The Public Librarian 9780231896733

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The Public Librarian

A REPORT OF THE PUBLIC LIBRARY INQUIRY OF T H E SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH COUNCIL

A REPORT

OF

THE

PUBLIC

LIBRARY

INQUIRY

The Public Librarian By Alice I. Bryan W I T H A SECTION ON T H E EDUCATION OF LIBRARIANS B Y ROBERT D. LEIGH

I 9 3 2 COLUMBIA

UNIVERSITY

PRESS

NEW

YORK

THE

RESEARCH

FUNDS

UPON

GRANTED

BY

WHICH

THIS

CARNEGIE

STUDY

IS

CORPORATION

BASED OF

WAS

NEW

SCIENCE RESEARCH COUNCIL FOR THE PUBLIC LIBRARY

MADE

YORK

TO

POSSIBLE THE

BY

SOCIAL

INQUIRY. THE CARNEGIE

CORPORATION IS NOT, HOWEVER, THE AUTHOR, O W N E R , PUBLISHER, OR PROPRIETOR OF THIS PUBLICATION, AND IS NOT TO BE UNDERSTOOD AS APPROVINO BY VIRTUE OF ITS GRANT ANY OF THE STATEMENTS MADE OR VIEWS EXPRESSED THEREIN.

COPYRIGHT, 1 9 5 2 , COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS, N E W PUBLISHED IN GREAT BRITAIN, CANADA, AND INDIA BY GEOFFREY CUMBERLEGE, OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON, TORONTO, AND BOMBAY MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

YORK

THE PUBLIC INQUIRY

LIBRARY

T H E A M E R I C A N L I B R A R Y ASSOCIATION proposed to the Social Science Research Council, in 1946, that the Council "conduct a thorough and comprehensive study of the American free public library." The proposal further defined the nature of the study as "an appraisal in sociological, cultural and human terms . . . of the extent to which the libraries are achieving their objectives" and of the library's "potential and actual contribution to American society." The Council approved the project and submitted to the Carnegie Corporation a proposal for a two-and-a-quarteryear study, to terminate in a general, final report in June, 1949. The inquiry was designed to use, insofar as possible in the study of the public library, such techniques and experience as social scientists have accumulated for the analysis of other social institutions. The Carnegie Corporation appropriated a total of $200,000 for support of the study. The Council selected a director to be responsible for the conduct of the Inquiry and for the preparation of a final, general report, and to serve as editor of such reports on special aspects of the study as he recommends for separate publication. A committee was appointed for the Inquiry to serve in an advisory, deliberative, and consultative capacity, under the chairmanship of the director. The Committee has reviewed and criticized the general report and the other Inquiry reports recommended for publication. The interpretations, judgments, and conclusions contained in them, however, are made solely on the authors' responsibility.

COMMITTEE INQUIRY ROBERT D .

FOR

MARY U .

LEIGH

ROTHROCK

Library Consultant, Tennessee Valley Authority

Chairman and Director RALPH

THE

BEALS

Director, The New York Public Library

RICHARD H .

SHRYOCK

Professor of History, The Johns Hopkins University

J . FREDERIC D E W H U R S T

Economist, Twentieth Century Fund DONALD

MARQUIS

Chairman, Department of Psychology, University of Michigan

MALCOLM Μ .

WILLEY

Vice-President, University of Minnesota

S T A F F OF T H E P U B L I C LIBRARY INQUIRY Finance: CHARLES M. ARMSTRONC, Associate Statistician, New York State Department of Education. Use: BERNARD BERELSON, Dean, Graduate Library School, University of Chicago; assisted by Lester Asheim. SURVEY RESEARCH C E N T E R ,

and Charles Metzner.

University of Michigan, Rensis Likert, Director,

Personnel: A L I C E I . B R Y A N , Assistant Professor of Library Service, Columbia University; assisted by Lucy M. Crissey and Phyllis Osteen. Government: lege. C. DEWITT

political science faculty, Bennington Col-

OLIVER

GARCEAU,

HARDY,

formerly instructor in history and government. Uni-

versity of Maine. LILLIAN ORDEN,

formerly with the U.S. Bureau of the Budget.

Foreign and International Development: Committee on Foreign Relations.

RICHARD H .

HEINDEL,

U.S. Senate

Mass Media:

JOSEPH T . K L A P P E R ,

Bureau of Applied Social Research.

Music Materials: O T T O L U E N I N G , Professor of Music, Columbia University; assisted bv H. R. Shawhan and Eloise Moore. Government Publications: J A M E S L. M C C A M Y , Professor of Political Science, University of Wisconsin; assisted by Julia Β. McCamy. Book Publishing: Library Processes: & Company.

WILLIAM

GLORIA W A I . D R O N ,

Administrative

writer and historian.

W A T S O N O ' D . PIERCE,

Special Projects: H E L E N Freedom of the Press. Films:

MILLER,

R.

ROBERTS,

formerly Vice President, Nejelski

formerly with the Commission on

Twentieth Century Fund; assisted by Cecile Starr.

Assistant: Lois

A.

MURKLAND.

F O R E W O R D

of any social institution necessarily includes a study of the people who operate that institution. T h e study of the public librarian, reported here, thus constitutes a major part of the Public Library Inquiry. An added reason for special attention to public library personnel is to be found in the circumstances under which the proposal for the Inquiry was made: that is, a severe postwar shortage of qualified library workers accompanied by unfilled places for students in the training centers for professional librarians. These personnel difficulties could readily be ascribed to the inflationary rise of prices without equivalent increase in salaries for library workers. But to the public library leaders who suggested the Inquiry, the inflation seemed to accentuate rather than to account fully for inadequate library salaries and shortages of qualified librarians. T h e y proposed, therefore, a general appraisal of the American public library as an operating institution, of which the study of personnel would be a part. COMPREHENSIVE

ANALYSIS

T h e findings of Dr. Bryan's survey of present public library personnel and of library personnel organization and administration, together with the other Inquiry studies, seem to justify the broader approach to the problem. Public library salaries were found to be low compared with those of other occupations of similar skill and formal training and compared with the minimum standards established by the professional library association itself. Furthermore, very few compensating rewards in the form of retirement provisions, vacation and study leave, short hours of work, and so forth were discovered. But seen against the whole background of public library organization and support the task of increasing salaries and

χ

FOREWORD

other emoluments is neither simple nor easy. A general horizontal increase of salary, if it were possible, would be, as the Inquiry studies show, grossly wasteful. T o begin with, it would mean paying more money to untrained "librarians" in isolated "one-man" units constituting two thirds of the nation's public libraries. W i t h i n the really professional group itself it would spread increases across the board, whereas what seems most desirable for recruiting and morale is the discriminating increase of salaries, especially in the "middle administrative" group, so as to develop a rational, graded salary scale in direct relation to experience and competence. Most of all, the studies show that there is need both in the system of library school education and in the classification of library positions for a sharper demarcation of the professional tasks so that a clearly professional group with definite training standards and commensurate salary minimums can be established. T h e Bryan studies suggest further that in the organization and supervision of nonprofessional as well as professional personnel, public library management has yet to incorporate fully what is now known about the use of other than pecuniary incentives among workers. As Dr. Bryan indicates, inadequate salaries remain the number one public library personnel problem. It is one to be dealt with as part of the whole complex of arrangements involved in building satisfactory careers in the public library field, careers that will enable libraries to compete successfully f o r those young people in schools and colleges who are equipped b y ability, character, and personality to perform the public library's tasks and to retain them in library work for a lifetime of rewarding service. Dr. Bryan's study, indeed, suggests that some of the difficulties of salary and recruitment run deep into the social economy and habits. Like teaching and nursing, librarianship has been and still is carried on largely by women. T h e dearth

FOREWORD

XI

of job opportunities of equal dignity and opportunity for able women in other occupations in the past undoubtedly accounted in part for the maintenance of relatively low library salary levels, which nevertheless retained good quality of personnel. The opening up of more and more professional and commercial positions to women, and the decline in the mores of especial respectability and prestige attached to the professions formerly reserved to them, may now be reducing the supply of female entrants to librarianship at the prevailing low salaries. More than formerly, men are entering the library field. But partly because of the tradition of male leadership in administrative posts and also because of men's greater average of personal financial responsibilities, they are moving into the top library positions out of all proportion to their numerical position in the profession. This situation reduces the attractiveness of the library career for women. Thus, the shift from a woman's calling to a coeducational profession involves tensions that are not quickly or easily solved. The solution that would sustain the recruitment of qualified men and at the same time retain the inflow of able, ambitious women would seem to be to establish a clearly defined professional group with formal educational qualifications that can command a higher salary level and of maintaining lines of promotion to the top on the basis of competence and experience irrespective of sex. Dr. Bryan's study is centered on drawing a picture of current library personnel and personnel practice. But the author brings to the interpretation of the data that she has assembled the background of a trained psychologist with experience in carrying on a similar study of her own professional group and with more than a decade of direct contact, as a member of the Faculty of the School of Library Service of Columbia University, with librarians in training and in the field. The section on the education of librarians was designed and its method determined by Dr. Bryan. Its execution, however,

xii

FOREWORD

was undertaken b y the director o f the Inquiry because o f his professional experience in the field of higher education and especially because it was felt that evaluation o f the program of educating librarians would properly reflect the findings from all t h e studies making up the Inquiry- In other words, any j u d g m e n t about the education of public librarians depends on j u d g m e n t s as t o what public libraries are doing and the direction in w h i c h t h e y are moving. T h e volume as a w h o l e is c o m m e n d e d to the attention o f librarians, library school officers, and professional

workers

g e n e r a l l y in the fields o f vocational counseling and of personnel organization and management. ROBF.RT

New York April, 1951

D.

LEIGH

CONTENTS Part One: I.

THE

Introduction

PERSONNEL

PROBLEM

3

Library Objectives and Library Personnel, 4; Specifications for Librarians, 6; The Spécifications and the Inquiry Findings, 11 2.

PLAN

OF

THE

STUDY

Π

Part T w o : T h e Professional Librarian PERSONAL

CHARACTERISTICS

27

Professional versus Subprofessional, 28; Sex Distribution, 29; A g e Distribution, 31; Parental Background, 34; Marriage, 35; Children and Dependents, 38; Personality, 39; Domestic Activities, 44; Amount and T y p e of Personal Recreation, 45; Reading, Radio, and Motion Pictures, 47; Travel, 49; Civic and Political Activities, 50; Wartime Activity, 52; Summary, 53 4.

EDUCATIONAL

STATUS

56

Academic and Preprofessional Education, 57; Professional and Graduate Academic Education, 60; Library Training without Academic Credit, 64; Future Training Plans, 65; Librarians' Opinions of Their Academic Training, 66; Librarians' Opinions of Their Professional Training, 67; Summary, 7$ 5.

ECONOMIC

STATUS

79

Library Salaries, 80; Promotions and Salary Increases, 89; N o n library Income, 93; Personal Savings, 94; Insurance Coverage, 96; Retirement and Pensions, 98; Librarians' Attitudes toward Their Economic Status, 104; Summary, 1 1 2 6.

THE

LIBRARY

CAREER

Development of Interest in Librarianship, 116; Career Preferences other than Librarianship, 120; Vocational Interests of Librarians, 120; Disadvantages of Preferred Careers, 127; Pres-

lió

XIV

CONTENTS ent Attitudes toward Librarianship, 129; Membership and Administrative Work in Library Associations, 135; Attendance at Meetings of Professional Associations, 137; Payment of Dues, 138; Attitudes toward Associations, 139; Professional Reading, 141; Personal Research and Writing, 143; Best and Worst Features of the Public Library Today, 143; Preferred T y p e of Library, 146; Summary, 146

Part Three: Personnel Administration 7.

PERSONNEL

MANAGEMENT

IN

PUBLIC

LI-

BRARIES

151

Definition of Personnel Functions, 153; The Pattern of Personnel Administration, 156; The Personnel Office, Department, or Division, 1J9; Civil Service and the Public Library, 167; Civil Service Regulation of Library Personnel, 170; Administrators' Attitudes toward Civil Service Control, 173; Employees' Attitudes toward Civil Service, 176; Summary, 180 8. E M P L O Y E E

SELECTION

AND

ASSIGNMENT

183

Securing Employees, 184; Gathering Data on Applicants, 187; Selecting Employees, 187; Employment of Handicapped Persons, 189; Discrimination in Selection of Employees, 190; Hiring Procedures, 192; Tenure Arrangements, 193; Assigning Employees, 195; Distribution of Employees, 197; Employee Turnover, 198; Summary, 201 9. E M P L O Y E E AND

CLASSIFICATION,

REGULATION,

PROMOTION

Position Classification Schemes, 204; Establishment and Revision of Classification Schemes, 207; Categories of Positions, 208; The Subprofessional Dilemma, 210; Classification by Job Analysis, 212; Salary Scales, 213; Salary Scales and Career Lines, 216; Attendance Régulations, 217; Absenteeism, 222; Standards for Satisfactory Job Performance, 223; Provision and Use of Measuring Tools, 224; Application of Evaluation Results, 225; Promotion Procedures, 225; Policy on Qualifications for Promotion, 227; Practices with Regard to Promotion, 229; Appointment Policy for Top Positions, 232; Training for Promotion, 232; Summary, 233

203

XV

CONTENTS

IO. I N - S E R V I C E

TRAINING

AND

INTRAMURAL

COMMUNICATION

235

Induction Training, 236; Planning for Induction Training, 241; Training for the Specific Position, 242; Training for Maintenance of Efficiency, 244; Retraining for Adoption of New Processes, 245; Training for New Responsibilities, 246; Machinery for Administering In-service Training, 247; Communication between Administration and Staff, 248; Personal Contacts between Personnel Administrators and Staff Members, 249; Publications, 252; Suggestions from the Staff, 253; Consultations or Negotiations with Staff Organizations, 255; Summary, 255 II.

