Karen M. Drabenstott
Associate Professor
School of Information
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1092 USA
Voice: (734) 763-3581
Fax: (734) 764-2475
karen.drabenstott@umich.edu
New topic -- "Faculty Status for Librarians: Who Wants, Who Needs It"
Many thanks to Elizabeth Lane Lawley and Jeffrey Lasky for hosting the topic "Post-MLS Education: Options for Bridging the Technology Gap." I am sure our membership appreciated the opportunity to hear about and help shape the thinking of RIT faculty with regard to developing a post-MLS program to assist librarians in honing their technology skills and knowledge. We hope RIT faculty have benefited from the discussion and will be able to apply what they have learned to the development of this program. Thanks for letting CRISTAL-ED be involved in the planning stage of the program.
Let's now turn to the discussion of "Faculty Status for Librarians: Who Wants it, Who Needs it and Why?" Our guest editor is Dr. Rosmarie (Romy) Fouad. Dr. Fouad has been involved in academic instruction for almost twenty years. Prior to becoming an academic librarian, she was employed as an assistant professor of English and Foreign Languages. She has presented professional papers on the subject of pedagogy. She is currently the Coordinator of Library Instruction and Distance Services at the Oboler Library at Idaho State University. A native of Switzerland, Dr. Fouad has recently visited her country to present a paper on interactive teaching at the annual conference of European Academic and Research Libraries, and she is going back to lead a two day workshop in May.
Please welcome Dr. Fouad and let the discussion begin.
Dr. Rosmarie H. Fouad
Coordinator of Library Instruction and Distance Services
Oboler Library
Idaho State University
Box 8089
Pocatello, Idaho 83201
(208) 236-3047
(208) 234-2044
fouarosm@isu.edu
I have intentionally stated the topic of our discussion as a question, because librarians are by no means unified on the issue of whether they want or should partake in the privilege of tenure and faculty status most of their academic colleagues enjoy. The debate has gone on for over thirty years, but is still very relevant today when tenure altogether is questioned by many academic officials.
The discussion of faculty status for librarians usually centers around two aspects: the role of librarians in the educational process of an academic institution and the benefits, privileges, rights and duties attached to the tenure label. Are librarians trying too hard to be like faculty? As a matter of fact, many voices in the professional literature on the issue scold librarians for "wanting to be like them." The question we should ask ourselves is whether librarian's do or don't contribute in their own right to the educational role of the institution and thus deserve faculty and tenure privileges.
Even though the ACRL reaffirmed its endorsement of faculty status for academic librarians in the 1992 ACRL Standards for Faculty Status for College and University Librarians, not all academic institutions follow that model, and those which do, face challenges when determining tenure/promotion criteria within the context of Academia's generally accepted model of promotion/tenure based on teaching, research and service.
In order to instigate our discussion, let me propose some statements, which (I hope) will elicit comments from you. Please note that not all of these statements reflect my position on this issue. Please do not hesitate to post similar statements representing entirely different arguments. I am looking forward to a lively discussion.
I definitely agree that in institutes of higher learning, the librarians are also educators, and that they deserve faculty status. However, faculty status for librarians doesn't mean much if it is offered in lieu of higher salaries.
Also, librarians' faculty status is not taken seriously within the academic community. I don't think it's snobbery about the field of librarianship; I think it's snobbery about the master's degree. Faculty members who have hard-earned Ph.Ds are very eager to preserve the distinction between the two degrees. I can't say I blame them.
I'd rather see academic librarians make more money and get more benefits, than be given faculty status.
Paul B. Wiener
SUNY at Stony Brook Library
pwiener@ccmail.sunysb.edu
Rosmarie H. Fouad wrote in her intro to the current topic of faculty status: "The question we should ask ourselves is whether librarian's do or don't contribute in their own right to the educational role of the institution and thus deserve faculty and tenure privileges."
While this is a valid question, the librarian's role in education by no means implies they should have faculty status. It could be argued that many other support workers in a university -- bursars, counselors, admissions officers -- contribute to the educational process, yet would never think of expecting faculty ranking. The "professionalization" of all workers is an American phenomenon that devalues workers at the highest level and blurs the meaning of expertise.
