Just Another Field?

To transform humanists with Ph.D.'s into academic librarians is the purpose of an initiative recently launched by the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). The equivalent of an apprenticeship, the program involves postdoctoral work in an academic library in lieu of earning a master's degree from a library and information studies (LIS) program accredited by the American Library Association (ALA). Unfortunately, these apprenticeships are likely to undermine further the academic librarian's already unstable place within higher education. The program is viewed either as a short-term expedient to fill open, specialized positions in academic libraries, or as a welcome alternative to education in ALA-accredited programs perceived as abandoning librarianship to embrace information.

By promoting the acceptance of trained apprentices from the ranks of Ph.D.-holders in the humanities as equal or preferable to formally educated librarians, such programs may actually hasten the transformation of LIS from an aspiring disciplinewhose members share a similar education, culture, and value system into a loosely structured academic "field." Such "fields" attract adherents with diverse education and training, united only by their interest in the study and provision of a particular subject—in this case, information. In this way, the case for professional librarianship suffers another self-inflicted wound.

The aim of academic library leaders should be to enhance effective service by embedding librarians in the center of the academic enterprise. That goal should be used to measure the potential impact of programs like the CLIR apprenticeships. The CLIR program could have the long-range, doubtlessly unintended, consequence of hastening the replacement of academic librarians educated in ALA-accredited programs by Ph.D.'s. from other disciplines searching for a continuing campus connection in a very tight job market. Even if it is intended to address a perceived shortage of librarian-specialists, this approach is a remarkably shortsighted and self-abasing development that most disciplines or would-be disciplines would strongly resist. It threatens to create an alternative, even superior, class of librarians who will be superbly positioned by university standards and custom to challenge more conventionally educated colleagues for dominance in the contemporary academic library.

The leastasked question in many problem-solving efforts is, "What next?" In responding, the intellectually honest are encouraged to consider both the pros and the cons of various proposed "solutions" to identified problems. The perception of some academic library leaders that a librarian shortage requires waiving a professional degree—to recruit area studies or similarly specialized university or college personnel—rests on two misconceptions.

First, it embraces the view that all or most ALA-accredited LIS programs are so obsessed with technology and the possible profits to be made from globalized information and knowledge management that they are not interested in meeting the needs of academic libraries. Second, and more problematic, it involves the unproven (and unconscionable) judgment that current academic librarians with only master's degrees somehow lack the intelligence or motivation to earn Ph.D.'s.

As with any academic discipline or would-be discipline, the values and core skills taught in ALA-accredited programs are critically important elements that cannot be fully captured by even the best textbooks or web sites. Values, knowledge, and skills must be tacitly transmitted and conveyed in combination with the important understanding delivered in a well-designed curriculum.

Valuable professional wisdom is often shared in classroom discussions led by faculty with extensive library, information, or knowledge experience. It is also conveyed through the tone of voice and body language of guest presenters from university and college libraries and reinforced via visits to higher education sites and semester-long internships to learn how effective service is provided in the "real world."

Knowledgeable instructors can promote the professional socialization of academic librarians through well-designed curricula that provide the "stories behind the stories," what those experiences mean in the larger world. The equation is simple—both degrees and experience are necessary for a thriving discipline that educates for a variety of professions.

The CLIR method of bringing Ph.D.'s into academic librarianship mirrors, on a smaller scale, the better-known approach taken by faculty members to achieve the goal of senior university administrative positions. Future university presidents and provosts typically have Ph.D.'s in English, history, psychology, or any subject taught and researched in their department or school. Once equipped with the Ph.D., ambitious academics do not begin their climb up the academic administrative ladder by earning additional degrees in a relevant area such as higher education administration. Instead, they follow a long-established, escalating apprenticeship system that involves on-the-job training and requires demonstrating success in positions of increasing responsibility, from chair to dean to provost to president.

Their own experience makes university administrators inclined to minimize the disciplinary boundaries seen as so vital by faculty in the colleges, schools, and departments. When academic librarians emulate this high-level administrative disregard for disciplinary distinctions within their own subdiscipline, they may fill more positions but at a significant price. Librarians without formal library degrees present the rest of the university or college community with powerful human symbols; they demonstrate by their very employment that librarianship is simply a field. It looks like a field that requires a Ph.D., almost any Ph.D., not relevant education. As long as the Ph.D. is accompanied by a general interest in information and an acquirable expertise in using information tools, it will be accepted as an appropriate credential. It enhances our claim to being a profession when we encourage librarians to earn relevant Ph.D.'s or advise Ph.D.'s to go through a program of library and information studies. It weakens our profession when we open it to Ph.D.'s without established library credentials.

If the lack of librarian subject specialists with Ph.D.'s is a problem, it can be addressed, in part, by encouraging current academic librarians to earn interdisciplinary Ph.D.'s in areas of value to the library. This would be a better approach than to baptize the holders of Ph.D.'s as librarians through apprenticeships. In this interdisciplinary world, doctoral education in a single area with a narrowly focused dissertation is likely to be far less useful to service as a subject specialist than an education designed to facilitate the crossing of subject boundaries. The interdisciplinary Ph.D., similar to those offered by Ohio University (OU) and the University of Cincinnati, is a suitable vehicle for this approach.