EMPLOYEE

WELFARE

AND

MORALE

258

Physical Working Conditions, 259; Health Services, 261; General Welfare Provisions, 261 ; Employment Compensations Other Than Salary and Promotion, 262; Staff Associations, 264; Library Labor Unions, 271-, Opinions of Librarians on Staff Morale, 275; Opinions of Administrators on Personnel Problems and Needs, 276; Summary, 277

12. EVALUATION

OF

PERSONNEL

PRACTICES

279

Background Preparation for Research and Planning, 280; Appraising Relationships of the Personnel Office, 284; Conducting Staff Opinion Polls, 285; Watching Legislation Affecting Librarians' Status, 286; Keeping up with Developments in the Field of Personnel Administration, 287; Preparing and Administering Records and Reports, 288; Summary, 295

Part Four: The Education of Librarians 13. EVOLUTION

OF L I B R A R Y

SCHOOLS

Apprenticeship and Training Classes, 301; Dewey to Williamson, 302 i The Williamson Report, 306; Accreditation and Academic Affiliation, 310; New Problems, 313; School Training for School Librarians, 315; New Library Specialties, 321; New Patterns, 324

299

XVI

CONTENTS

14. T H E

EDUCATIONAL

PROGRAMS

329

The Types of School Program, 330; The Subjects of Study, 336; Clinici] Facilities, 345; Workshops, Institutes, and Conferences, 347; Research, 349; Major Trends, 350 15. THE

STUDENTS

355

Number of Students, 355; Distribution of Library School Enrollments, 359; Geographical Distribution and Costs, 364; Men and Women Students, 366; Admission Requirements, 368; Summary, 381 16. T H E

FACULTY

AND

INSTRUCTIONAL

RE-

SOURCES

384

Number, Sex, Age, and Student-Faculty Ratios, 386; Educational Background, 392; Professional Experience, 399; Academic Rank, 403; Salaries, 407; Expenditures per Student, 413; Budgetary Resources, 416; Tenure, 418; Retirement, 419; Sabbatical and Travel Funds, 420; Membership in Professional Associations, 421; Publication and Rèsearch, 422; Summary, 424

Part Five: Conclusions 17. S U M M A R Y

AND

CONCLUSIONS

429

The Present Public Library Personnel, 431; Objectives and Actualities, 443-, A Suggested Program, 445 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

453

INDEX

455

FIGURES EDUCATIONAL STATUS OF PROFESSIONAL BRARIANS, MEDIAN

BY

LI-

AGE

MAXIMAL

COMPENSATION

FROM

L I B R A R Y W O R K R E C E I V E D BY L I B R A R I A N S I N ANY

ONE

PERIODS

YEAR

DURING

SUCCESSIVE

AGE

TABLES 1. D I S T R I B U T I O N O F P U B L I C L I B R A R I E S I N T H E INQUIRY SAMPLE,

BY POPULATION SERVED

2 . D I S T R I B U T I O N AND R E T U R N O F

15

PERSONNEL

Q U E S T I O N N A I R E S I N P L I B A S I C S A M P L E AND ADDITIONAL S A M P L E , BY

POPULATION-SIZE

GROUP

17

3. T I T L E 4 . AGE

OF

OF

5 . AGE

LIBRARY

POSITION,

LIBRARIANS,

BY SEX

OF

TYPE

PROFESSIONAL

OF

POSITION

BY

SEX

30 31

LIBRARIANS,

BY

HELD

33

6 . M E D I A N R A W S C O R E S AND M E D I A N C - S C O R E S OF

PROFESSIONAL

LIBRARIANS

ON

GAMIN

FACTORS

41

7. RECREATIONAL 8. M E D I A N SPENT

NUMBER

BY

PAPERS,

ACTIVITIES OF

LIBRARIANS LISTENING

OF L I B R A R I A N S PER

WEEK

IN R E A D I N G

HOURS

NEWS-

TO

THE

RADIO,

V I E W I N G M O T I O N P I C T U R E S FOR ENJOYMENT

ISSUES

(SPRING,

49 CURRENT

1948)

51

10. P E R C E N T A G E OF L I B R A R I A N S HOLDING DERGRADUATE 11. P E R C E N T A G E IANS BY

HOLDING

AGE

AND

PERSONAL

OR I N F O R M A T I O N

9. L I B R A R I A N S ' A T T I T U D E S T O W A R D

DIPLOMA OF

46

UN-

OR D E G R E E

PROFESSIONAL

UNDERGRADUATE

58

LIBRARDEGREES, 59

XX

TABLES

12. L I B R A R I A N S '

EVALUATION

FESSIONAL 13.

LIBRARIANS' PHASIS

OF

THEIR

PRO67

TRAINING CRITICISM

IN

THEIR

OF

SUBJECT

PROFESSIONAL

EM-

TRAIN-

ING

70

1 4 . R A T I N G S OF A D M I N I S T R A T O R S LIBRARIES

ON

GRADUATES

RECENT

IN

THEIR

SALARIES

16.

MEDIAN

BY 17.

FOR

OF

1947,

18. SALARIES FOR 19.

OF

81 I947, 82

GROUP LIBRARIANS

84

AGE PROFESSIONAL

BY

74

1947

FOR

PROFESSIONAL

BY

1947,

SCHOOL

S A L A R I E S FOR

POPULATION-SIZE

SALARIES

INQUIRY

EMPLOY

15. L I B R A R I A N S ' LIBRARIANS'

OF

LIBRARY

TYPE

OF

LIBRARIANS

POSITION

HELD

88

P E R C E N T A G E OF R E S P O N D I N G L I B R A R I E S I N C O M P L E T E INQUIRY SAMPLE IN W H I C H GENERAL,

NONMERIT

SCHEDULES

WERE

1945-1948, 20. M E A N

BY

MADE

MERIT DURING

COMPLETE

IN

SALARY

DURING

YEARS

POPULATION-SIZE

GROUP

PERCENTAGES

CEIVING TIONS

INCREASES

OF

LIBRARIANS

INCREASES 1947

INQUIRY

IN

AND BY

RE-

PROMO-

LIBRARIES

SAMPLE,

IN

POPULA93

TION-SIZE GROUP 21. L I B R A R I A N S '

PERSONAL

S A V I N G S FOR

22. T Y P E S OF I N S U R A N C E C A R R I E D BY IANS AND ADEQUACY

9I

OF COVERAGE

I 947

95

LIBRAR96

xxi

TABLES 23. T Y P E S OF P E N S I O N S IN FORCE IN IN C O M P L E T E

LIBRARIES

I N Q U I R Y S A M P L E , BY

POPU99

LATION-SIZE GROUP 24. L I B R A R I A N S '

OPINIONS

OF

ADEQUACY

T H E I R P E N S I O N S , BY T Y P E O F

OF

RETIREMENT

PLAN

IOO

25. L I B R A R I A N S ' THEIR

EXPECTATIONS

TOTAL

RETIREMENT

REGARDING INCOMES

ΙΟΙ

26. L I B R A R I A N S ' A T T I T U D E S T O W A R D C O V E R A G E OF

PUBLIC

LIBRARIANS

SOCIAL SECURITY 27. LIBRARIANS'

BY

THE

FEDERAL

ACT

I02

ATTITUDES

TOWARD

RETIRE-

MENT

IO3

28. L I B R A R I A N S ' SALARIES,

ATTITUDES

BY T Y P E

29. L I B R A R I A N S ' MENT

OF

ATTITUDES MALE

TOWARD

OF POSITION

THEIR

HELD

TOWARD

VERSUS

I06

TREAT-

FEMALE

EM-

PLOYEES

IIO

30. L I B R A R I A N S ' OF T H E I R LIBRARY

OPINIONS REGARDING

SEX

UPON

CAREERS,

THEIR BY

EFFECT

PROFESSIONAL

TYPE

OF

POSITION

HELD

III

3 1 . AGE AT W H I C H

LIBRARIANSHIP

WAS

CONSIDERED AND WAS D E F I N I T E L Y

FIRST

CHOSEN

AS A L I F E C A R E E R 32. RANK

OF

LIBRARIANSHIP

I 17 AS

CHOICE AT E N D OF LAST YEAR OF BY T Y P E

OF POSITION H E L D

A

CAREER COLLEGE, I 19

xxii

TABLES

33. M E D I A N

RATINGS

MADE

BY

1,423

PROFES-

SIONAL W O M E N L I B R A R I A N S ON T H E

STRONG

VOCATIONAL

WOMEN

(FORM

INTEREST

BLANK

FOR

W)

123

34. M E D I A N R A T I N G S M A D E B Y F I F T Y - F O U R

PRO-

F E S S IO N A L M E N L I B R A R I A N S O N T H E S T R O N G VOCATIONAL 35. E X T E N T

INTEREST

TO

WHICH

BLANK

LIBRARY

FOR

MEN

CAREER

I25

HAS

FULFILLED LIBRARIANS' EXPECTATIONS,

BY

T Y P E OF P O S I T I O N H E L D 36.

PERCENTAGE CHOOSE WORK

OF

132

LIBRARIANS

LIBRARIANSHIP

IF

CAREERS

THEY

HAD

TO P L A N

WHO

AS

THEIR

AGAIN,

WOULD

THEIR

LIFE

PROFESSIONAL

BY T Y P E

OF

PO-

SITION HELD 37. A T T I T U D E S TOWARD BY 38.

134

OF

PROFESSIONAL

CURRENT

AMERICAN

PERCENTAGE

LIBRARY OF

LIBRARIANS

PROPOSALS

SUPPORTED

ASSOCIATION

LIBRARIANS

141

FINDING

BRARY ( A N D O T H E R ) JOURNALS VERY

LI-

HELP-

F U L P R O F E S S I O N A L L Y , BY J O U R N A L S 39. D I S T R I B U T I O N

OF

THE

I42

FIFTY-EIGHT

RE-

SPONDING LIBRARIES IN THE C O M P L E T E QUIRY

SAMPLE,

40. Q U A L I F I C A T I O N S

BY

POPULATION

CONSIDERED

FOR P E R S O N N E L A D M I N I S T R A T I O N

IN-

SERVED

I53

ESSENTIAL STAFF

T H E SEVEN I N Q U I R Y LIBRARIES H A V I N G

IN

PER-

SONNEL OFFICES

163

4 1 . A T T I T U D E S O F A D M I N I S T R A T O R S OF I N Q U I R Y L I B R A R I E S T O W A R D S P E C I F I C C O N D I T I O N S OF CIVIL

SERVICE E M P L O Y M E N T

I 75

TABLES 42.

PRESENT

AND PAST

CIVIL

SERVICE

STATUS

OF L I B R A R I A N S IN C O M P L E T E I N Q U I R Y

SAM-

PLE 4 3 . A T T I T U D E S OF L I B R A R I A N S IN C O M P L E T E I N QUIRY S A M P L E TOWARD CIVIL SERVICE

EM-

PLOYMENT 44. ATTITUDES INQUIRY

OF

LIBRARIANS

SAMPLE

TOWARD

DITIONS OF C I V I L S E R V I C E 45.

FACTORS

CONSIDERED

IN

COMPLETE

SPECIFIC

CON-

EMPLOYMENT

IMPORTANT

IN

EM-

P L O Y E E S E L E C T I O N B Y A D M I N I S T R A T O R S OF INQUIRY 46.

LIBRARIES

P R O C E D U R E S U S E D IN I N Q U I R Y L I B R A R I E S IN HIRING PROFESSIONAL E M P L O Y E E S , BY POPULATION-SIZE

47.

PROCEDURES IN

HIRING

GROUP USED

IN

SUBPROFESSIONAL

BY POPULATION-SIZE 48.

FACTORS

INQUIRY

OF

EMPLOYEES,

GROUP

CONSIDERED

MINISTRATORS

LIBRARIES

IMPORTANT

INQUIRY

BY

AD-

LIBRARIES

IN

I N I T I A L P L A C E M E N T OF E M P L O Y E E S 49.

M E A N P E R C E N T A G E S OF P R O F E S S I O N A L SUBPROFESSIONAL LOST BY I N Q U I R Y BY POPULATION

50. M E A N

NUMBER

PLOYEE

(IN

ALENT)

LOST

EMPLOYEES

AND

HIRED

LIBRARIES DURING

AND 1947,

SERVED OF

WORK

DAYS

PER

T E R M S OF F U L L - T I M E AND

PAID

FOR

EM-

EQUIV-

BY

INQUIRY

LIBRARIES DURING I 9 4 7 THROUGH

ABSENCE

OF E M P L O Y E E S FOR P E R S O N A L R E A S O N S , POPULATION-SIZE

GROUP

BY

XXIV

TABLES

51. A P P L I C A T I O N IN I N Q U I R Y LIBRARIES OF SULTS OF EVALUATION OF E M P L O Y E E

52.

FORMANCE,

BY P O P U L A T I O N - S I Z E

BASES

SELECTION

FOR

OF

REPER-

GROUP

22Ó

PROMOTIONAL

C A N D I D A T E S IN I N Q U I R Y L I B R A R I E S , BY P O P ULATION-SIZE GROUP 53.

228

FACTORS CONSIDERED IN GRANTING

SALARY

I N C R E A S E S IN I N Q U I R Y L I B R A R I E S , BY

POP230

ULATION-SIZE GROUP 54.

FACTORS CONSIDERED IN GRANTING TIONS

IN I N Q U I R Y

LIBRARIES,

BY

PROMOPOPULA-

TION-SIZE GROUP 55.

SUBJECTS

ON

231

WHICH

CONSULTATIONS

NEGOTIATIONS WITH STAFF WERE

CONDUCTED

DURING

YEARS

BY

INQUIRY

1945-47,

OR

ORGANIZATIONS

BY

LIBRARIES

POPULATION256

SIZE GROUP 56.

P H Y S I C A L W O R K I N G CONDITIONS TO ADEQUATE IN

PERIODIC

INQUIRY

ATTENTION

LIBRARIES,

BY

IS

WHICH GIVEN

POPULATION-

SIZE GROUP 57.

USE

OF

2ÓO

INCENTIVES

T I O N S IN I N Q U I R Y TION-SIZE 58. USE

OF

QUIRY

OTHER

THAN

LIBRARIES,

BY

PROMOPOPULA263

GROUP STABILIZING

LIBRARIES,

BY

MEASURES

IN

IN-

POPULATION-SIZE 265

GROUP 59. L I B R A R I A N S ' SHIP

IN

P R E S E N T AND PAST

LIBRARY

STAFF

MEMBER-

ASSOCIATIONS

266

TABLES

XXV

6θ. T Y P E S

OF

STAFF

LIBRARIANS

ASSOCIATIONS

BELONG

AND

TO

WOULD

WHICH PREFER

TO B E L O N G 61.

268

ACTIVITIES

OF

STAFF

ASSOCIATIONS

O P I N I O N S OF A D M I N I S T R A T O R S OF LIBRARIES

AS T O T H E I R

62. L I B R A R I A N S '

63.

PRESENT

AND

TOWARD

STAFF

PAST

269

DESIRABILITY

ATTITUDES

I T I E S OF L I B R A R Y

AND

INQUIRY

ACTIV-

ASSOCIATIONS

MEMBERSHIP

OF

27O LI-

B R A R I A N S IN LABOR U N I O N S

272

6 4 . A C T I V I T I E S OF L I B R A R Y L A B O R U N I O N S O P I N I O N S OF A D M I N I S T R A T O R S OF LIBRARIES

A S TO T H E I R

65. L I B R A R I A N S ' IZATION

66. L I B R A R I A N S '

OF

LABOR

UNION274

TOWARD

ACTIV-

UNIONS

276

ADMINISTRATORS

OF

IN-

QUIRY L I B R A R I E S WHO K E E P I N F O R M E D

ON

LEGISLATION

BY

AFFECTING

POPULATION-SIZE 68.

TOWARD

273

EMPLOYEES

ATTITUDES

I T I E S OF L I B R A R Y 67. P E R C E N T A G E

DESIRABILITY

ATTITUDES

OF L I B R A R Y

AND

INQUIRY

PERCENTAGE

OF

ADMINISTRATORS WHO THE TION,

LIBRARIANS,

GROUP PERSONNEL OF

UP

WITH

FIELD

OF

PERSONNEL

BRARIES,

BY

OR

LIBRARIES

DEVELOPMENTS

POPULATION-SIZE

69. U S E OF P E R S O N N E L

OFFICERS

INQUIRY

KEEP BY

286

IN

ADMINISTRAGROUP

FORMS IN INQUIRY

POPULATION-SIZE

GROUP

288 LI292

xxvi

TABLES

70. A V E R A G E

NUMBER

USED

INQUIRY

IN

LATION-SIZE 71.