"Many librarians, for example all those in public service, are involved in some kind of teaching activity. In addition all librarians are involved in the dissemination and organization of information, particularly information that supports the university curriculum. Therefore, librarians contribute in their own right to the educational mission of the university, whether they are directly or indirectly involved in teaching."
My own view is that a librarian should seek or want to be faculty (not faculty "status") for two reasons only: it guarantees job security and it provides sabbatical leave. If these are not honorable reasons, they are at least realistic, and about all that such ranking can guarantee. Faculty "status" means nothing unless a librarian's working conditions, salary and benefits match teaching faculty's and it almost never does. Like everyone else, librarians must earn the respect of others, but their efforts to demand it often have the opposite effect. One can not legislate respect, which is what most arguments for librarian faculty ranking try to do. The problem is greatly exacerbated by the very different responsibilities of academic and public librarians.
"Customer service is the main focus of librarianship. Faculty status is accompanied with responsibilities. Working on their self governance, library faculty are busy with committee work in and outside the library, while support staff provide the services to the patrons."
Sorry, but this is confused. Customer service in NOT the main focus of librarianship. Creating an excellent library is, and that includes all the many tasks that involves: buying and selecting materials, designing a building, wiring a room, cataloguing, providing chairs, organizing programs, scheduling workers, etc. The public-service-above-all argument is what alienates many librarians from one another. We all know much committee work is unwanted busywork, is unproductive and is no excuse for neglecting primary responsibilities.
"Faculty status is needed for librarians to participate in the institution's academic decision making process. It gives librarians parity with other faculty and allows them inclusion in the academic playing field. It also makes cooperation with instructional/research faculty easier."
These arguments are based on fantasy. One's effectiveness in decision-making depends, as always, on politics, intelligence and force of personality, regardless of one's status or even one's job. A powerful building manager could overrule or influence a library director's actions.
"The dilemma for librarians is that their 12-month, 40-hour-per-week appointment does not allow them enough flexibility and autonomy to produce scholarship at the same level as the teaching/research faculty."
This is true. However, if one is "faculty" or professional, one should not punch time cards and is not responsible for 40-hour work weeks. Most unions would back this. A professional is responsible for getting the job done, whether in 32 hours or 52 hours. As for scholarship, in 19 years I have read countless papers by librarians (and written a few) analyzing how libraries work, stating how they should work and why they don't work. Almost never have I read an article that would qualify as true research, which to me means study that uncovers and puts in a new context information that was not available before. This is not because librarians aren't trained or experienced in research methods, but because basically they are not interested in them. It's not why they go into the field. It doesn't make us inferior, just different, and, some would argue, not professionals at the same level as professors.
I fully expect faculty rank or status to disappear from most academic libraries within 10 years, just as tenure for teaching faculty is disappearing. Tenure is being replaced by bottom-line thinking, distance education, the outsourcing of education and library services, the public's resentment of civil servants and teachers, and the generally diminishing need for low- and mid-level professional librarians to accomplish most public service functions. So be it.
Geoffrey W. McKim
School of Library and Information Science
Indiana University
Bloomington
mckimg@indiana.edu
Very interesting topic, librarians, and tenure! I'd like to make just a couple of brief and related statements to add to the thought-provoking list from Dr. Fouad.
Essentially, faculty status is more the result of rhetorical jockeying and lobbying for institutional recognition and privilege of certain kinds of work, rather than a natural or canonical mapping between work/qualifications and recognition/privilege. Very similar debates can be seen in the health-related fields with respect to the relative statuses accorded physicians, nurses, PA's, etc., and where tenure may be replaced by other forms of privilege.
Thoughts/comments?
PB Wiener
PWIENER@ccmail.sunysb.edu
I agree with Mr. McKim's comments, which can be used to either justify or oppose librarians-as-faculty. Incidentally, it is possible to get a "tenured" job without being faculty.