Michael Mumper, associate provost for graduate studies at OU notes that the university's Individual Interdisciplinary Program (IIP) offered both a master's degree and a Ph.D. Mumper says the IIP program Ph.D. would be particularly suitable for librarians wanting to develop their expertise in such cross-disciplinary fields as the literatures of the humanities, sciences, and social sciences. According to him, a doctoral student's individualized advisory committee, which would include faculty representatives from all the student's areas of emphasis, would find it feasible to supervise a dissertation on such cross-boundary literature topics.The interdisciplinary nature of this flexible type of degree should reassure those mature librarians concerned about long-forgotten or never-learned foreign languages. The research competencies required for students in an interdisciplinary Ph.D. program are usually not fixed in advance. They are negotiated and adjusted to provide the most assistance in advancing a student's own research interests. For example, statistics or computer languages may prove a better fit for a particular interdisciplinary degree than foreign languages.

Existing ALA-accredited programs often accommodate students who already hold a Ph.D. with shortened programs of study. That may help reduce shortages of academic librarians in critical areas. Such program adjustments do not address more fundamental concerns voiced by academic library leaders—the perceived lack of appropriateness of the current courses offered by many ALA-accredited programs. Programs relevant to academic libraries exist at Dominican University, IL, and other institutions. Certain "normal" rules of the academic prestige hierarchy are largely suspended in academic librarian employment. One example is the preference to hire only those whose degrees were from universities of equal or greater reputation. There are simply too few ALA-accredited programs. Students tend to ignore rankings, usually opting to earn a degree at the institution closest to home, often through part-time study. Because of these realities, graduates of ALA-accredited programs in mid-sized or smaller institutions are regularly employed in even the most elite university libraries.

This unique educational reality means that funding sources for holders of the Ph.D. to study at ALA-accredited master's programs should not be limited to nationally known research universities. That would allow these candidates for the LIS master's to "program shop" for potential educational partners on the basis of a program's commitment to the education of academic librarians, not its perceived prestige. Several years ago Dominican's Graduate School of Library and Information Science created a cohort program for students without professional degrees working in downstate Illinois institutions, including academic libraries. The program was designed to help meet the educational needs of members of the Alliance Library System after similar requests for assistance were turned down by the state's land-grant university. Such a cohort approach could offer students courses relevant to the academic library in an agreed-upon sequence. Of course, neither fast track nor cohort approaches will guarantee academic library relevance in ALA-accredited programs if they continue to move toward curricula dominated by informatics.

There are historical and contemporary precedents for building LIS programs with an academic library sensibility. In the early history of library education, the head of the university library also directed many accredited programs. This model can serve as both inspiration and justification for more contemporary efforts.

Academic librarians have been gaining experience as electronic and "real" classroom teachers. On a number of campuses, librarians are teaching courses for credit in the areas of information analysis and use. If the library itself lacks enough Ph.D.'s to support accreditation, dual appointments of faculty can be made with other campus units. Such dual appointments and the close cooperation they symbolize are far from unknown and are often prized by senior administrators. Recently Chancellor Sharon Brehm of Indiana University (IU), Bloomington, spurred discussion of a possible merger into the School of Informatics of her university's Department of Computer Science and the School of Library and Information Science (SLIS). Although a majority of the Indiana SLIS faculty eventually voted against studies that might lead to such a merger,it was a distinct possibility. According to Javed Mostafa, associate dean of SLIS, quoted in the Indiana Daily Student (10/1/03), this was partly because "SLIS has courses shared with both informatics and computer science. Faculty members in SLIS have joint appointments with both departments, and there is overlapping research cooperation with the three schools."

Although many academic librarians might see a possible IU merger of a school of library and information science into a school of informatics as a setback to education relevant to their needs, the reporting about a possible union produced information on dual appointments that would be a useful template for academic library planners. It would be blatant discrimination for ALA not to accredit an otherwise qualified program on the grounds that it has a distinct academic library sensibility when it supports an Indiana program that tilts so strongly in the direction of informatics and computer collaborations.

Finally, it is likely that there will be support for new efforts to add specific academic library education to new LIS programs. Some may be administered by university libraries.

In an Internet-facilitated world, the existence of one or more such schools should ensure the development and dissemination of courses to students earning full online degrees or simply adding academic library courses to the degree from their local program. A systematized effort by academic librarianship to set up master's degree programs within the overall ALA system of accreditation would contribute to guaranteeing a supply of graduates with university and college-relevant educations. Equally important, it would minimize the temptation of academic librarians to embrace an apprenticeship system for Ph.D.'s. In the process, this would further distance academic librarianship from the "holy grail" status as a discipline in the eyes of the campus community.