OF

PERSONNEL

LIBRARIES,

IN

POPU-

GROUP

294

D I S T R I B U T I O N OF T O T A L S T U D E N T MENT

FORMS

BY

ACCREDITED

LIBRARY

ENROLLSCHOOLS,

1948-49 72.

360

STUDENT

ENROLLMENT

PROFESSIONAL VERSITIES

HAVING

SCHOOLS, 73.

MEAN

TEN

IN

TYPES

EIGHT

ACCREDITED

LIBRARY

1948-49

NUMBER

362

OF

LIBRARY

SCHOOL

FACMEAN

RATIO

MEM-

MAJOR

OF

STUDENTS

BY

TYPE

TO

FACULTY

OF L I B R A R Y

SUBJECTS

MEMBERS

SCHOOL

A N D F I E L D S OF

HOLDING

ADVANCED

1948-49, 75. T Y P E S

BY

OF

VIOUSLY

T Y P E OF L I B R A R Y

PROFESSIONAL HELD

ACCREDITED OF L I B R A R Y

FACULTY

AMONG

CREDITED LIBRARY

SCHOOL

POSITIONS

FACULTY

LIBRARY

SCHOOLS,

PRE-

MEMBERS

SCHOOLS,

BY

398

IN

TYPE

SCHOOL

76. D I S T R I B U T I O N RANKS

BY

388

ACADEMIC

DEGREES IN ACCREDITED L I B R A R Y

77.

OF

UNI-

U L T Y M E M B E R S AND S T U D E N T S , AND BERS, 74.

IN

SCHOOLS

OF

4OI

FOUR

FACULTY

LIBRARY

MAJOR

ACADEMIC

MEMBERS

SCHOOLS,

BY

OF

TYPE

ACOF

SCHOOL

SALARIES

OF

CREDITED

LIBRARY

4O4

FACULTY

T Y P E OF S C H O O L

MEMBERS

SCHOOLS,

IN

1948-49,

ACBY 409

xxvii

TABLES 78. M E A N

SALARIES

ACCREDITED

OF F A C U L T Y

LIBRARY

MEMBERS

SCHOOLS,

IN

1948-49,

B Y R A N K OR T I T L E 79. F A C U L T Y

SALARIES

PROFESSIONAL

HAVING

SCHOOLS,

1948-49,

TEN IN

TYPES EIGHT

OF UNI-

ACCREDITED

LIBRARY

BY

PROFES-

TYPE

OF

SCHOOL

80. E X P E N D I T U R E TION

IN

SCHOOLS

VERSITIES SIONAL

41O

IN

4II PER S T U D E N T FOR

ACCREDITED

LIBRARY

INSTRUCSCHOOLS,

1948-49 81.

FUNDS

415

AVAILABLE

FOR

RESEARCH

IN

T Y P E S OF P R O F E S S I O N A L S C H O O L S I N UNIVERSITIES BY

TYPE

OF

HAVING

LIBRARY

PROFESSIONAL

TEN

EIGHT

SCHOOLS,

SCHOOL

423

Part One Introduction

I THE PERSONNEL

PROBLEM

library is no exception to the general rule that an institution is as good as its personnel. What public libraries in the United States accomplish from day to day depends largely upon the personal qualities, specialized skills, and working effectiveness of the people who operate them. Libraries, it is true, are buildings; they are collections of books and other materials; they are services; they depend upon policy formulations, appropriations, and governing boards. But the library buildings are planned, the materials selected, the services organized, policies defined, even public support gained or lost by the librarians and their staffs, especially by those persons whose training and expert knowledge qualify them to perform the professional library tasks. The studies reported here as part of the Public Library Inquiry are, therefore, centered on the professional public librarian. Part II of this volume presents a picture of the people now employed as professional and subprofessional workers in a group of libraries of various types and sizes located throughout the United States. Their personal characteristics, family backgrounds, education, interests, attitudes, and motivations are described in some detail. Part III analyzes the career structure and working conditions in the public libraries where the people described in Part II are employed. Position and salary levels, physical working conditions, library practices with respect to selection, promotion, in-service training, and welfare and security provisions, arrangements for communication, voicing of grievances, staff organization, and emT H E PUBLIC

4

THE

PERSONNEL

PROBLEM

ployee participation in the planning and revising of policy are reviewed. Part I V describes the educational machinery and various programs b y which librarians are prepared f o r their professional careers. It includes an analysis of past and present library school students, faculty, and curricula. Together, the three studies provide a description of the professional librarians n o w employed in our public libraries. Attention is focused upon their characteristics, the types of education they receive, and the circumstances and limitations under which their daily tasks are performed. T h e picture thus drawn of the public librarian and of the library career suggests definite strengths and weaknesses when set against the background of what is k n o w n of general occupational characteristics, of scientific personnel administration, and of the standards and practices of professional and graduate education. T h e more specific problem in evaluating the assembled data, a problem that bears directly on the purposes of the Inquiry as a whole, is to determine the extent to which present library personnel, library personnel administration, and education f o r librarianship are adequate f o r the performance of the task that librarians themselves have defined as the function of the public library in our society. W e need, in short, to view the present library personnel in relation to the public library's objectives. LIBRARY OBJECTIVES AND LIBRARY PERSONNEL Fortunately, there exist authoritative recent statements of objectives of the public library in the United States. A s part of the general report of the Inquiry, 1 the three most recent formulations of objectives by the librarians themselves w e r e consolidated into a single statement. This statement was submitted to the sixty 'Robert D. Leigh, The Public Library in the United Columbia University Press, 1950, Chapter 2.

States, N e w York,

THE

PERSONNEL

PROBLEM

5

librarians in the representative sample of public libraries selected by the Inquiry for intensive analysis, also to a group of other prominent public librarians, to some state librarians, and to a few library school directors and faculty members. Each was requested to indicate to what extent the statement embodies the actual working objectives of the public library. The eighty-eight responses indicated widespread acceptance of the stated objectives as the desired ends of public library activity. Five sixths of those responding endorsed them without reserve. Only two public librarians explicitly rejected the official objectives, preferring the simpler goal of making books available to people. A small minority disagreed with some of the means stated in the document for reaching the goals desired. Heads of smaller public libraries, although recognizing that they have neither the funds nor the personnel to achieve the official objectives, nevertheless endorsed them as sound and good. The Inquiry, therefore, has accepted the summarized statement of official objectives as a definition of what the great majority of public librarians conceive to be their function. Briefly, the objectives are: ( ι ) to assemble, preserve, and administer books and related educational materials in organized collections in order to promote, through guidance and stimulation, an enlightened citizenship and enriched personal lives; (2) to serve the community as a general center of reliable information; (3) to provide opportunity and encouragement for children, young people, men, and women to educate themselves continuously. With goals such as these, it is obvious that the professional public library staff should include persons of many and varied talents. To paraphrase the prescriptions for library personnel adequate to achieve the objectives as they appear in two of the documents from which the consolidated statement of ob-

6

THE

PERSONNEL

PROBLEM

jectives was derived ( T h e National Plan and Post- War Standards) : 1) The librarian should be comparable in intellectual caliber, education, and personal qualifications with other social and educational leaders. This means that he must (Λ) have had a well-balanced academic education, (b) have graduated from a library school, and (c) have general ability to collect, organize, and interpret all materials required for the program of service adopted by the library. 2) He should be qualified, both in understanding and in personality, to integrate the library with other community activities. This means that he must (a) have imagination, vision, initiative, fearlessness, self-confidence, and an outgiving personality, (b) have an understanding of people and sympathy with the individual's needs and abilities, and (c) have read widely in professional and general literature and participated in the activities of local and other library organizations. 3 ) He should have not only a broad intellectual equipment but also specialized knowledge in chosen fields. This means that his interests must be wide, but that he also should seek expertness in one or more subjects. This description is very general; actually it is a counsel of perfection that no professional librarian would be expected to do more than approximate. But it is possible to extract from it some specific criteria for assessing the adequacy of the present professional personnel. It is not possible to deduce from it or from the statement of official objectives an inventory of essential traits, skills, and training such as might be derived from an objective job analysis. Indeed, it is questionable whether for our purposes a specific description of work now performed could be helpful. 2 SPECIFICATIONS

FOR L I B R A R I A N S

Ά comprehensive list of activities and duties ordinarily performed in all types of libraries has recently been prepared by the Subcommittee on

THE

PERSONNEL

PROBLEM

7

Librarians have accepted for themselves the task of providing a variety of services to meet needs of an educational and informational nature that are bound to vary with time and place. Flexibility and adaptability would seem to be among the primary characteristics of public library leadership. A n obvious conclusion to be drawn from the statement of official objectives is that there is no such thing as a standard specification for a public librarian. N o one person can have all the characteristics and qualifications necessary to carry out so many-sided a program. Yet, it is important to identify some of the qualities and skills that public librarians as a professional group should possess. T h e one qualification which seems to be the common denominator of all library positions may best be described as that possessed b y the educated person. T h e breadth of knowledge and understanding of society and man that is the goal of general liberal arts education would seem to be the common requisite f o r nearly all types of library work. Beyond that, the characteristics needed depend upon the particular functions the individual librarian is called upon to perform. T o achieve their objectives in measurable degree, public libraries must be sizable units, with a complex of processes and services. This means that some librarians should be competent administrators, trained in the leadership and management of large institutions and in the skilled direction of a numerous staff. Because the public library is a governmental unit, the administrator also must be something of a politician, knowing in the ways not only of public appropriations but also of group pressures behind them. 3 He should have the personal Analysis of Library Duties of the A L A Board on Personnel Administration. A preliminary draft of this report was published in mimeographed form in 1948 by the American Library Association under the title Descriptive List of Professional and Nonprofessional Duties in Libraries. "This point is made in more detail in the repon for the Inquiry entitled The Public Library in the Political Process, by Oliver Garceau, N e w York, Columbia University Press, 1949; especially pp. 53-151.

8

THE

PERSONNEL

PROBLEM

qualities needed to get the most effective co-operation from his board and community leaders as well as from his colleagues in the profession. The work of the bibliographical expert in a special area of knowledge clearly differs from that of the library administrator. In large libraries subject specialists distributed over the major fields from art through science are indispensable. All public libraries, as they work toward their announced objectives, will need some specialists of this type if they are to perform their essential educational function. They are the builders of the library's collections of books and other materials; from the vast outpourings of the printing presses they must select with expert knowledge and judgment materials to be purchased for use by present-day readers and those to be preserved for posterity. Their qualifications will be the product both of a natural bent and a prolonged period of specialized training. General reference librarians also play an important role in public libraries. N o t necessarily specialists in any one field of knowledge, they need a broad background of acquaintance with many disciplines and with reference tools of many types, for theirs is a mediating function between the scholar and the general public. T h e y are asked questions about everything from cabbages to kings. T h e seekers come from all walks of life. Reference librarians must be very patient, responsive, and adroit in discovering just what information the inquirers want* They must possess skill and resourcefulness in locating reliable sources speedily and in helping readers find the type of material best suited for their individual research purposes and to their levels of comprehension and knowledge. T h e reference librarian must know and like both people and books. As an institution that organizes and distributes materials, the library also needs specialists in the technical processes in-

THE

PERSONNEL

PROBLEM

9

volved in these operations. It must have experts in ordering, classifying and cataloguing, in the care of rare books and manuscripts, the storage and handling of recordings, the operation and repair of motion picture projectors and film. Needed, also, are innovators in library technology, inventors of time- and labor-saving systems and machinery, and experts in the general analysis and co-ordination of the technical processes.4 Though apparently quite remote from the book except as an object to be handled efficiently, the technical experts are guided in much of their work by the varied needs of the reading public and by the function of the library as an educational institution. The educational function of the public library is emphasized by librarians in their statement of objectives, yet it is the one most disconcerting to anyone interested in implementing it directly in terms of personnel specifications. As teacher the librarian has no specific curriculum to follow, no student body of definite age group sharing common interests or needs, and no standards by which to measure accomplishment. The prospective learners may include all educable members of the community, and the subject matter all human knowledge, art, and wisdom. Such a broad enterprise must be limited and specialization has taken place. Some librarians have become experts in children's or young people's reading interests and literature; others have concentrated on slow readers and have devoted themselves to acquiring and distributing a literature for them; some have developed skill in helping the foreign born to learn the language and the customs of their new social environment by using appropriate reading materials. These are specific activities calling for specific training and qualifications. As we move from the specific to the general, it becomes *See Watson O'D. Pierce, Work Measurement m Public Libraries, New York, Social Science Research Council, 1949·

IO

THE

PERSONNEL

PROBLEM

more difficult to know what kind of staff can best provide personal guidance to readers, stimulate public interest in crucial issues, lead discussion groups, and promote enlightened citizenship. A combination of special abilities, knowledge, and skill in applied psychology, public speaking, and public relations, as well as a broad background in social science, would seem called for, but not easy to find. Public libraries can, perhaps, hope to have upon their staffs at least some persons with special training and interest in social problems, a sound knowledge of the resources of the library in fields stressed by the objectives, and the personality needed for relating the library to adult groups of various kinds. If the foregoing analysis is valid, it is clear that the profession of the librarian is elastic and many-faceted. It requires personnel with a maximum of general knowledge and also with special techniques and personal qualities. Theoretically the librarian who alone is the whole staff of his institution should have all the qualifications we have mentioned, yet his salary is usually lower than that of the more specialized worker in large libraries. Obviously the small, one-person institution is inherently unable to achieve the objectives that public libraries have set for themselves. Clearly, the general capacity of the profession to perform its acknowledged function can be measured primarily by the education of its members. In this context "education" is defined broadly to include liberal and professional studies, inservice training, as well as academic courses, and the selfeducation which is a lifelong activity of any person devoted to his profession and absorbed in the cultural life of his community. W e can identify at least five patterns of skill, personality, and ability needed for some, but not all, library tasks: the administrator and executive leader, the subjectmatter specialist, the general reference worker, the technical expert, and the specialist in educational services offered by the

THE

PERSONNEL

PROBLEM

library. Probably there are other types, not so numerous or so easy to isolate and identify. Against these specifications for adequate modern public librarianship we can assess the findings of our studies with regard to the present public library personnel. It is apparent from the comprehensive character of the announced objectives, as well as from the comments of librarians regarding them, that they represent a long-range ideal rather than a currently realizable goal. As the following pages reveal, present public library personnel, present management of library personnel, and present education of library personnel fall short of the specifications set by the objectives. These deficiencies create the public library's personnel problem. Either present inadequacies must be accepted as obstacles to be overcome, or the official objectives must be modified to match the present resources and limitations of library personnel. Otherwise the objectives will lose their function of providing a sense of direction to professional library activity. Instead, they are likely to lead to feelings of inadequacy and inferiority, a sense of failure and guilt, and to result in frustration or apathy. The studies of the Inquiry have indicated that the objectives defined by the librarians not only are more widely accepted by the profession than any alternative set of objectives but also are directly aligned with the public library's historic sense of purpose, that they mark out a socially valuable function not performed currently by any other social institution. The objectives, then, define the areas where thought and effort must be concentrated in recruiting, in education, in setting standards of appointment, and in organizing the various elements of reward, working environment, and working relationships to create the motivations and satisfactions that yield the best performance. THE SPECIFICATIONS AND THE INQUIRY FINDINGS

THE

PERSONNEL

PROBLEM

The Inquiry can offer no rules of thumb by which the inadequacies of personnel revealed in the following pages can be eliminated. The studies, however, may help to clarify the personnel problem by presenting reliable information about the present personnel, its management, and its training. The volume as a whole will, we hope, provide a body of data upon which constructive policy can be based. It is intended to reveal the librarians to themselves.