It should also be added vis-a-vis "scholarly research" that a great deal of what is published as such, especially in the non-sciences, by teaching faculty is garbage, pseudo-information,or bloated, ridiculous nonsense and no more should guarantee promotion and tenure than a librarian reading stories to toddlers. Unfortunately, many academic librarians are forced to support this scholarship in their monographic and serials acquisitions, and indeed are subjected to dismissive snorting if they challenge the value of such purchases.
Robert Bauchspies
Export-Import Bank of the United States
robert.bauchspies@exim.gov
While I feel Paul Wiener's comments were mostly right on the mark, I would add that the legacy of the scholar-librarian (and subsequent "right" for tenure) should not be dismissed outright for all the talk of "professionalism" and the discontinuity between professional and academic credentials.
While trends in tenure perhaps are waning (or is it really?) as some have pointed out due to greater institutional changes taking place inside and outside of the academy, it is my humble opinion that it's general retention is still warranted. Professional scholars if you will, not to mention professors still derive notable benefit from the arrangement. For librarians however, unless they have additional academic credentials (i.e., subject expertise) at the doctoral level, I would weigh against tenure. Such a Ph.D. holding librarian then, could expect and receive tenure if there were teaching and research responsibilities involved in a concrete manner which in turn would pass the review (a wearing of two hats if you will). Otherwise I would also concur that tenure for someone simply holding an MLS regardless of how much bibliographic instruction or even subject or collection expertise he or she has, would be misplaced and would serve as still yet another example of the roundabout ways in which the library community has sought greater respect, recognition and financial reward.
Chris Andrews
Graduate Student
Library-Media Specialist Program
Southern Connecticut State University
English Department/Reading Consultant
A.V. Director: New London High School
New London, Connecticut
WoollyWks@aol.com
I fully expect faculty rank or status to disappear from most academic libraries within 10 years, just as tenure for teaching faculty is disappearing. Tenure is being replaced by bottom-line thinking, distance education, the outsourcing of education and library services, the public's resentment of civil servants and teachers, and the generally diminishing need for low- and mid-level professional librarians to accomplish most public service functions. So be it.
I am upset by Paul Wiener's comments. He is most likely correct in thinking that faculty status, and in my case, tenure, will be gone in 10 years (so will I). We need to examine the reasons why these policies were introduced long ago. We are, in this country, privileged to a very good style of life, however, it was built on the back of sweat shops in the "working class," and those of us who have been in the teaching and librarian profession for the last 30 or more years can tell the rest that in some states, we would have qualified for food stamps with our salaries back then, if the law allowed. As an ongoing public teacher and library media specialist candidate, I would suggest two paths available to us individually and as a group. Individually, you and I need to make ourselves indispensable in our place of work. Collectively, we need to make our organization a powerful negotiating force, whether through our legislators, and twisting their arms; through arbitration; and finally through association with unions which have the collective clout librarians have been "avoiding" because of that "dreaded 'U' word. Librarians in the public schools are privileged to have both titles "faculty" and "librarian." Our salaries reflect the risks we took years ago on the picket and strike line.
Wouldn't the public be horrified if we civil servants, teachers, and perhaps ... librarians insisted on tenure, proper "professional salaries," and the right to negotiate and arbitrate salary levels as an organization?
Michael Seadle, Ph.D.
Michigan State University
Editor, Library Hi Tech
Voice: (517) 432-0807
seadle@pilot.msu.edu
I am glad that librarians have faculty status because it reminds us to behave like faculty in taking our research responsibilities seriously. A number of people on this list have doubted whether that research is worthwhile. As an editor I see a very broad range of articles, and none are without flaws. But think how much less we would know about reference models or searching strategies or digital libraries or hundreds of other issues without those flawed efforts.
People who do not write regularly may underestimate how difficult it is to produce serious scholarly work. And those who do not read the scholarly literature regularly may also forget that our understanding of an issue does not proceed from one brilliant insight to another, but as part of a long conversation where each article builds on others. This is true not only for our field, but all others even in the natural sciences where clearer benchmarks for quality exist.
I do not deny that training, work-schedule, and other problems exist in allowing library faculty to do in research. But by doing it we can enhance our profession, and by avoiding it we certainly lose respect among our non-library faculty colleagues.
