Art Libraries Society of North America 31st Annual Conference Wyndham Baltimore Inner Harbor

Art Libraries Society of North America 31^st Annual Conference
Wyndham Baltimore Inner Harbor, Baltimore, Maryland - March 20-26, 2003

Session 21

In Pursuit of Parity: Librarians, Academe & Faculty Status

Moderators:

Paul Glassman, New York School of Interior Design
Ruth Wallach, University of Southern California

Speakers:

Charles B. Lowry, Ph.D., Dean of Libraries and Professor, College of Information Studies, University of Maryland, College Park, The Benefits of Faculty Status for Academic Librarians.

Virginia Massey-Burzio, Head, Resources Services Department, Milton S. Eisenhower Library, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, A New Paradigm for the Academic Professional.

Recorder:
Claire Gunning, Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art

Charles Lowry began by outlining the history of the debate over faculty status for librarians. He noted that the first university with faculty status was either the University of Montana in 1902 or Columbia University in 1911. The most important point in the history was the Joint Statement on Faculty Status of College and University Librarians put out by ACRL and AAUP in 1972. There are two pieces to the debate; one is the granting of any rank and two, whether that rank is faculty or academic status, the difference being levels of privileges and perquisites. Dr. Lowry moved quickly away from the definitions of the ranks by stating that at many research institutions there are teaching faculty as well as research faculty, with there not being a substantial difference between the two.

Dr. Lowry pointed out that librarianship should be considered a discipline as well as a profession. He claimed that the case that librarians are not faculty is based on two arguments – that there is a better alternative and an avoiding of the challenges of being faculty. Tackling the argument for an alternative first, he says that different academic disciplines teach and research differently. There isn’t one way to evaluate scholarly contributions. Librarians play a pivotal role in the primary missions of the university – teaching and research – and to separate librarians with an alternative to “faculty” is to separate them from those missions. To support this idea, he quoted at length from the Joint Statement. (http://www.ala.org/Content/NavigationMenu/ACRL/Standards_and_Guidelines/Joint_Statement_on_Faculty_Status_of_College_and_University_Librarians.htm). He also stated that the Joint Statement held up well considering the changes to technology and networked information.

Dr. Lowry pointed out one of the problems on this side of the debate as being that the profession hasn’t been thought of as professional because of its identification as a female occupation, and that although this has been changing, key groups (especially the ACRL) have accepted the academic status as an alternative to faculty status. Another problem is identifying library service as commensurate with teaching and the reluctance of librarians to conduct research on the discipline. The fact that we are not classroom teachers does not preclude us from calling our work “teaching.” But it is the challenge of doing research that is the largest concern. As most academicians are taught over time about research during the Ph.D. process – time that does not exist during an M.L.S. program – then perhaps there needs to be some understanding that research needs to be socialized into the librarian, with assistance in getting rolling on their research agenda. Dr. Lowry ends with the idea that although librarians’ personal research may have an impact on the research done on the campus, there is an overall positive impact on the quality of the teaching done by the librarians. We should think less about the benefits to the individual librarian of having faculty status and more about the benefits to the institution.

Virginia Massey-Burzio, the head of the Resource Services Department at the Eisenhower Library at Johns Hopkins, presented the counterpoint to Dr. Lowry. She began by admitting that she always found the concept of faculty status for librarians bewildering, and thinking that librarians could have parity confusing. She stated that an M.L.S. or a Ph.D. in library science is not comparable to a Ph.D. in an academic discipline, either in honor, status or training. The Ph.D. in an academic tradition has a deep theoretical basis and the training is competitive and extensive. In fact, achieving tenure at Johns Hopkins takes an average of 11 years and requires an extensive publication record and a real name in the field (e.g., inventing something, creating a school of thought or a new theory). Library Science is a practice, not a discipline. In fact, Ms. Massey-Burzio finds that librarians with subject Ph.D.s have lost touch with the public service aspects of the job.

A number of claims are made about faculty status. There is increased job security; this might be true after you receive tenure but not prior. There are better salaries; there is not statistically significant effect on salaries, according to a study by Richard Meyer. Librarians can participate in committee work and faculty senates; this is no benefit, as most faculty members dislike the committee work. There is an increase in respect; respect is earned, not claimed, and many faculty members may be unaware of the faculty status of the librarians. There are also a certain number of difficulties that stand in the way of parity with faculty. The scheduling is much different, as most faculty members are only on campus during class time and office hours. Library instruction is not really on a par with academic teaching, where a greater breadth and depth of knowledge is necessary. The time spent dealing with the governance of tenure and promotion, as well as release time and sabbaticals, is quite costly in both time and money. It’s also important to note that the major research institutions in the United States don’t have faculty status for their librarians (e.g., Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, MIT, Johns Hopkins).

Ms. Massey-Burzio asks what it is that librarians think they will really acquire from faculty status. Is it thought to compensate for a lack of self-esteem? Or is it that librarians are invisible, so that no one can really tell what it is that they do? She says that the practice of invisibility has damaged the profession. Because people can’t see what is different about librarians, they don’t know how valuable the librarian can be in support of teaching and research. Instead of struggling to get faculty status, we should change the way that we as a profession engages with academia, and that by gaining recognition and appreciation, we won’t need the faculty status.

Ms. Massey-Burzio went on to discuss the Brandeis model of reference service that she created in the early 1990s. By setting up a one-on-one interaction in an office-like setting, the user is more aware of speaking with a competent professional and more appreciative of the lack of interruptions that typically occur at a traditional reference desk. At the same time as these reference interviews are going on, the directional and information questions are being answered on the front line. In the book Linguistics and the Professions, reference service is likened to a retail encounter, without privacy and with the possibility of being interrupted at any moment. Johns Hopkins uses an even different model, having librarians assigned to departments. Whereas there are not departmental libraries, the librarians have office hours and a presence in the departments. They have the opportunity to become familiar to faculty and students. Each department then gets more individualized, rather than standardized, service.

Ms. Massey-Burzio concluded with the idea that increasing the visibility of the librarians ultimately increases the respect of the faculty. When this happens, librarians are viewed as valued partners in teaching process who directly help scholars do their work better, attributes that faculty status cannot provide. She finds that at Johns Hopkins, the librarians have essentially the same benefits (although parking is less good) and are treated as professionals. What more could be needed?