2 P L A N OF T H E

STUDY

of practical library administration the characteristics of present public library personnel, personnel administration as currently practiced in public libraries, and education of personnel for public libraries are closely interrelated. In the final chapter of this volume, where the findings of the three studies are brought together in summary and conclusion, these interrelations are emphasized. But for purposes of systematic presentation the three major areas of inquiry are separately treated in Parts II, III, and I V , respectively. A second reason for separate treatment is to keep clear the variations in procedure used in gathering data for the three studies. F R O M T H E STANDPOINT

For the study both of characteristics of librarians and of library personnel administration relevant data on present personnel and practices in a representative sample of public libraries were needed. Available for our purposes was a sample of sixty public libraries used by the Inquiry for several of its projects as a means of obtaining a reasonably representative picture of selected library activities. These sixty libraries were chosen, not to provide a numerically accurate cross-section of the 7,408 public libraries in the United States, but to exemplify various types of library service available to a variety of population-size groups, in various geographical locations, in order to provide a comprehensive and representative range of library structure and experience. B y studying these libraries from several points of view, through visits, interviews, and

14

PLAN

OF

THE

STUDY

questionnaires, the Inquiry could cross-check and validate its data. Although the sample was adapted to fit the needs of each study, the sixty libraries furnished the general basis for all Inquiry projects employing the sampling method. T h e y were selected in two groups. One group, called the basic sample, was composed of forty-seven libraries in forty-three population areas selected by the Survey Research Center of the University of Michigan for a national survey of public library use made for the Public Library Inquiry. 1 T h e areas constituted a p o p u l a t i o n c r o s s - s e c t i o n , representative o f t h e c o u n -

try as a whole, chosen to yield a statistically reliable description of library use, nonuse, and attitudes regarding library services. T h e group of libraries in these areas consisted of thirty-nine city, town, and village libraries, four of which served the adjoining county also, and eight county libraries, four serving counties containing independent city libraries and four giving the only library service available. T h e second group of libraries, called the additional sample, consisted of eleven city, town, and village libraries and two county libraries. T h e y were selected according to the pooled ratings of three library experts for their superiority either in development of extended services or general level of service to the public. T h e Inquiry sample, which is the common ground for all Inquiry projects, consists, therefore, of sixty libraries, sufficiently varied in size, location, and services to provide a comprehensive source for social science data.2 T h e number of Ά report, entitled Public Use of the Library, presenting the methods and results of this survey has been published in mimeographed form by the Survev Research Center, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1950.

T o r a more detailed description of the sample and a list of the libraries and population areas studied, see the Appendix of the general report of the imjuirv: I.eigli. The l'ril>lic l.ibrary in the United States.

PLAN

OF

THE

STUDY

I5

libraries in each of the f o u r major population-size groups and in the county library group is given in Table 1. TABLE 1 DISTRIBUTION OF P U B L I C L I B R A R I E S IN THE INQUIRY S A M P L E BY POPULATION S E R V E D NUMBER OF POPULATIONSIZE

GROUP

I. More than 500,000 (metropolitan libraries) II. 100,000-499,999 (large libraries) III. 10,000-99,999 (medium-size libraries) IV. 2,500-9,999 (small libraries) V. County libraries (varying sizes) Total

Basic

LIBRARIES

Additional

Complete

Sample

Sample

Sample

8

1

9

8

5

13

14

5

19

9

0

9

8 47

_2

10 60

13

Libraries entirely supported by counties and not connected witlvmunicipal libraries.

Personal visits were made b y the author to forty-three of the sixty libraries in the sample, including all libraries in cities of 50,000 and larger. During these visits meetings, previously arranged, were held to acquaint staff members with the purpose of the personnel study and to enlist their participation in filling out a fifty-two-page personnel questionnaire, a personality inventory, 3 and a vocational interest blank. 4 In the large library systems, where it was not feasible f o r the investigator to talk with all members of the staff, meetings were held 3

The Guilford-Martin Inventory of Factors GAMIN Beverly Hills, California, Sheridan Supply Co.

4

(abridged edition),

Vocational Interest Blank for Women (revised), and Vocational Interest Blank for Men, by Edward K . Strong, Jr., Stanford University, California, Stanford University Press.

ιό

PLAN

OF

THE

STUDY

with the heads of departments, divisions, and branches, w h o later called their staffs together f o r discussion and distribution of the questionnaires. Arrangements f o r distributing questionnaires to personnel in the small, unvisited libraries in the sample w e r e made through members of the Inquiry staff w h o visited these libraries on other projects, or b y correspondence. T h r o u g h the generous co-operation of the library directors and their assistants, every member of their professional and subprofessional staffs received a large manila envelope containing the three forms and a covering letter of directions and w a s permitted to use l i b r a r y time f o r

filling

out the forms.

T h e questionnaires were returned to the Inquiry anonymously, in the manila envelopes, sealed b y the respondents. T a b l e 2 shows the number of men and women in the basic and in the additional sample to whom the three questionnaire forms were distributed and the number and percentage of returns. Of the 3,706 librarians to w h o m questionnaires w e r e given, 3 , 1 0 7 , or 84 percent, contributed usable information. T h e women proved more co-operative than the men. Although the percentage of returns is v e r y satisfactory, as compared with questionnaire studies in general, the reader is asked to remember that 15 percent of the women and 31 percent of the men w h o are employed on the professional and subprofessional staffs of the Inquiry libraries are not represented in the findings of this study. A comparison was made of the number of librarians in the various population-size groups of the Inquiry sample and the number of professional and subprofessional personnel employed b y public libraries of corresponding size in the United States as a whole. Data on which this comparison was based were collected f o r the y e a r 1944-45 b y the United States Office of Education f r o m a national sample that included approximately 81 percent of the public libraries in the United States. T h e Inquiry's respondents represent 66 percent of the

PLAN

OF

THE

STUDY

17

TABLE 2 DISTRIBUTION AND RETURN OF P E R S O N N E L QUESTIONNAIRES IN P L I BASIC SAMPLE AND ADDITIONAL SAMPLE BY P O P U L A T I O N - S I Z E GROUP PROFESSIONAL AND SUBPROFESSIONAL P E R S O N N E L QUES-

BASIC

TION· NAIRES

Men No. %

Distributed Group I 273 Group II 21 Group III 3 Group IV . . Group V 1 Total Nonusable Returns Incomplete Too J ate Total

No.

%

ADDITIONAL Total

No.

Men %

SAMPLE

Women

No. %

No.

%

Total No. %

17 14 2

341 314 64

358 328 66

1

36

37

2,158 313 99 13 36

2,431 334 102 13 37

298

2,619

2,917

34

755

789

2 1

29 15

31 16

1

3 1

4 1

3

44

47

1

4

5

Usable Returns Group I 182 67 Group II 14 67 Group III 3 100 Group IV . . Group V . .

..

Total

SAMPLE

Women

199

1,767 301 91 11 26

82 96 92 85 70

67 2,196 84

1,949 315 94 11 26

..

..

80 94 92 85 70

2,395 82

15 88 11 79 2 100

295 87 302 96 54 84

..

310 87 313 95 56 85

. . .. . . . . , · .. 1 100 32 _89 33 89

29

85

683 90

712 90

"Groups I to V r e p r e s e n t s i z e s of population served, a s d e s c r i b e d in Table 1.

professional and 53 percent of the subprofessional personnel employed in libraries in the cities of 500,000 and more population included in the Office of Education sample. As size of population diminishes, the percentages of personnel in the

18

PLAN

OF

THE

STUDY

Inquiry sample as compared with the other sample grow smaller. O u r sample, therefore, is considerably more representative .of personnel in libraries serving populations of ioo,ooo and more than of personnel in libraries serving less than 100,000. For libraries in communities smaller than 10,000, the Inquiry sample, from a numerical standpoint, affords merely a token representation. A s was indicated in the previous chapter, however, the present study was centered on the professional librarian, not on all persons working in public libraries. T h e proportionately smaller representation of libraries serving populations under 10,000 leaves unsampled many library employees, but not many of the librarians on full-time status with professional training w h o were the objects of study.* T h i s weighting of the sample in favor of librarians in the larger libraries should, nevertheless, be kept in mind in interpreting the findings of the study of present public library personnel. A comparison of the number of questionnaires distributed and returned in the Inquiry basic sample and in the additional sample revealed a considerably higher overall return from librarians in the additional sample (85 percent f o r men and 90 percent for w o m e n ) . Further comparisons of librarians in the additional sample with those in the basic sample brought to light other differences that favor the former group. T h e y are, on the whole, better trained professionally; they do less clerical w o r k ; their salaries are somewhat higher; a larger percentage of them hold membership in the American Library Association, in regional library associations, in state library 'In a study entitled Economic Status of Library Personnel, 1949, Chicago, American Library Association, 19J0, prepared by Lily Mary David of the United States Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics, the sample used was purposely weighted in favor of the larger libraries. It is explained (page 30) that "because of the concentration of employment in larger libraries, all of these (except for one or two who decided not to participate in the study) were included in the survey whereas only 1 out of j smaller libraries was studied."

PLAN

OF

THE

STUDY

I9

associations, and in local library associations. These differences were to be expected, in as much as libraries in the basic sample were selected at random, while those in the additional sample were selected because they were known to be superior. In presenting the findings on library personnel characteristics, therefore, our analyses unless otherwise stated will be based only on data obtained from employees of the forty-seven libraries in the basic sample, on the assumption that the librarians in this group are more representative of the profession as a whole. In interpreting the findings on characteristics of public librarians, we found ourselves limited by the lack of comparable, detailed inventories of the characteristics of other professional groups. Some comparisons have been made by us between librarians and the general population. But sufficient data are not yet available to set the profile of the professional librarian alongside comparable profiles of other white-collar occupations requiring equivalent educational preparation." In gathering material for the survey of personnel administration policies and practices reported in Part III, the same group of sixty libraries was studied. Detailed data were obtained from fifty-eight of these libraries. Because in this part of our study we were interested in examining patterns of personnel organization and operation in the full range of available 'In the study cited above (footnote 5) of the economic status of library personnel, specific comparisons are made (page 28) between professional librarians and workers in two other occupations. These deal, however, only with the average salary and number of years of schooling of professional librarians in all types of libraries as compared with hospital dietitians and professional nurses. George J. Stigler, in his study Employment and Compensation in Education, New York, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc., Occasional Paper 33, 1950, reports data on ages, education, and salaries of teachers in elementary and secondary schools and in colleges and universities, as well as similar data on other professional groups. But no picture is given of the personal characteristics, attitudes, and interests of any of these groups with which we could compare our profile of the public librarian.

20

PLAN

OF

THE

STUDY

institutions, our analyses are based on the information obtained from libraries in both the basic and the additional parts of the Inquiry sample. The chief tool used for gathering data was a fifty-six-page questionnaire which was filled out by the library directors. Additional information and impressions were gathered by the investigator by observation of working conditions in the main buildings and branches, especially arrangements for staff comfort and welfare, and by informal interviews, conferences, and meetings with various members of the staff. The librarians were most hospitable and co-operative in providing opportunity to observe not only their libraries but also their communities. Luncheons, dinners, and special meetings were arranged to which librarians from neighboring institutions of various types were invited. Valuable background material on all sixty libraries in the sample was also available in the form of detailed reports written by other members of the Inquiry staff who had visited them. All data obtained from the individual personnel questionnaires were punched on IBM cards. Returns from the personnel administration questionnaires were tabulated by hand. Statistical breakdowns were designed to yield what seemed to be the most significant analyses possible within the budgetary limits of the study. Because the number of libraries in the five population-size groups in the Inquiry sample varies from group to group, percentages rather than numbers of responses have been given in the tables which present comparative data for these groups. The reader is thus afforded a quick, convenient means for comparing one group of libraries with another or with the sample as a whole. It is recognized, of course, that the number of libraries in each group is so small that the percentages may be misleading unless the reader keeps in mind the number of cases on which they are based. In all of these tables, therefore,

PLAN

OF

THE

STUDY

21

the number of libraries in each group appears in parentheses after the group designation. Furthermore, in textual discussions of data presented in the tables, the number of libraries in each group is referred to with sufficient frequency to make it unnecessary for the reader to turn back to the table for this information. In several tables presenting comparative data on these libraries arranged according to other differentia (for example, libraries under civil service as compared with libraries not under civil service) the same practice has been followed. Obviously, the validity of any comparisons made among groups of libraries in the Inquiry sample are subject to the limitations of the sample itself. Because of these limitations, findings relating to group differences among libraries may best be interpreted as indicating trends or suggesting patterns of policy and practice in personnel administration. Percentages have also been used in the tables which present data on the librarians employed by the Inquiry libraries. In all such tables, the number of cases on which the percentages are based likewise appears in parentheses after the group designation. All of the groups composed of women librarians, with the exception of those limited to employees of libraries in Groups IV and V, contain sufficiently large numbers of persons to insure meaningful comparisons. This is true, also, for most of the groups composed of male librarians. Material for the survey of library education presented in Part IV was obtained mainly from a questionnaire sent to the directors of the thirty-four accredited library schools in the United States and from another questionnaire sent to each of the faculty members who give instruction in the accredited schools. All the school directors filled out and returned the blanks, although a few were not able to furnish some of the information requested. All the teachers in the library schools (except one member of a university English department giv-

22

PLAN

OF

THE

STUDY

ing a single course in one of the library schools) responded to the questionnaire. Because of this remarkable co-operation, we are able to make a report based on data from all, rather than from a sample, of the accredited library schools in the United States. A third set of questionnaires concerning professional school faculty salaries, rank, school budgets, and so forth, designed to yield data for comparison with library schools, was sent to the presidents or chief administrators of nine universities in each of which there is not only one of the accredited library schools but also several other professional schools. These questionnaires were filled out and returned by or for each of the designated professional schools in eight of the universities. (Because of their extremely high costs and selectivity in admissions, the returns from the medical schools were not useful for comparison with library schools and are not included in our report of results.) Much of the information given was confidential; the names of the eight co-operating institutions, therefore, are not given in our report of findings. Five are state universities; three are endowed universities; all are large institutions whose library schools and other professional schools rate well above the average for the professional schools of the country as a whole. A fourth source of quantitative data on library education was the questionnaires filled out by librarians and administrators of the sixty libraries in the Inquiry sample, which contained questions designed to reveal attitudes toward undergraduate and professional library education. Use was made also of the library school catalogues, all of which were analyzed for admission and graduation requirements and content of curriculum. In addition to reviewing the library literature in this field, detailed examination for comparative purposes was made of the major studies and surveys by Johnson, Williamson, Munn, Wilson, Reece, Metcalf, Dan-

PLAN

OF

THE

STUDY

23

ton, and Wheeler. Unpublished studies of the early years of the library school at Columbia University were made available to the author. These systematic surveys of library school operations and literature were supplemented by visits to some, not all, of the library schools, by interviews with library school heads and faculty members, and in some cases by group discussions with school faculties and students.