Ilene Frank
Reference Department
Tampa Campus Library, LIB 122
University of South Florida
Tampa FL 33620
Voice: (813) 974-2483
ifrank@lib.usf.edu
Chris Andrews wrote:
"As an ongoing public teacher and library media specialist candidate, I would suggest two paths available to us individually and as a group. Individually, you and I need to make ourselves indispensable in our place of work. Collectively, we need to make our organization a powerful negotiating force, whether through our legislators, and twisting their arms; through arbitration; and finally through association with unions which have the collective clout librarians have been "avoiding" because of that "dreaded 'U' word. Librarians in the public schools are privileged to have both titles "faculty" and "librarian." Our salaries reflect the risks we took years ago on the picket and strike line."
Let me throw in with Chris on this one -- and maybe change focus slightly. If there is one place that library schools are deficient it's in the area of labor history. I've had graduates of library schools express complete surprise at the concept of unionization in higher education. Since the advent of unionization in Florida, librarians have achieved a sort of quasi-faculty status (i.e., no tenure) This puts us in the salary pool with faculty. Even though this hasn't equalized our salaries with faculty, we're better off than we used to be. We have a written grievance procedure giving us some recourse if administrators behave in an arbitrary and capricious manner. We have access to sex equity grievance procedures. We can aspire to promotion in rank. We can apply for semester-long sabbaticals. We sit on the Faculty Senate and faculty committees. Through this process, we've ensured that librarians have access to university programs such as technology grants for innovative course development. No union? No voice.
Where do YOU want to work? Would you like such options available to you? If so, faculty are your natural allies.
There's no question: It's a time of transition in academia. Tenure is under attack. Many jobs are being done by part-timers. Outsourcing sounds enticing to administrators even when it's proved to be a more expensive option. Distance learning could make itinerant journeymen of us all. This doesn't mean we have to roll over and play dead.
Robert C. Miller
Director of Libraries Emeritus
University of Notre Dame
miller.1@nd.edu
I join this debate after a career of almost 40 years in academic librarianship, during which I have found myself on both sides at various times. In one sense the answer is very situational: faculty status at a small liberal arts or community college is very different from that status at Harvard, Tulane, Wisconsin or Arizona. In some settings, faculty status is fairly liberally granted to various professions, with due recognition to different standards for different professions. In others it is rigorously guarded, with the same strict standards for all. In pursing faculty status, librarians need to ask why: money, power, prestige? These are not inappropriate but faculty status doesn't necessarily bring them, especially prestige. A librarian classed as an assistant professor is viewed no differently by teaching faculty from a librarian classed as a librarian.
I would suggest the following questions as critical to this debate:
I would suggest that academic librarianship should recognize and reward a diversity of talents and interests, and that in many settings faculty status can be a sure way to deny that openness.
Dr. Rosmarie H. Fouad
Coordinator of Library Instruction and Distance Services
Oboler Library
Idaho State University
Box 8089
Pocatello, Idaho 83201
(208) 236-3047
(208) 234-2044
fouarosm@isu.edu
As your discussion leader, I want to thank all participants so far who have contributed to make this discussion about faculty status such a lively discussion. I hope that my comments below will trigger further discussion:
Part of me agrees with Geoffrey McKim's comment that faculty status is "more the result of rhetorical jockeying and lobbying for institutional recognition and privilege of certain kind of work" within academia rather than a "natural or canonical mapping between work/qualifications and recognition/privilege." Especially in relation to tenure status, our non-librarian colleagues in academia engage in tense discussions on what should constitute recognition for tenure, e.g how much teaching, how much service, how much research and what kind of research. Criteria for tenure don't always agree with an institution's mission in terms of the balance between teaching and research for example. I see the tenure question, however, as sort of a subcategory of the question we put to ourselves in this discussion: whether librarians should have faculty status or not. Again I must ask: what is at the core of this question: the lacking research degree for librarians or the nature of a librarian's job?
