamette University, e-m ail: loberg@ w illam ette.edu; D ouglas H erm an is R eferen ce D epartm en t c o o r d in a to r a t B ran d eis University, e-mail: dherm an@binah.cc.brandeis.edu; Virginia M assey-Burzio is h e a d o f resource services a t J o h n s H opkins University, e-m ail: v m b@ jhu n ix.hcf.jhu.edu ; a n d C a rol S ch roed er is referen ce lib rarian a tA d elp h i University, e-m ail: sch roed e@ ad libv .a d elp h i.ed u mailto:loberg@willamette.edu mailto:dherman@binah.cc.brandeis.edu mailto:vmb@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu mailto:schroede@adlibv.adelphi.edu 146 /C&RL News us the protection we need to build our collec­ tions without fear of attack. It allows us to con­ duct and publish our research as we see fit without inappropriate institutional constraint. It gives us the wherewithal to relate to teach­ ing faculty and administrators as colleagues and peers, not as subalterns and handmaidens. (In fact, student and faculty contacts with the li­ brary may be seriously degraded when librar­ ians are perceived as clerks and not as experts and coequals in the research process.) Faculty status also focuses our attention on our high­ est-level responsibilities and helps us to achieve an appropriate balance between our institu­ tional and professional obligations. Tenure-track positions attract the best candidates in a tight job market. This is doubly important at a time when we are required to master rapid change if we are to ensure the future of librarianship as a vital and responsive profession. [Faculty status] gives us the wherewithal to relate to teaching faculty and administrators as colleagues and peers, not as subalterns and handmaidens. Faculty status is also the associational stan­ dard for all academic librarians, a fact often conveniently overlooked by its opponents. It was reaffirmed as such in 1992 when the revi­ sion of the S ta n d a r d s fo r Faculty Statusf o r Col­ lege a n d University L ibrarian s policy statement was approved by the ACRL Board of Directors. Further, at the 1993 Midwinter Meeting, the ALA Council approved the revised standards and this lends the document the support and endorse­ ment of the prestigious parent body. We live in an age of rapid change and only quick-witted, creative risk-takers are going to survive. Tiered reference and faculty status encourage librarians to participate fully in the scholarly life and governance of our campuses. Faculty status accords librarians full partnership in the creative, cooperative, synergistic, colle­ gial relationship between students, teaching faculty, and campus administrators that today’s volatile academic environment requires. Dump faculty status? I think not. Rethink reference? Absolutely. Then let’s move on to rethinking librarianship itself. If we do, we may decide at last whether we are a profession or merely a craft.— Larry R. Oberg The Brandeis reality I don’t know whether it’s due to “stress, over­ ork, and burnout” or not, but somehow my colleagues and I never seem to find the time to orry about things like professional status, and I therefore have no axe to grind with Daniel F. Ring on that subject one way or the other. Since Ring’s reactionary display of virtue takes the “Brandeis model” as an example of what’s wrong with us as a profession, I’d like to clear up a few misconceptions about reference prac­ tices at Brandeis. It is unfortunate that the “Brandeis model” label has stuck, since what we actually do in our library is a much narrower concern than the whole body of possibilities and experiments with tiered reference services that the label now invokes. At Brandeis, at least, the only and wholly sufficient motivation for our current ref­ erence model (which we call the research con­ sultation model) is a desire to preserve the quality and depth of our encounters with our users in an atmosphere of increasing demand and level staffing. One always likes to hear good news from the field, so I’m happy to learn that the general atmosphere in Ring’s reference area remains calm and controlled. At Brandeis’s Main Library, the number of reference encounters more than doubled between 1987-88 and 1992-93, while the number of reference librarians remained the same. It is easy to see how this trend could lead to treating both novice users and advanced researchers with increasing superficiality, just to keep the line moving. The research consul­ tation model represents a choice to give ad­ equate attention to as many people as we can see rather than simply seeing as many people as we can. Through most of the academic year we have people lined up and waiting for us. The state of affairs that Ring describes as “hairy” is the rule, not the exception, as I’m sure is the case at other libraries that are working on ref­ erence reform. It should be sufficiently obvi­ ous that in settings where there is no such prob­ lem, no such