Pan Two The Professional Librarian

3 PERSONAL

CHARACTERISTICS

LIBRARIANSHIP is a service occupation. Day by day, as they serve the public within the library walls or in the community, librarians meet and talk with people of varying ages, nationalities, levels of education, vocations, opinions, and interests. Some librarians, especially in the larger libraries, work behind the scenes in processing departments or administrative offices with few opportunities for personal contacts with library patrons, but to the community at large they, too, represent the library and help to mold opinion toward it. The current stereotype of the public librarian as presented in novels, plays, and on the screen is certainly not so glamorous as is the popular conception of other professional groups, such as doctors and nurses, artists, poets and composers, scientists, explorers, and detectives. Librarians are usually pictured as inhibited old maids, zealously guarding their precious books against mutilation, loss, and over-long use, while sternly enforcing a tomb-like silence within the sacred precincts of the reading room. Most librarians deplore this caricature and regard it as libelous. The personal characteristics of real librarians, however, unquestionably play an important part in determining the effectiveness of library service and the status of the public library in the community. In order adequately to assess the professional qualifications of librarians, we need to know what they are really like. In this chapter we shall try to show that, although librarians as a group have some distinctive character-

28

PERSONAL

CHARACTERISTICS

istics, they do not differ greatly from many people in similar academic and white-collar service occupations. PROFESSIONAL' VERSUS SUBPROFESSIONAL

In the f o r t y - s e v e n

libraries in the basic sample of the Public Library Inquiry, 2,395 librarians filled out and returned the questionnaires that provided us with data f o r this study. W e were concerned with the professional librarian only and excluded from our study all clerical and administrative office assistants as well as all other nonprofessional personnel. In more than t w o thirds o f t h e I n q u i r y libraries, h o w e v e r , w e f o u n d that staff m e m b e r s

employed as librarians were divided into two categories: professional and subprofessional. In a f e w of these libraries a distinction was made between professional and subprofessional library positions on the basis of their duties and responsibilities; in the majority the criterion used to distinguish the professional from the subprofessional employee, regardless of type of position held, was graduation from an accredited library school; several libraries used other, less well-defined criteria. N o t only were some employees uncertain about or unaware of their classification, but some library administrators reported that they experienced practical difficulties in differentiating between professional and subprofessional personnel, while several even showed us lists of "problem" employees whom they were unable to place in either category. Because of the wide-spread use of the term "subprofessional," it seemed advisable to make separate analyses of the characteristics of professional and subprofessional employees as an aid to clarifying and defining the status of the professional librarian. In making these analyses, we found that 1,837 of our respondents reported that they were classified as professional, 461 said they were subprofessional, and 97 checked neither category. From employment data obtained f r o m the

PERSONAL

CHARACTERISTICS

2Ç

library administrators, we knew that the official ratio of professional to subprofessional employees in the Inquiry libraries was about three to one. It seemed probable, therefore, that the respondents who had not indicated their classification belonged to the subprofessional group. Nevertheless, because we could not be certain of their status, we excluded these employees from all comparisons made between professional and subprofessional personnel. Some rather striking differences were found, as will be seen in this and other chapters, between the characteristics of the professional and the subprofessional groups. Implications of these differences both for personnel administration in public libraries and for education for librarianship are discussed in Part V . Despite the fact that enrollment of male students in the accredited library schools has risen steadily during the past thirty years, public libraries in this country are staffed predominantly by women. Of the 2,395 librarians in the basic sample, 92 percent were women; among these women were found 91 percent of the professional group and 93 percent of the subprofessional group. 1 Although women far outnumber men on the staffs of the Inquiry libraries, a considerably higher proportion of men hold the higher level positions, as is shown in Table 3. The greatest concentration of professional employees of both sexes is, of course, in the ranks of the professional assistants; this category (junior and senior grades) includes 87 percent of the women and 65 percent of the men. At the upper end SEX DISTRIBUTION

'Scigler (cited in footnote 6, Chapter 2), p. 1 1 , reports that women constituted 84.5 percent of all teachers in the United States in 1920, 81.8 percent in 1930, and only 75.3 percent in 1940. H e attributes the increase of male teachers partly to the growth of secondary schools, where men are relatively more numerous, and partly, perhaps, to the difficulty experienced b y men in obtaining employment in private industry during the thirties.

30

PERSONAL

CHARACTERISTICS

TABLE 3 TITLE OF LIBRARY POSITION BY SEX

TITLE

PROFESSIONAL STAFF Men Women Total (163) (1,674) (1,837) %

%

2 Librarian 6 Administrative assistant 2 9 Divi sion head 2 11 Department head 6 5 Branch head 1 Supervisor 1 3 Professional assistant - senior 62 81 Professional assistant - junior 6 3 Subprofessional assistant a L e s s than one half of 1 percent.

..

%

2

SUBPROFESSIONAL STAFF Men Women Total (461) (33) (428) % % % a 1

3 3 5 1 1

a a

a a

79

2

1

6

1

1

97

97

100

of the distribution, only 4 percent of the women as compared with 15 percent of the men hold positions as head librarians or first-line assistants to the chief. In all the libraries in the basic sample that serve populations of 2 50,000 or more, all the top administrators are men. A m o n g the subprofessional employees, a f e w women hold top jobs, but only in very small libraries. These persons, as will be shown in a later chapter, are improperly classified. Preference of governing authorities for men as top administrators is found not only in the library field but also in almost all occupations in which women are engaged. Attitudes of both men and women librarians toward this situation in their own profession are described in Chapter 5.

PERSONAL

CHARACTERISTICS

31

Professional employees in the Inquiry libraries average about twelve years older than those in the subprofessional group. The median age of the professionals, as shown in Table 4, is 42.3 years; of the subprofessionals 30 years. The professional men are about three years younger as a group than the professional women; among the subprofessionals the men average about a year younger than the women. 2 AGE DISTRIBUTION

TABLE 4 AGE OF LIBRARIANS BY SEX

AGE

Past 63 59-63 54-58 49-53 44-48 39-43 34-38 29-33 24-28 23 or l e s s Median age

PROFESSIONAL Women Men (163) (1,674) X %

8 4 8 2 10 18 20 23 6 • ·

39.3

3 5 8 10 18 21 13 10 9 3 42.6

STAPF Total (1,837) %

4 5 8 10 17 20 13 11 10 3 42.3

SUBPROFESSIONAL Women (428) (33) % % 2 3 2 • · 2 3

Men

..

3 12 12 16 45 6 28.8

4 9 11 11 13 25 22 30.1

STAPF Total (461) % 2 2

2 4 9 12 11 13 24 21 30

The most significant feature of the age distribution is the "middle-age bulge" in the ranks of the professional women, the group containing almost three fourths of all the employees represented in the table. Only 22 percent of the professional women librarians are under thirty-four years of age as com'Accordinff to Stigler's data (ibid., p. 11-12), the median ages of male and female schoolteachers in 1940 were 34.3 and 34 years, respectively. The median age of the women teachers was 1.7 years greater than that of all women in the labor force.

32

PERSONAL

CHARACTERISTICS

pared with the 52 percent w h o are between thirty-four and forty-nine. Moreover, in the age brackets below thirty-four w e find a steady decline in the percentage of women employees at successively younger levels. With the inevitable further thinning of the ranks of the professional women in the twenties and early thirties through marriage, we can expect an increasing shortage of women librarians to develop during the next ten to fifteen years if present recruiting trends continue. During the same period there also will be an increasing percentage of women approaching the retirement age as the groups now between forty and fiftv-five move up the age ladder. T h e present age distribution indicates that a serious recruiting problem now exists in the public library field. A t a time when severe shortages already are being felt, it seems evident that an increasingly smaller percentage of professionally trained women are choosing public librarianship as their vocation. T h e steady increase in the percentage of men who are entering the profession is as yet far too small, numerically, to offset the growing deficiency in woman power. A n analysis of age groups by size of population served shows a steady increase in median age as libraries decrease in size. T h e median f o r the professional women in the smallest libraries is 46.5 years; for the subprofessional women, 56.5 years. T h e age distributions for employees in the various population-size groups follow the overall pattern, but the decline in the percentages of younger women is sharper in the smaller libraries. Administrative employees, as would be expected, are older on the average than professional assistants. But the top administrators, as a group, are younger than those holding less responsible administrative posts. T h e age distribution for these three groups of professional employees is shown in Table 5. T h e top administration group is composed of head librarians

PERSONAL

CHARACTERISTICS

33

and their first assistants; the middle administration group is made up of division heads, department heads, branch heads, and supervisors; the professional assistants include those of both senior and junior grades. TABLE 5 AGE OF PROFESSIONAL LIBRARIANS BY T Y P E OF POSITION HELD TOP

MIDDLE

ADMINISTRATOR

AGE

Past 63 59-63 54-58 49-53 44-48 39-43 34-38 29-33 24-28 23 or less Median age

PROFESSIONAL

ADMINISTRATOR

ASSISTANT

Men

Women

Men

Women

Men

Women

(23) %

(62) %

(29) %

(149) %

(97) %

(1,375) %

18 4

.. 4 .. 26 30 18

,.

39.4

5 9 10 7 23 23 9 8 5 1 44.7

15 17 17

•

·

14 24 7 3 3

..

48.4

10 10 18 13 17 17 10 2 3

2

•

·

6 2 12 16 21 31 10

.. . .

49.6 36.1

2 5 7 10 17 20 13 11 11 4 41.6

It is significant not only that there is a much larger proportion of men than of women in the administrative groups, but also that the male top administrators are on the average five years younger than the women in this category. This means that men not only have a better chance than do women of reaching the top, but that they get there faster. Among the professional assistants a similar age differential was found; this difference reflects the decreasing number of women who have been entering public library employment during the past ten years.

34

PERSONAL

CHARACTERISTICS

PARENTAL BACKGROUND A majority of the librarians in the basic sample were reared by parents born in the United States. Among the professional group, 64 percent of the inen and 74 percent of the women had native-born mothers; 60 percent of the men and 70 percent of the women had native-born fathers. About the same percentage of native-born parents was found for both men and women in the subprofessional group: 70 percent of the men and 71 percent of the women had native-born mothers, 67 percent of the men and 66 percent of the women had native-born fathers. The

educational

achievement

of

the

parents o f

these

li-

brarians was superior, on the whole, to that of the general population. T h e parents of the professional librarians were more highly educated than those of the subprofessionals. Graduation from senior high school was achieved by 60 percent of both the mothers and the fathers of the professional group, by 50 percent of the mothers and 52 percent of the fathers of the subprofessional group. Bachelor's degrees were earned by 9 percent of the mothers and 22 percent of the fathers of the professional librarians, by 7 percent of the mothers and r6 percent of the fathers of the subprofessionals. It is especially noteworthy that one or more graduate degrees were held by 1 percent of the mothers and 13 percent of the fathers of the professional group and by 2 percent of the mothers and 9 percent of the fathers of the subprofessional group. T h e general pattern of parental education was remarkably similar for men and women librarians. T h e parents of these librarians also achieved a higher-thanaverage occupational level. The fathers of 21 percent of the professional group and 1 j percent of the subprofessional were engaged in professional work at the time that our respondents were finishing high school. Another 20 percent of the fathers of b >th groups were self-employed; an additional 14 percent held managerial positions. A large majority of the mothers.

PERSONAL

CHARACTERISTICS

35

83 percent of the professionals and 77 percent of the subprofessionals, were not employed outside the home. Only 1 percent of the fathers and approximately 1 percent of the mothers were employed as librarians, but this, of course, is a much larger percentage than in the population at large. The parents of a majority of both the professional and the subprofessional groups approved their children's choice of librarianship as a career. A larger percentage of the mothers than of the fathers liked the idea. The parents of the professional group were on the whole more enthusiastic than were those of the subprofessionals, a larger percentage of the latter expressing no opinion. Less than 10 percent of the librarians reported that their parents expressed doubt as to the wisdom of choosing librarianship as a life work or definitely disapproved this choice. These findings were consistent for both men and women librarians. The percentage of women librarians in any age group who marry and give up their professional careers is unknown. The proportion of professional women in our sample who are presently combining marriage with a library career is one in four; for the subprofessional women, one in three. Almost two thirds of the professional men and one third of the subprofessional men report that they are married. The divorce rate is higher among the women in both groups than among the men, but considerably lower for these librarians than for the population at large.' Among those who marry, the subprofessional librarians do so on the average about three years earlier than the professionals. The women in both groups tend to marry about a year or so earlier than the men. The median age at the time of MARRIAGE

*Stigler (ibid, p. 1 1 ) reports that 24.5 percent of all women teachers in 1940 were married. He gives no marital data for male teachers and no data on incidence of divorce among teachers.

36

PERSONAL

CHARACTERISTICS

the first marriage was 28 years for the professional men and 24.5 years f o r the subprofessional men; f o r the professional women it was 26.6 years, and f o r the subprofessional women 23.9 years. A f t e r the age of thirty-five, chances that the single woman librarian will marry and continue her career seem very slim; only 4 percent of the professional and 2 percent of the subprofessional women in our sample were married after having reached that age. But 10 percent of the professional men and 6 percent of the subprofessional men waited until they were thirty-five years old or older to be married. Librarians as a group select f o r their mates persons of much higher-than-average educational achievement. T h e spouses of 52 percent of the married professional men and 41 percent of the married professional women hold college degrees; about half of these spouses hold one or more graduate degrees. A m o n g the subprofessional group the spouses of 18 percent of the married men and 35 percent of the married women are college graduates and about half of them hold one or more graduate degrees. Only 10 percent of the wives of the professional men and 1 1 percent of the husbands of the professional women had not graduated from senior high school. A l l the wives of subprofessional men are high school graduates; all but 13 percent of the husbands of subprofessional w o m e n had also graduated from high school. A relatively high proportion of the spouses of these librarians were engaged in professional occupations during their first year of marriage. Included in this group were 36 percent of the wives of the professional men, 37 percent of the husbands of the professional women, and 27 percent and 20 percent, respectively, of the spouses of the subprofessional men and women. T h e professional men seem partial to librarians as spouses to a much greater extent than are the professional women; the same is true of the subprofessionals, although they are less likely to marry other librarians than are the pro-

PERSONAL

CHARACTERISTICS

37

fessionals. Propinquity plus the larger proportion of women than of men on library staffs may explain this phenomenon. Only 36 percent of the wives of the professional men and 9 percent of the wives of the subprofessional men were occupied solely as housewives during their first year of marriage. T h e majority of married librarians are fortunate in having spouses who are interested in their work and who give them assistance in pursuing their professional careers. A s a group, the professional men receive more help from their mates than do the professional women. Only a very small percentage of the spouses of the professional librarians disapprove of their work and want them to change their careers. T h e subprofessionals are somewhat less fortunate in the amount of approval and assistance they receive from their mates. Marriage appears to be far more of an asset in the careers of the professional men than it is for the other groups. Fifty-five percent of the married professional men say their marriages have been either a definite asset or an indispensable factor in their professional achievement, but only 23 percent of the professional women and 20 percent of the sub professional men and women place marriage on the credit side of the ledger so far as their work is concerned. For 28 percent of the married professional women and 21 percent of the subprofessional women marriage has either made pursuit of their library careers more difficult or has been the chief factor in temporary abandonment of their careers. T h e low marriage rate among women librarians seems due more to lack of opportunity than to disinclination to wed. Sixty-four percent of the unmarried professional women and 79 percent of the single subprofessional women say that they would like to marry. Moreover, 39 percent of both these groups of women would like not only to marry, but to give up their library work and devote themselves to homemalring; an additional 3 percent of the professional and 10 percent of

38

PERSONAL

CHARACTERISTICS

the subprofessional women would like to marry and go into some other field of work. Only one third of the professional and one fifth of the subprofessional women who are unmarried profess to be indifferent or disinclined to wed, as compared with 54 percent of the unmarried professional men and 19 percent of the single subprofessional men. Married librarians, as a group, have few children. The average number of children born to the married professional librarians is 1.4 for the men and less

CHILDREN AND DEPENDENTS

than ι f o r the w o m e n ; f o r the subprofessional group, less than

ι for both men and women. The number of children adopted by these librarians is negligible. Of the unmarried librarians, less than 1 percent have adopted children. Among those librarians who do have children of their own (living or deceased), the average number of offspring is 2.4 for the professional men, only 1 for the professional women, 2.5 for the subprofessional men, and only 1 for the subprofessional women. Librarians likewise have very few dependents, probably because not only are their own families small, but they have parents who for the most part are equipped with the type of education and vocational skills that tend to insure economic independence in their later years. Among the professional librarians the average number of dependents is 1.5 for the men and less than 1 for the women; among the subprofessionals, less than 1 for both men and women. The median age at which librarians with children first become parents is higher than that for the general population. The professional group has a somewhat higher median (28.8 years) than the subprofessionals (25.8 years). The men librarians in both groups were on the average several years older than were the women librarians when their first-born children arrived.