I agree with the point some of you have made that faculty status for librarians is worth retaining because it renders benefits librarians otherwise might not have, notably job security, salary-equity and sabbatical leave. I sense, however, a sort of uneasiness among some of us that librarians should not share the same status with someone who has earned a research degree. Maybe a terminal degree or extensive subject knowledge, as some of you have suggested, could be a criteria for giving a librarian faculty status with certain responsibilities attached to it, for example publishing. However such designations might create similar discrepancies as exist now at many institutions among non-tenure-track faculty hired to teach only and their tenure track colleagues who reap the benefits of faculty-tenure status. If the lack of a research degree does not qualify librarians for faculty status, what about faculty with masters in other disciplines? Someone mentioned the health professions, but some faculty in the arts have master degrees only.
Many librarians are not directly involved in teaching, but is that reason enough to categorize them under academic administration? Hasn't the library traditionally been an integral part of the true existence of a learning institution: that of learning through research and study for the advancement of knowledge? Administrative offices such as admissions, registration, financial services, etc. are designated as support services to the main function of a learning institution. Does the library fit this category in the same way?
Finally, a word regarding scholarship. My personal view is that libraries have a specific function in the intellectual inquiry process, and librarians may be viewed as facilitators in that process. As participants in this intellectual process, we librarians have a certain obligation to engage in scholarship. Librarians contribution to a substantial body of literature within the field should not be dismissed as irrelevant. Granted, not everything published is of high quality, but that can be said for other disciplines as well. Let me pose the following question: is it too idealistic to suggest that library literature can exist in its own right as a body of scholarship, that its existence relates to the sustainment and advancement of librarianship as discipline rather than its prestige and parity to other fields?
Angelynn King
U-Redlands
liaking@jasper.uor.edu
I think the comparison of tenure and unionization is flawed. You do not have to charm the pants off of everyone in sight for seven years to join a union. University faculty already have a union, the AAUP -- the tenure system is more like a fraternity, with its own brand of hazing.
Robert Bauchspies
Export-Import Bank of the United States
robert.bauchspies@exim.gov
Greetings:
It suppose it inevitable that a discussion of tenure for librarians (again) would elicit comments pertaining to unions, doctoral-level LIS, and the publishing habits of librarians, not to mention where teaching and educator roles fall into the mix.
Extracting these individually, I offer the following observations and comments.
The union/tenure comments mentioned recently are not mutually exclusive entities in terms of some of the objectives motivating each. Least of these regards pay equity within academic institutions and some measure of job security as well as what appears by some to be the continuing lack of recognition to what librarians contribute to an academic environment. I frankly disagree with their having no analogy or relationship. It might serve the professional librarian community well to consider what leverage might be gained on negative issues plaguing librarians that a genuine academic [or multi-institutional] union might have. Envisioning a strike by librarians would clearly grab headlines and subsequent attention by those affected by such a move. My own personal take on this however centers around the individual effort and what each of us can do to enhance ourselves within our institutions to the collective benefit. No always easy given the established order. A union additionally would split librarians between those who wanted [and perhaps needed] the leverage and those whose loyalties are prioritized to their institutions. University librarians could be at odds with their subordinates for example. And as Tina Hovekamp (Hovekamp, Tina. "Unionization and Job Satisfaction among Professional Library Employees in Academic Research Institution" College & Research Libraries vol. 56, no. 4, 1995) points out in her survey, "union culture" has negative connotations with librarians. More exploration is needed here.
Secondly, the current tenure discussion has again put the spotlight on LIS doctoral studies. An evolving curriculum no doubt and one which is plagued with it's own history and predominantly qualitative mode of research which, to the academy in general has still found the need for questioning what "science" there is in library science. On the other hand the qualitative and quantitative debate is but a continuing dialogue/debate within the academy and the social sciences in general have made for some general acceptances by their academic cohorts toward the legitimacy for qualitative research. It is but a positivistic entrenchment which chides library research in its qualitative theories and methods. And with all due respect to Dr Dervin who I have had the pleasure of meeting, "sense making" is fuzzy, but so too is logic. As a doctoral student in residence at a Swedish university for over a year no too long ago, I spent much effort examining this debate and those which hover over the LIS academic and the professional [and terminal] degree for librarians and found both warranted criticism of LIS doctoral programs by some and as well as an emerging synthesis under "Information studies" rubrics respectively incorporating a qualitative and quantitative curriculum balance as well as bridges between library 'science' and information science [interesting history to this split as well as what gets the respective nod from the academy, ASIS, Journal of Documentation, etc.]