reforms are called for. We are not hidden away in our offices and available only by appointment. We have ex­ perimented with appointments in a number of ways, to make up for the longer waits to see the librarian, for example, and we now use them principally for follow-ups. Time spent meeting users by appointment is in addition to, not instead of, our scheduled duty hours. Whether our users come at an appointed hour w w March 1 9 9 4 /1 4 7 or just wait to see us, the main point is that they are indeed treated like professional cli­ ents and not like customers standing in line at a supermarket checkout. (Ring thinks that they are not clients because they do not pay for our services, an assertion that would astonish most o f their parents.) No one has ever pretended that the new reference model was a painless panacea for everything that is wrong with reference. If we cannot be all things to all people, then we have to make some choices. Ring’s point that there is some loss involved in having nonprofession­ als evaluate a patron’s initial question is well taken: it is much easier to train our graduate students to look up an address in a directory, for example, than it is to teach them to recog­ nize when there are deeper needs hidden be­ hind an over-specific question. Any library con­ templating an information desk staffed by nonprofessionals should plan to devote a great deal of attention to this problem, as we have been doing at Brandeis for the past two years. And if we could have simply doubled the size o f our professional staff instead, I believe we would have given it some serious thought.— D ou glas H erm an Delivering better reference service As the creator of what is referred to as the “Brandeis model” in Daniel F. Ring’s article, I must take issue with its inaccurate representa­ tion of the model (more appropriately referred to as the research consultation model) and its goals. I refer to my own “Reference Encoun­ ters of a Different Kind,” in the November 1992 issue of J o u r n a l o f A c a d em ic L ib rarian sh ip for a description of the model, its purpose, and some of its results. Ring’s article is so riddled with inaccuracies and misinformation, that I can only conclude the author was much less inter­ ested in the model itself than in delivering a diatribe on what appears to be an issue dear to his heart, keeping reference librarians “in the trenches where we belong.…” The fact o f the matter is that the model was never expressly designed for the purpose of elevating the status o f reference librarians, al­ though that was surely a welcome by-product. Rather, it was designed to deliver better ser­ vice to readers with the same level of staffing. The kind o f attitude that the “Searching for darlings” article represents is, unfortunately, not atypical and illustrates the almost pathological fear some librarians appear to have of enhanc­ ing their professional status and the vigorous defense they often mount to maintain the sta­ tus quo. This attitude is difficult to understand. Scores of studies have shown that traditional reference service is not very effective, and that there is no reason to cling to it so piously. As responsible professionals, it is incumbent on us to rethink our practices, to see if we can do a better job. The Library Solutions Institute #2, “Rethinking Reference in Academic Libraries,” tried to provide a forum for doing just that. (Ring’s article attempts to respond to Larry O berg’s review o f that institute [“Rethinking reference: Smashing icons at Berkeley,” May 19931.) What I myself have observed from experi­ menting with the model is that the more users understand what a librarian actually does and knows, the higher the quality of the interac­ tion and, in turn, the greater the benefits de­ rived from it for the patron. While the research consultation model is not the answer for every library, the enhanced quality of the patron-li- brary interaction it appears to achieve is sig­ nificant, and of potential consequence for other service possibilities. Scores of studies have shown that traditional reference service is not very effective, and that there is no reason to cling to it so piously. Douglas Herman, my former colleague at Brandeis, has just completed a report on a study of this new model, hopefully to be published soon. The study clearly shows that users re­ spond very favorably to this new relationship with the librarian. Although Ring and a few others may well persist in their self-flagellation, I’m hoping many more colleagues will find working on new ideas a much more relevant and exciting challenge.