PERSONAL

CHARACTERISTICS

39

Although 27 percent of the professional women who have children have found them a definite asset in advancing their careers, 43 percent say that their children have made pursuit of their careers more difficult or have been the chief factor in temporary abandonment of their professional work. About half of the professional men who are fathers feel that their children have had little effect upon their careers; a majority of the others regard them as professional assets. PERSONALITY The librarians in the Inquiry sample were asked to complete a personality test known as the GuilfordMartin Inventory of Factors G A M I N . Five traits are measured by this scale.4

G General pressure for overt activity. A Ascendancy in social situations as opposed to submissiveness; leadership qualities. M Masculinity of attitudes and interests as opposed to femininity. I Lack of inferiority feelings; self-confidence. Ν Lack of nervous tenseness and irritability. The test consists òf a list of one hundred and eighty-six questions. The respondent is asked to read each question in turn, to think what his opinion or behavior has usually been, and then to draw a circle around the answer that best describes his behavior or opinion. He is given a choice of three answers to each question: "Yes," " N o , " or "?." The question-mark is to be encircled only when the respondent is unable to decide between the "Yes" and " N o " answers. Examples of typical items that have proved discriminating for the various personality factors are as follows: For trait G: "Are you inclined to be quick in your actions?" "Can you turn out a large amount of work in a short time?" 'For a more complete description of this test, from which the following summary was prepared, see the Manual of Directions and Norms (first revision), Beverly Hills, California, Sheridan Supply Co., 1943.

40

Ρ ΚRSONAL

CHARACTERISTICS

For trait A: " D o y o u find it difficult to g e t rid of a salesman to w h o m y o u do not care to listen o r g i v e y o u r t i m e ? " " H a v e

you

ever, on y o u r o w n initiative, organized a c l u b or g r o u p of any kind?" For trait M: " D o y o u like love scenes in a m o v i e or p l a y ? " " D o you

(or would y o u )

like to g o hunting w i t h a rifle f o r

wild

game?" For

trait I: " D o y o u feel that the average person has m a d e a

better adjustment to life than y o u h a v e ? " " D o y o u feel c o n f i d e n t that y o u can c o p e w i t h most situations that y o u will m e e t in the future?"

For trait N: " D o y o u often become irritated over lirtle annoya n c e s ? " " D o y o u have nervous habits such as chew ing y o u r pencil or biting y o u r

fingernails?"

Questions designed to measure the five factors are arranged in random order with no indication of the factor to which they are relevant. A set of norms constructed by the authors of the inventory on a university-student population has been used in interpreting the scores made by the librarians in the Inquiry sample. T h e scores made by the professional librarians only have been used in this analysis. In Table 6 are presented the median raw scores and the median C-scores for the men and women librarians in the professional group. T h e C-score norms are based upon an eleven-point scale (scores ranging from o to 10) with a mean score of 5. Thus, a C-score of 5, if made by a group of our librarians, would mean that the group as a whole has a score on that trait equivalent to that of the average university student. With the exception of trait M, scores on the C-scale that are higher than 5 are better than average; scores lower than 5 are poorer than average. High scores on factors G , A , I, and Ν mean generally favorable personality characteristics; low scores mean unfavorable characteristics. A high score on trait M means a high degree of masculinity of attitudes and interests; a low score means a high degree of femininity.

PERSONAL

41

CHARACTERISTICS TABLE 6

MEDIAN RAW SCORES AND MEDIAN C-SCORES OF PROFESSIONAL LIBRARIANS ON GAMIN FACTORS

GAMIN FACTOR G A M I Ν

PROFESSIONAL Median Raw Score 10 16 21 32 28

MEN (157) Median C-S core 4 4 6 4 6

PROFESSIONAL Median Raw Score 10 16 12 31 27

WOMEN (1,651) Median C· Score 4 4 3 4 5

T h e full range of C-scores f o r the men librarians was 0 - 1 0 on factors A , M , and I, 0-9 on factor G , and 1 - 1 0 on factor N . T h e women's C-scores ranged from o to 10 on all five factors. On factor G , general pressure f o r overt activity, both men and women librarians as a group score below average. T h e authors of the test note that older examinees will probably show somewhat lower scores on trait G than will younger examinees, because there is a normal lowering of general activity level with advancing age. T h e median age of the professional librarians is forty-two years, which is considerably older than that of the university student group, so w e can consider their scores normal on the G factor. Certainly w e may conclude that on the average librarians will be content to lead a rather sedentary life, with no strong urge f o r physical activity per se. Both men and women librarians as a group also score below average on the A factor. In the case of the men this is particularly significant because, as pointed out b y the authors of the test, males generally make higher scores than females on trait A. W e may conclude, therefore, that professional librar-

42

PERSONAL

CHARACTERISTICS

ians, especially men, show less than average ascendancy in social situations, greater submissiveness, and less dominant leadership qualities than the average university student. With regard to masculinity of attitudes and interests, the median score of the male librarians on trait M falls one step above the midpoint on a scale where the low point represents extreme femininity and the high point extreme masculinity. T h e median score of the women librarians is a step closer to the feminine end of the scale than is that of their male colleagues to the masculine end. In general, the authors of this test note, males make considerably higher scores on M than do females. It appears, therefore, that while men and women librarians as separate groups fall within the normal range for their respective sexes on the masculinity factor, the two groups score sufficiently close together on the scale to insure a rather high degree of congeniality in their attitudes and interests. This community of interests should make good working relations between men and women librarians easy to maintain. Lower-than-average scores were made by both men and women on the I factor. This seems significant in view of the test authors' comment that there should probably be an increasing score on I with advancing years from youth to middle age because maturing individuals on the average acquire greater poise and feeling of security as they leave behind some of the uncertainties of youth. As compared with the average university student both men and women librarians, who as a group are considerably older, exhibit less self-confidence and greater feelings of inferiority, thus reversing the picture we would expect to find. T h e median score for the men librarians on factor Ν is higher than average; for the women it is just average. This means that on the whole librarians show a normal degree of nervous tension and irritability, the men appearing somewhat more relaxed than the women.

PERSONAL

CHARACTERISTICS

43

Bearing in mind that the median scores of these librarians on the GAMIN factors merely show the central tendency of the group as a whole and that within the group we found individual scores ranging from very low to very high on each of the traits, we can now construct a personality profile of the "typical" librarian. As compared with the average male university student, the typical male librarian is rather submissive in social situations and less likely to show qualities of leadership. He is within the normal range of masculinity in his attitudes and interests, but he tends to lack confidence in himself and to feel somewhat inferior. His feelings of inferiority, however, seem not to worry him excessively, for he experiences less than average nervous tension and irritability. He shows no great drive for overt activity, but is normally sedentary for his age. On the whole, he seems to have made a reasonably good adjustment to life, and one might guess that stomach ulcers would not be his occupational disease. The typical female librarian has a personality profile that is remarkably similar to that of her male colleague. As compared with the average woman university student, she is submissive in social situations, lacks self-confidence, feels inferior, has an average amount of drive for overt activity, and feels a normal degree of nervous tension and irritability. She is normally feminine in her attitudes and interests. Like the typical male librarian, she seems reasonably well adjusted. Within the general personality profile, some rather interesting differences were found between married and single librarians. The married men as a group, compared with the unmarried men, include a larger percentage who score low on general pressure for overt activity, a larger percentage who score high on masculinity of attitudes and interests and on self-confidence, and a larger percentage who show a lack of nervous tension and irritability. There is no difference in per-

44

PERSONAL

CHARACTERISTICS

centages of those who score low and high on social ascendancy. Among the married women, as compared with the unmarried, a larger percentage score high on overt activity level, social ascendancy, self-confidence, and femininity. But a larger percentage of the married women than of the single women experience high nervous tension and irritability. Whether these personality traits were present before marriage or developed as a result of marriage cannot be determined from our data. N o significant deviations from the typical personality pattern were found for librarians of either sex who are separated, divorced, or widowed. Our respondents were asked to check the average number of hours per week they had spent during the past three weeks in unpaid personal, domestic, or family life activities. Among the professional group, the median number of hours per week thus spent was 8.8 for the men and 14.2 for the women. T h e subprofessional men spent, on the average, 4.9 hours and the subprofessional women 14.2 hours per week in such pursuits. DOMESTIC ACTIVITIES

T h e five specific activities of this nature in which the professional women as a group spent the greatest amount of time were, in order of frequency, general housework, personal shopping, household and family shopping, sewing and mending, and social entertaining. T h e top five activities f o r the subprofessional women followed exactly the same pattern. T h e men librarians, on the whole, spent less time than the women on almost all activities of this type, with the exception of maintenance of property and child care (the latter finding, no doubt, reflecting the fact that more of the men than the women have children). Activities in which the professional men as a group spent the most time were general housework, family recreation, social entertaining, maintenance of property, and household and family shopping. T h e subprofessional men fol-

PERSONAL

CHARACTERISTICS

45

low about the same pattern as the professional men, except that they do more personal shopping (a smaller percentage have wives to shop f o r them). From what w e know of the domestic activities of the general population, w e may conclude that in this respect librarians lead quite normal lives. AMOUNT AND T Y P E OF PERSONAL RECREATION

The

Way

a

person spends his leisure time reveals much about his character, interests, and the breadth of his horizon. T o obtain a rough measure of the amount of time spent by librarians in general recreation, our respondents were asked to check the average number of hours per week they had spent in personal recreational activities, excluding definite vacation periods, during the three weeks prior to filling out the questionnaire. T h e median amount of time given to recreation is less than two hours per day, counting Saturdays and Sundays. T h e professional men spend less time, on the average, than any other group; the subprofessional men spend more. A small minority, 3 percent of the professionals and 6 percent of the subprofessionals, said they spent no time at all during this period in recreation; these probably are people who hold non-librarv jobs in addition to their regular work. Women who work in the very small libraries devote more time to personal recreation, on the average, than do librarians in the larger libraries; women who work in county libraries spend less time in recreational pursuits than librarians in any other group. T h e librarians were also given a list of leisure-time activities and asked to check those in which they had spent an average of three hours or more per week during the three weeks prior to filling out the questionnaire (or during the most recent three-week period when such activities were in season), excluding definite vacation periods. T h e results appear in Table 7.

TABLE 7 RE CR E ATI ON AL ACTIVITIES OF LIBRARIANS PROFESSIONAL STAFF ACTIVITY

Outdoor games (golf, tennis, etc.) Outdoor sports (fishing, swimming, e t c . ) Attending sporting events T r a v e l i n g , motoring Gardening Indoor sedentary games (cards, chess, etc.) Indoor active games and e x e r c i s e (handball» gymnastics, e t c . ) L i s t e n i n g to the radio Music (performing) P a i n t i n g , sculpture, e t c . Attending concerts, e x h i b i t s , etc. Reading (recreational) Attending movies Attending theater Amateur theatricals, debating, etc. Hobbies, (photography, philately, etc.) Home workshop activity Social dancing P a r t i e s , night clubs, etc. Other a c t i v i t i e s

SUBPROFESSIONAL STAFF

Men

Women

Total

Men

Women

Total

(163)

(1,674)

(1,837)

(428)

(461)

%

%

%

%

%

(33) %

7

7

7

6

9

9

18

12

13

9

15

15

9 22 18

9 36 18

9 35 18

12 21

21

24

4 60 12 2

14

14

15

32 11

31 11

24

12

27

26

2 77 14

2 76 14

3 64

3

3

6 80 2 7

79 2 8

37 87

45 87

48

33 25

48 41

44 87 46 40

39

31

29 79 57 32

1

2

2

3

5

5

15

13

14

27

13

14

7

7 10

9

15

6 22

5 22

21 8

20 8

9 12

25 6

24 7

5 14 5

7

9 12

63 42

•

•

28 80 58

5

PERSONAL

C H A R A C T E R I S T I C S

47

Each of the activities listed was checked by at least one librarian. Recreational reading was by far the most popular pastime. Evidently librarians not only try to interest the public in reading for pleasure but also practice what they preach. Listening to the radio was a fairly close second choice. Attending the movies and the theater were next in popularity, but there is a considerable drop in percentages of those checking these activities as compared with the much more popular and less expensive pastimes of reading and radio listening. Traveling and motoring were checked by about one third, and indoor games, such as cards and chess, by about one quarter of the total group. The recreational pursuits of the professional and subprofessional librarians follow a remarkably similar pattern, although the corresponding percentages show some variation. Both men and women prefer the same types of recreation, although percentages differ somewhat on particular activities. It seems obvious from inspection of Table 7 that librarians prefer, or at any rate pursue, rather sedentary forms of recreation. Few engage in outdoor sports or games, in artistic activities, or in personal hobbies. Compared with the general population, librarians are avid book readers. T h e women read on the average about one novel a week and about two and a half nonfiction books every three weeks in addition to the reading they do as part of their professional work. The men read less fiction than the women and about the same amount of nonfiction. This information was obtained by asking our respondents to check the number of books, fiction and nonfiction, they had read completely during the previous three weeks for their personal enjoyment or information aside from the requirements of their library jobs. READING, RADIO, AND MOTION PICTURES

The librarians were also asked to check on a list of maga-

48

PERSONAL

CHARACTERISTICS

zines furnished to them those that during the month preceding the filling out of the questionnaire they had read for personal enjoyment or information aside from the requirements of library work. Among the professional librarians, Life and The Saturday Review of Literature have the highest percentage of readers, 64 percent and 63 percent, respectively. The New Yorker and Time are next in popularity. Considerably lower in percentage of readers is the Atlantic; Harpers, Newsweek, and the Saturday Evening Fost follow closely, about one fourth of the librarians b e i n g readers of each. O n e or more of the digest

magazines are read by 46 percent of the professional librarians. T h e subprofessional librarians prefer to read much the same type of magazines as the professionals. T h e largest number, 70 percent, had read Life. Next in popularity were Time and The New Yorker, then The Saturday Review of Literature (read by 40 percent). About half of the subprofessionals read one or more of the digest magazines. Table 8 gives the median time per week spent by librarians in reading newspapers, listening to the radio, and viewing motion pictures. T h e y were asked to check the average number of hours per week during the previous three weeks they had spent in these activities for their own enjoyment or information, aside from the requirements of their library jobs. Slightly more time is spent by librarians in listening to the radio than in reading newspapers. Less than an hour per day, on the average, is devoted to each of these activities. T h e subprofessional group spends a little more time listening to the radio and a little less time in reading newspapers than the professional group. T h e subprofessionals also show a higher rate of attendance at motion picture performances. It would appear that they go to the movies about once every other week, while the professionals attend about once in three or four weeks.