A good read on this is:
Sandstrom, A.R. and Pamela Sandstrom. "The Use and Misuse of Anthropological Methods in Library and Information Science Research" Library Quarterly v. 65, no. 2, 1995.
Lastly, the tenure discussion has also brought back to the foreground issues related to what librarians publish in light the publishing prerequisites for tenure. There has been ongoing discussion of this issue as well which has more facets to it than the blanket criticism that we hear (Mr Weil's comments, for example). I would only add than many journals published in the LIS arena serve functions which are not always directly tied to the refereed respectability which would weigh in tenure granting. Librarians seeking tenure then, should be mindful of what publications they present which would fulfill such a requirement so as to avoid either the embarrassment or criticism toward those items which are seen as report-oriented or editorial (read not "scholarly"). Gaby Haddow, writing for LIBRES, in her "The Nature of Journals of Librarianship: A Review" presents us with a current review of LIS publications and the salient issues regarding their presence in the academy. It is available full text via the BUBL server (or here via FTP, if that link has expired).
And finally, with regard to the teaching responsibilities of practicing librarians, it must be emphasized that this is often in the form of bibliographic instruction and skill enhancements toward the intelligent use and discernment of information. Providing content is a distinction from elaborating on content, a job best suited to those with subject expertise or more aptly with regard to this discussion, those with professorial rank.
Dr. Rosmarie H. Fouad
Coordinator of Library Instruction and Distance Services
Oboler Library
Idaho State University
Box 8089
Pocatello, Idaho 83201
(208) 236-3047
(208) 234-2044
fouarosm@isu.edu
Faculty Status:
I want to thank everybody who has contributed to the discussion regrading faculty status for librarians. I think it was lively and invigorating. In my attempt to summarize some of the major points raised, I hope to bring some closure, not to the issue itself, but to our discussion here. Let me suggest hesitantly that the closest we have come to a consensus is in the suggestion that faculty status is a good thing for librarians, but not necessarily required to perform their duties in an efficient way. Furthermore, faculty status comes with certain responsibilities and librarians who have faculty status should respect those responsibilities. Here are some more specific issues that were addressed in the discussion:
Advantage of Faculty Status:
Librarians have a reason to aspire to obtain faculty status, not necessarily for gaining recognition in academia, but certainly for the other privileges attached to the label, such as job security and sabbatical leave. In addition, as Michael Seadle and others indicated, faulty status is a good thing because it forces librarians to become involved more in scholarly activities and to take their research responsibilities more seriously.
The Publishing Issue:
I think opinions were split here in regard to the quality of the scholarship librarians produce. I think that Mr. Bauchspies raised a relevant point when noting that much of the research in librarianship is report oriented and editorial. Others commented on the need to produce scholarly research in order to uphold the label of faculty status, even though the argument can be made that much of the research done in other academic fields does not live up to scholarly research as Paul Wiener defined it. Based on our discussion here, I think it would be fair to say, that many of us feel that librarians should take research more serious in order to claim faculty status, and some probably would add to this that the issue of a terminal degree beyond the MA figures into the discussion of research and publication.
Alternatives to Faculty Status for Librarians:
I do not see a consensus among those who contributed to the discussion in regard to future longevity of faculty status or at least tenure, even though most of us in academia, in and outside librarianship, have a genuine sense of larger institutional changes taking place now and in the time to come. The issue of unionization for librarians certainly elicited the strongest opposing views in this discussion, almost to the point, I think, that it could warrant a separate discussion.
In closing let me refer to Geoffrey McKim's two illustrations of how the professional activities in academia, in and outside librarianship, do not always correspond with the criteria attached to faculty/tenure status as an "index to the educational/research process." I think that based on these discrepancies, the discussion about tenure retention and faculty status will be ongoing. I urge you all to remain participants in that discussion. Thank you again.
You may join the discussion and look over the list of past and future topics.
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