— Virginia M assey-Burzio Faculty status provides clout After reading the article by Beth Shapiro I found it difficult to keep my response shorter than her 1,200 words. Here is my compromise let­ ter, a mere 600-word epistle. Answer to #1: Faculty status is appropriate to the role of librarians. Our work as librarians 1 4 8 /C&RL News is not fundamentally different from the teach­ ing faculty. There are many modes and ver­ sions o f teaching, and they are not necessarily defined by the 40-minute classroom lecture. Li­ brarians do teach in the traditional sense. They also inspire, guide, and support students and peers offering an in-depth knowledge of librari­ anship and other subject areas as well. Shapiro contends that “the research requirements for [teaching] faculty are significant to the fields in which they teach,” and she further derides the quality of research in librarianship. One may question the significance o f re­ search in any field. There is no data to support the claim that research in library science is any less or any more significant than in other fields. Nor can the quality of research in librarianship be dismissed for being too empirical. There are a limited number of great minds that have, as a result of their research, changed our lives. But that should not deter others from adding to the canons in their respective fields. Answer to #2: The protection o f faculty sta­ tus is important for academic librarians. Many library faculty believe that faculty status pro­ vides them with more credibility and respect on campus. It affords them entree into the edu­ cational process on an equal footing and not (Fu seler con t. f r o m p a g e 1 3 2 ) costs) are $4,585. Our estimated cost for pro­ cessing an interlibrary loan request is $12. We were thereby able to reduce our costs for the total service from $26.06 to $23.88 per article. Future Expanded access to our online catalog and vari­ ous databases allows our patrons access to tables of contents online. Uncover2 is available to most of our users from their offices or com­ puter labs. Despite the ease o f scanning tables of contents online, currently only a few o f our patrons use UnCover2 for current awareness. We hope to institute some educational programs which will increase our patrons’ use of this service. Currently we have a pilot project which al­ lows patrons to place requests directly on UnCover2 at no or low cost. If the patron does not have access to a place for fax delivery of the article, a copy is delivered to a vendor within the library for a $2.00 charge. We are certain that as modes o f delivery and the number o f document-delivery vendors increase, we will continually evaluate and re­ fine this service to our patrons. ■ as an invited or occasional guest. It provides a link for working cooperatively together and for improved communication to promote the edu­ cational process. Answer to #3: Faculty status benefits the academy, not just librarians. First, let us clarify that faculty status is more than earning tenure. It is an orderly procedure by which faculty are evaluated using guidelines and criteria estab­ lished and accepted by the institution and the faculty. As such, it strives to be a fair and im­ partial mechanism which is as much a benefit to the academy as it is to the faculty. Is tenure a panacea for academic freedom? The author points out that “junior faculty members and oth­ ers without tenure enjoy markedly less academic freedom than tenured people, and a determined vicious chairman can still abuse a tenured fac­ ulty member.” Think where we would be if tenure vanished. Answer to #4: Faculty status provides a po­ sition of influence for the profession. I agree wholeheartedly that our influence on campus must be earned. It is crucial that we becom e active participants not only in the governance system, but also on committees which afford an opportunity to communicate the role of the library on campus. Collection building and the deselection of materials are enhanced by a thor­ ough understanding o f the library’s constitu­ ents and their special needs. Librarians are of­ ten at the forefront in teaching faculty and students how to access information via new telecommunications links and computerized databases. In no way does faculty status for librarians detract from or debase our position on campus. On the contrary, many have firmly held opinions that faculty status is a kind of pedigree that counts in the academic climate. Answer to #5: Faculty status has proven to be a benefit to academic librarians: The author points out that faculty status is not a guarantee o f pay equity with teaching faculty in the same institution. However, it is a model that has worked, and worked well, in some instances. It seems to me that the standards promulgated by our national and regional library organiza­ tions have had little effect on our professional salaries. In the real, messy world of econom ic expediency, those who have no or little politi­ cal clout in the academy are usually the first to be victimized by both the loss o f jobs or salary inequities. Faculty status provides that clout, at least in some instances and to some extent.— C arol S ch ro e d er ■ March 1 9 9 4 /1 4 9