PERSONAL

CHARACTERISTICS

49

TABLE 8 MEDIAN NUMBER OF HOURS PER WEEK SPENT BY LIBRARIANS IN READING NEWSPAPERS, LISTENING TO THE RADIO, AND VIEWING MOTION PICTURES FOR PERSONAL ENJOYMENT OR INFORMATION PERSONNEL CLASSIFICATION

Reading Newspapers Median

Listening to Radio Median

Viewing Motion

Pictures

Median

Professional Men ( 1 6 3 ) Women ( 1 , 6 7 4 )

5.6 5.0

4.2 5.8

.6 1.1

Total ( 1 , 8 3 7 )

5.0

5.6

1.0

Subpr of e s s i on a 1 Men ( 3 3 ) Women ( 4 2 8 )

3.2

7.2

1.8

5.0

6.4

2.2

Total (461)

4.8

6.7

2.1

It is known that people who do the greatest amount of book reading, as compared with the general population, also engage to a greater extent than does the average citizen in other communications activities such as newspaper and magazine reading, radio listening, and motion picture viewing. Librarians, who are great book readers, follow this pattern: they also make greater than average use of the other media of mass communication. TRAVEL Our librarians were asked to check the number of states and possessions of the United States and the number of foreign countries in which they had lived continuously for at least one week. T h e professional group are more widely traveled than the subprofessional, and the men in both groups have done more traveling than have the women. T h e median number of states and possessions of the United States lived in

50

PERSONAL

CHARACTERISTICS

b y the professional group is 6.4, b y the subprofessional group 4·°· T h e professional men in libraries serving populations of 100,000 to 500,000 have traveled more in this country than have any other group; on the average they have lived in 8.5 states or possessions of the United States. T h e least traveled group are the subprofessional women in the very small libraries, whose median is 3.3 states. W o m e n in the county libraries, both professional and subprofessional, have on the average lived f o r a week or more in 4 different states. First-hand knowledge of living conditions in foreign coun-

tries is very limited among these librarians. T h e professional men in the metropolitan libraries hold the record; they have lived on the average in 2.1 foreign countries. V e r y f e w professional women and even f e w e r subprofessional women have lived for as long as a week in one foreign country. A v e r y large majority of the librarians in the basic sample cast their votes fairly regularly or always in both local and national elections. About 5 percent say they vote only occasionally and another 5 percent that they never vote in either type of election. In the spring of 1948, when the questionnaires were filled out, the most popular presidential candidates among this group of librarians were Eisenhower and Stassen. These two potential nominees, w h o were about equally well liked, accounted f o r almost 50 percent of the votes cast in our straw ballot. D e w e y and Wallace each received 10 percent of the choices of the professional librarians and slightly higher percentages of the subprofessionals' choices. T r u m a n was preferred b y only 8 percent of the professionals and 1 1 percent of the subprofessionals. N o other candidate received more than 5 percent of the choices. Like a good many other Americans nearly half of these librarians found themselves obliged, on election

CIVIC AND POLITICAL ACTIVITIES

PERSONAL

CHARACTERISTICS

51

day, to vote for candidates other than those they would have preferred as first choice. As a measure of librarians' attitudes toward current legislation, our respondents were asked to check their opinion of the Marshall plan, of the Taft-Hartley Bill, and of the desirability of resuming price controls. Table 9 gives the results. TABLE 9 LIBRARIANS' ATTITUDES TOWARD CURRENT ISSUES (SPRING, 1948) MARSHALL

TAFT-

PLAN ProfesSubpros ional fessional ATTITUDE

fl,837)

RESUMPTION OF

HARTLEY BILL ProfesSubprosional

fessional

PRICE CONTROLS ProfesSubprosional

fessional

%

%

(461)

%

%

%

%

46

34

27

33

19 29

12

31

23

25

Strongly approve Approve

31 27

Doubtful of value

12

16

16

19

19

14

Disapprove Strongly

3

5

12

12

12

11

disapprove Uncertain

2 4

4 6

11

14

6

9

14

10

5 8

Do not know

1

3

3

6

2

4

About three quarters of the librarians in the professional group and two thirds in the subprofessional group expressed approval of the Marshall plan. About one half of the professionals and one third of the subprofessionals approved of the Taft-Hartley Bill. A little more than half of both groups thought price controls should be resumed. On the whole, the subprofessionals showed more uncertainty on all of these issues than the professional librarians, but less than is usually

52

PERSONAL

CHARACTERISTICS

found among the general population on public opinion polls dealing with questions of national concern. Librarians cannot be said to be great "joiners" of community organizations. About half of the professional group, it is true, belong to welfare organizations such as the Red Cross and to churches or religious societies. But only 12 percent are members of civic betterment associations, 10 percent belong to fraternal organizations, and 6 percent to political associations. In every case except that of fraternal organizations, the percentage of subpròfessionals belonging to these associations is smaller than that of the professionals.

T h e percentages of librarians, professional and subprofessional, who have held or are now holding administrative posts as officers or committee chairmen in community organizations are very small. Seven percent of the professionals and 5 percent of the subprofessionals have held or are holding such posts in church or religious societies, less than 5 percent in any other type of association. T h e same holds true for membership (without being chairman) on committees of community organizations. Sixty-two percent of the professional group and 80 percent of the subprofessionals reported that they had attended no meetings of community organizations, other than church services, during 1947. A question regarding the frequency of church attendance yielded the information that 34 percent of the librarians in the basic sample attended church regularly during the six month period preceding the filling out of the questionnaire. Those attending church fairly often included 14 percent of the group, while 28 percent attended occasionally. T w e n t y - f o u r percent of the 2,395 librarians in the sample said they had not attended church during the six month period. WARTIME ACTIVITY T h e librarians were asked to indicate the type of activity in which they had engaged during the

PERSONAL

CHARACTERISTICS

53

greater part of the Second World War. About 50 percent of the men in both the professional and subprofessional groups were in military or governmental service, as compared with less than 10 percent of the women. Almost half of the professional men and more than three quarters of the professional women worked during the war in library jobs that were not directly connected with war activities. About one fifth of the subprofessional men and one half of the subprofessional women also were employed in nonwar library jobs. T h e foregoing inventory of personal characteristics of the librarians in the Inquiry sample yields no surprising results. Generalizing from the findings, we may conclude that those who presently occupy the professional positions in our public libraries have the background, interests, and temperament that we might expect of persons in such an occupation. Public libraries deal with scientific, literary, and artistic materials and with people interested in such materials; for successful service, considerable education is required on the librarian's part. T h e work is largely sedentary, performed in a quiet, friendly atmosphere, relatively free from the pressures and sharp, personal rivalries for place and power that characterize much of commercial enterprise. Librarianship is an occupation with modest pecuniary rewards, but with the satisfactions which accompany the rendering of useful public service. It has traditionally been a calling within which women were welcomed and could rise to the top. It is still carried on preponderantly by women. In recent decades, however, recruitment of public librarians seems to be suffering from the fact that many other occupations are offering women opportunities for significant careers at a time when men are entering librarianship in increasing numbers and obtaining considerably more than their numerical proportion of top positions. SUMMARY

54

PERSONAL

CHARACTERISTICS

O u r findings reveal that present-day public librarians are recruited mainly from native American stock, from families with better-than-average formal education and occupational status, and that the librarians seek to perpetuate their educational backgrounds in their choices of husbands and wives. W e find that, like others in intellectual occupations with modest pecuniary rewards, librarians tend to marry later and to have smaller families than does the average American adult. As in other occupations staffed preponderantly by women, the responsibilities of marriage and children are likely to present difficulties for women librarians when combined with professional activity. W e find, however, that both men and women librarians as a group, in their domestic activities, their recreational and civic life, and their political life, fall into the general pattern o f American society. T h e y marry or want to marry, keep house, join clubs, go to church, attend meetings, read newspapers, listen to the radio, and travel in roughly similar proportions to their neighbors in the cities, towns, and villages where they live and work. At least, in these respects, they do not as a group exhibit markedly eccentric characteristics. Exception may be noted in their quite definite preference for reading books in their hours off duty. F o r librarians, of course, books in profusion afford a costless means of recreation. Later chapters will indicate, however, that books probably represent and serve a special kind of interest which in part has led to the choice of a library career. Personality inventories filled out b y the Inquiry sample of librarians show their median scores to be somewhat below established norms for persons with comparable general education with regard to leadership and self-confidence, but with other measured qualities near the general norms. In view of the implication o f the public library objectives that extroverted personalities with skill in community lender-

PERSONAL

CHARACTERISTICS

55

ship are needed for some library posts, we must remember that the results of our inventory are all in terms of averages, not uniformities. T h e actual individual librarians in our sample, as in the profession in general, are distributed at various points along the scales of physical activity, social aggressiveness, selfconfidence, masculine and feminine interests, and nervous stability. Individual recreational interests and political preferences of librarians range all the way from light fiction to Plato, knitting to boxing, Wallace to Hoover. Our generalizations apply only to central tendencies for public librarians as an occupational group.

4 EDUCATIONAL

STATUS

T o P R E S C R I B E the type of education needed for a successful career in a profession is not a simple task, nor is it one that ever can be finally completed. Each profession must not only work out its own fundamental training program but also must revise its educational requirements from time to time to keep pace with new developments within its own and related fields. T h e older professions, such as law and medicine, have long been concerned with the problem of providing an appropriate education for their practitioners. Librarians, although relatively young as a professional group, are today acutely conscious of the need for strengthening their training schools and adapting existing curricula to the changing objectives of the public library as well as to changing social conditions. Leaders of the profession are agreed that graduation from college and successful completion of the basic curriculum of an accredited library school constitute the minimum formal educational requirement for the professional librarian. Some diversity of opinion exists, however, regarding the content of the professional training to be given within this framework. Among the chief determinants of such training would seem to be the objectives of the profession, the major fields of specialization within it, its accumulated body of knowledge and skills, and the duties and responsibilities assumed by its members. In this chapter we shall be concerned with the present educational background of the librarians who today are staffing our public libraries. T h e broader aspects of professional

EDUCATIONAL

STATUS

57

education for librarianship will be dealt with in Part I V , " T h e Education of Librarians." ACADEMIC

AND

PREPROKESSIONAL

EDUCATION

AlniOSt

all

(98 percent) of the 2,395 professional and subprofessional librarians in the Inquiry basic sample are high school graduates. Nearly 90 percent attended college or normal school for at least one semester; 3 percent left after one semester, 7 percent after one year, and 12 percent after two years. Before the end of the fourth year almost one third of those who started college had become academic casualties. Sixty percent of the total group (85 percent of the men and 58 percent of the women) completed four years of college. 1 Although 60 percent of our librarians attended college for four years, only 51 percent received the B A or BS degree. T h e degrees received were of two types: ( 1 ) a four-year liberal arts degree, with a major in an academic subject field; (2) a four-year degree, with a major in librarianship. If both types of degrees, as listed in Table 10, are combined, we see that 58 percent of the professional librarians compared with 34 percent of the subprofessionals hold undergraduate degrees. T h e percentage of male librarians who have earned degrees is considerably higher, both in the professional and in the subprofessional groups, than is that of their female colleagues. It is of interest that only 8 percent of the professionals and 2 percent of the subprofessionals studied library subjects as undergraduates. It is clear from Table 10 that 42 percent of the professional librarians in our basic sample do not meet the current standard of a four-year undergraduate college degree. When the age factor is taken into account, however, we find that the per'Stigler (cited in footnote 6, Chapter 2), women teachers in the United States in who went to college, nearly one third slightly more than half for four years or

p. 26, reports that 87.7 percent of 1940 had attended college. Of all attended for one to three years, more.

58

EDUCATIONAL

STATUS

centage of degree holders (both types combined) in the professional group is much higher among the younger librarians than among those on more advanced age levels. This relationship is shown in Table 1 1 . A steady increase (with but one T A B L E 10 P E R C E N T A G E OF LIBRARIANS HOLDING UNDERGRADUATE DIPLOMA OR DEGREE PROFESSIONAL STAFF Men DIPLOMA OR DEGREE (163) % Normal school diploma 1

Women (1,674) %

SUBPROFESSIONAL STAFF

Total

Men

(1,837) (33) % %

Women

Total

(428) %

(461) %

3

7

1

,

2

2

31 8 26

32

12 15

8 25

18

26

26

4

4

7

8

8

71

48

50

52

Other No diploma or degree

3 10

6 16

4 16

No answer—probably none

8

18

18

Four-year degree including library service Four-year degree not including library service

•

exception) was found in the percentage of degrees held at successively lower age levels down to 24 years. T h e highest percentage of degrees, 84 percent, was found at age level 24 to 28 years; the lowest, 27 percent, at age level 54 to 58 years. T h e inverse relationship found between age and college graduation follows a similar pattern f o r both men and women, although at every age level above 28 years a considerably higher percentage of men than of women are degree holders. N o reliable difference was found in the percentage of de-

EDUCATIONAL

STATUS

59

gree holders among professional assistants and persons filling middle administrative positions within the professional ranks. T h e top administrative group, however, included a slightly higher percentage (7 percent higher) of degree holders than was found among the professional assistants. Because as a TABLE 11 PERCENTAGE OF PROFESSIONAL LIBRARIANS HOLDING UNDERGRADUATE DEGREES,BY AGE

AGE

Over 63 59-63 54-58 49-53 44-48 39-43 34-38 29-33 24-28 23 or less

MEN( 127) Library Aeademie Major Major % %

8

,. 8 .« .. 7 12 8 8 a

46 57 46 67 81 67 74 84 62 a

WOMENQ2Ì) Library Aeademie Major Major %

%

6 3 4 6 6 8 9 10 11 10

21 29 21 39 42 46 56 68 73 52

ΓΟΓ/

THE

F A C U L T Y

elor's degree to nearly zero ( f o u r persons, one each in f o u r separate schools). W i t h regard to advanced degrees a comparison was made betw een library school faculties and the faculties of the other professional schools in the eight larger universities. It was assumed (as it now can be f o r library schools) that all, or nearly all, the faculty members in these professional schools have both a general college education culminating in a bachelor's degree and the basic professional degree required f o r the practice of the particular profession, whether it be L L B , B D , or B L S . N o attempt was made to gather figures with regard tí) these degrees. T h e numbers and percentages of f a c u l t y members holding master's and doctor's degrees, however, w e r e assembled. T h e results show great differences in these respects between the professional school faculties. T h e percentages holding doctorates vary f r o m i, 3, 7, and 9 percent, respectively, f o r architecture, nursing, journalism, and engineering, where evidently the doctorate is in no sense a prerequisite f o r professorial status, through a middle group consisting of social w o r k , librarianship, law, and business, with 13, 1 3 , 15, and 29 percent having doctorates, and, where the degree is still unusual, to education, with 51 percent, and religion, with 52 percent, where evidently the advanced degree is an important requisite f o r professorial status. T h e percentages holding the master's degree show no such definite grouping among the professional schools. Aside f r o m schools of law, with 14 percent and schools of theology, where only 6 percent in the eight universities had the master's degree, the range of percentages holding master's degrees in the professional faculties, except f o r education, was between 28 and 44 percent. Kducation, as in the case of the doctorate, had a high proportion—53 percent. T h e library schools in the eight universities averaged 43 percent holding the master's degree. It is impossible to derive from these returns any general

THE

FACULTY

397

standard by which to measure the faculties of the library schools, or any other professional schools, in terms of their possession of advanced degrees. Quite a different question with regard to adequacy of the faculty personnel in library schools is the variety of academic backgrounds represented in their advanced training. Table 74 gives the major subjects of the ninety-six faculty members in the thirty-four library schools who had received advanced academic degrees. T h e table reveals that literature, language, and history grouped together account for nearly half (46 percent) of the subject majors, much more than those (29 percent) with majors in the arts, social sciences (exclusive of history), and the natural and mathematical sciences put together. Literature and language alone comprise nearly a third of the whole number; the natural and mathematical sciences are represented by less than a tenth, the arts by a twentieth of the total of majors. This same bias toward literature and history and underrepresentation of the sciences was noted in Chapter 4 as being true of the collegiate majors of the Inquiry's sample of librarians now in public library service. E v i dently with regard to both students and faculty there exists a distinct lack of balance in background knowledge of the major subject matter fields. In 1920 Williamson was disturbed by another aspect of the academic background of librarians. This was the institutionally inbred character of the teaching personnel as indicated by the fact that t w o fifths of them (42 percent) were teaching in the same library school at which they were trained. Sixteen years later Wilson felt that the situation had altered considerably for the better, although he did not gather statistics directly on the subject. A large proportion of the faculty members of the library schools in 1948-49 had given instruction in other library schools, either as regular faculty members or as teachers dur-

T A B L E 74 MAJOR S U B J E C T S AND F I E L D S O F F A C U L T Y MEMBERS HOLDING ADVANCED ACADEMIC D E G R E E S IN A C C R E D I T E D L I B R A R Y SCHOOLS, 1948-49, BY T Y P E O F L I B R A R Y SCHOOL

TYPE

/ ( 5) No.(}2)

No.(45)

1 2

1 1

L i t e r a t u r e and language English 8 Romance l a n g u a g e s 3 Philology

9 4 1

MAJOR AND

SUBJECT FIELD

The arts Music F i n e arts

Social s c i e n c e s History Economics Sociology Political science Anthropology Natural and mathematical sciences Mathematics Zoology-botany Geology Professional fields Education Law Theology Total

II (16)

OF

SCHOOL

III (13) Total (34) No. ( 19) No. (96) (Subject)

..

No.(96) (Field) 5

2 3

34 7 2

24 9 1 27

4 1 1 2 1

,,

8 2 3 1

.. 1 3

12 3 5 6 1

9 1 1 2

2

3 3 3

6

1

7 4 2

1

18 4 4

18 4 4

32

47

22

101

101

2 1

5

T H E

F A C U L T Y

399

ing suninier sessions. O f the w h o l e g r o u p o f 220, at least 160 ( 7 0 percent) had taught in more than one institution. O n l y 30 percent (27 percent in the T y p e I schools, 30 p e r c e n t in T y p e II schools, and 33 percent in T y p e III schools) reported having taught in o n l y one school. M o r e o v e r , some of the 30 p e r c e n t minority had as students attended library schools n o t c o n n e c t c d w i t h the institution w h e r e t h e y w e r e then teaching. T h u s , although there m a y be individual schools w i t h unnecessarily limited o u t l o o k because of inbreeding, in general this seems no longer to be characteristic of library schools. professional

EXPERIENCE

In the early d a y s of

library

schools, w h e n the staffs of all but a f e w consisted o f part-time teachers w h o at the same time w e r e c a r r y i n g full duties in libraries, there w a s no dearth of practical, professional library experience as a b a c k g r o u n d f o r instruction. But as early as 1936 M u n n , in his s u r v e y , noted a f r e q u e n t criticism

that

library schools might be m o v i n g t o o far a w a y f r o m library practice. 1 0 A n d

in

1946 W h e e l e r emphasized

the need

to

achieve a balance in teaching b a c k g r o u n d b e t w e e n academic scholarly training and practical library e x p e r i e n c e . " S u c h a balance is o b v i o u s l y desirable, but it is difficult to define in quantitative terms. E a c h instructor in a professional school needs to have e n o u g h c o n t a c t w i t h the library o p e r a tions or material he is analyzing to avoid unrealistic t h i n k i n g . T h i s contact, h o w e v e r , m a y be obtained in a relatively brief period of professional e m p l o y m e n t in a library. F u l l y as important is the f r e q u e n t renewal of c o n t a c t t h r o u g h observation, directing w o r k s h o p s of practitioners, or other devices f o r k e e p i n g in t o u c h w i t h c h a n g i n g w o r k i n g conditions. f u l l y as important as these individual

And

relationships—perhaps

m o r e important—is that the library school f a c u l t y as a w h o l e " M u n n , Conditions

and Trends

" W h e e l e r , Progress and Problems

in Education in Education

for Librarianship, for Librarianship,

pp. 24-25. pp. 54-56.

400

TUF.

FACULTY

shall possess a b a c k g r o u n d of direct c o n t a c t and e x p e r i e n c e w i t h the d i f f e r e n t t y p e s of libraries and various kinds of lib r a r y w o r k to w h i c h the school's graduates m a y go. T h i s does not mean that a n y one instructor need continue his c o n t a c t w i t h all t y p e s of w o r k or of libraries, but rather that each of the m a j o r t y p e s be represented s o m e w h e r e on the

library

teaching staff. T h e extent and kind of professional experience in the b a c k g r o u n d of the f a c u l t y members of the t h i r t y - f o u r a c c r e d i t e d l i b r a r y schools is s h o w n in T a b l e 75. A l t o g e t h e r there h a v e been 508 library positions on a professional, ndniitiisrr.itivc, o r e x e c u t i v e level held b y the w h o l e g r o u p of 2 : 0 . T h i s is an a v e r a g e of a little m o r e than t w o such positions per staff m e m ber. A l t h o u g h the positions arc not divided e v e n l y a m o n g the m e m b e r s of the w h o l e f a c u l t y g r o u p , there is a f a i r l y even distribution of positions in the f a c u l t y g r o u p s of the t h i r t y - f o u r schools. Q u a n t i t a t i v e l y , it w o u l d seem that professional e x p e r i ence has p l a y e d a substantial role in the b a c k g r o u n d training of the present l i b r a r y school teaching personnel. O f m o r e i m p o r t a n c e to our inquiry arc the types of e x p e r i ence represented. T a b l e 75 s h o w s that at least 1 2 4 of the positions held, n e a r l y a f o u r t h , have been of an executive

or

administrative t y p e : that is, chief librarian in a municipal, c o l lege, university, o r school library. A n o t h e r

105 w e r e

ad-

ministrative posts in these libraries. A s s u m i n g that top positions p r o v i d e breadth of library experience m o r e q u i c k l y than d o others, the t y p e

of

professional

experience

reported

was

significant. A s to t y p e s of libraries, college, university, and research libraries f o r m e d the b a c k g r o u n d of professional experience in 43 percent of the cases, municipal public libraries in 28 p e r c e n t , and school libraries in 13 percent. Special libraries f u r nished o n l y 5 p e r c e n t of the professional experience, and state, c o u n t y , and regional libraries o n l y 2 percent. N o m e m b e r of

T A B L E 75 T Y P E S OF PROFESSIONAL POSITIONS PREVIOUSLY HELD BY F A C U L T Y MEMBERS IN ACCREDITED LIBRARY SCHOOLS BY T Y P E OF LIBRARY SCHOOL

TYPE OF SCHOOL IK 16) ///( 13)

/(5)

TYPE OF POSITION

No.

College or university library Chief librarian Other administrative job Professional staff

13 21 31

Municipal library Chief librarian Other administrative job Professional staff

4 11 21

%

No.

%

No.

36

44 28 25 33 24

%

57 59 88 22

34

%

40

43 16 13 24

10 28 43

TotaHU) No.

29 17 46 81

3 7 17

School library Librarian Professional staff

9 6

Special library

6

4

15

6

7

6

28

5

Federal, military, or war library

13

9

6

3

3

2

22

4

Research library or Library of Congress

6

4

6

3

1

1

13

3

7

3

5

4

12

2

5

9

4

2

2

19

4

100

237

100

122

100

508

100

10

State, county, or regional library Other library positions Total library positions

•

·

8

149

11 20 7

•

·

20

13 50 16

21 3

Teaching positions

11

20

20

51

Other nonlibrary positions

10

23

5

38

170

280

147

597

Total positions reported

402

THE

FACULTY

the faculties in T y p e I library schools was reported to have had any working experience in the library extension field. Although it is impossible to assign any mathematically exact ratios f o r representation on faculties to each of these major types of libraries, the figures furnish some warrant for the criticism directed at library schools by special library and library extension leaders that library school faculties do not have an adequate orientation or interest in these two fields. T h e criticism is also frequently heard that the library schools are oriented mainly toward college, university, and r e s e a r c h libraries. It is t r u e t h a t this t y p e o f institution

lias

furnished the working background of 43 percent of the members of the thirty-four library school faculty members as compared with 30 percent whose professional experience was in public libraries. T h e accent on college and university libraries was most marked in the faculties of the T y p e I schools; 48 percent of them have had experience in university or research libraries and only 24 percent in public libraries, all of the municipal type. But even such a difference leaves both fields liberally represented. T h e small percentage of faculty members having had experience in school libraries probably reflects the fact that most of the training for school library positions is done by library schools outside those formerly accredited by A L A . Exceptions to this are the T y p e III schools, which in some cases emphasize training for school positions and where, as is shown in Table 75, 20 percent of the experience background of their faculties has been in school libraries. Information was gathered b y the Inquiry as to the type of library position to which the 1948-49 library school graduates had gone. T h e distribution of the graduates in the different types of libraries is remarkably similar to the distribution among library types of the professional experience of the members of the library school faculties. Except for one type,

THE

FACULTY

4O3

the distributions are identical within three percentage points. The exception is school libraries, where 21 percent of the year's graduates were located, as compared with 13 percent for the faculty members. Of course, it cannot be concluded that the pattern of experience established for the faculty members of library schools imposes a similar pattern in the distribution of their graduates. It is more likely that both patterns are rough reflections of the amount of present demand for professionally trained library personnel on the part of different types of libraries. But the pattern, nevertheless, reveals a probable bias in the general training centers for librarians. Quite contrary to student-faculty ratios, academic and professional backgrounds as the indices of adequacy of library school teaching personnel are academic rank and salary, tenure, sabbatical, travel, and retirement provisions. These items are in one sense reflections of the status of the library school faculty members in the academic family. In another sense they measure the opportunity of the library school's instructional staff to pursue scholarly work under the favorable conditions of continuity, free time, and financial security. The most desirable distribution of academic ranks in a university faculty group is not one made up of full professors only. The practical optimum is rather a normal distribution of the whole group along the academic ladder so as to provide regular promotion from the bottom to the top grade on the basis of age and accomplishment. A reliable standard of distribution against which to measure the library school staffs was furnished by the A A U P study of the faculty members in fortytwo colleges and universities referred to above. The over-all average distribution of ranks there reported was: full professors, 30 percent; associate professors, 21 percent; assistant professors, 25 percent; instructors, 24 percent. ACADEMIC RANK

404

THE

FACULTY

T h e r e was some variation in these averages between different size groups, but the amount was not significant. T h e r e w e r e also some geographical differences. T h e Southern colleges, f o r example, showed a smaller percentage of full professors than the average f o r all the institutions. But in all the groups, as well as in the f o r t y - t w o institutions taken together, half, or a little more than half, of the f a c u l t y members were in the t w o higher grades, the full-professor rank usually being the largest single percentage of the f o u r ranks, and the t w o lower ranks each approximately accounting f o r one quarter of the whole group. Against this general standard w e can place the distribution of ranks among the f a c u l t y members of the accredited library schools as given in T a b l e 76. T A B L E 76 DISTRIBUTION OF FOUR MAJOR ACADEMIC RANKS AMONG FACULTY MEMBERS 0 OF ACCREDITED L I B R A R Y SCHOOLS BY T Y P E OF L I B R A R Y SCHOOL

RANK Full professor A s s o c i a t e professor A s s i s t a n t professor Instructor

/(5) % 27 22 33 18

TYPE OF SCHOOL 11(16) 111 (13) % % 11 12 29 31 29

32 29 27

Total (34) % 16 28 31 25

°The tabulation here includes part-time as well as full-time faculty members, but excludes deans, directors, and those outside the four major academic ranks.

In the library schools only 44 percent of the faculty members were in the t w o top ranks, as compared with the half or more in these ranks in colleges and universities of all sizes and regions among the f o r t y - t w o institutions. T h e group of full professors in the library schools was only slightly more than half the percentage in this rank f o r the f o r t y - t w o institutions;

THE

FACULTY

405

the proportion of instructors was about the same in both groups. T h e percentage of both associate and assistant professors was 6 to 7 percent more than the distribution furnishing the standard. T h e deviation from the standard established by the forty-two institutions is less in the distribution of ranks in the T y p e I schools which approximate the norm with 27 percent in the full-professor rank and nearly 50 percent in the two top ranks. On the other hand, the T y p e II and T y p e III schools deviated sharply from the norm, with only 11 and 12 percent, respectively, ranking as full professors. T h e comparisons made above are between the distribution of ranks in library school faculties in institutions of widely varying academic standards and a group of colleges and universities selected because they were reputed to have a good salary policy. It is a more relevant comparison to match the average distribution of ranks in the library schools and other professional schools in the same institutions. This has been done for the eight large universities. In these universities the over-all percentage distribution of academic ranks approximates closely the norms established by the distribution in the forty-two colleges and universities. But the distributions of ranks for different professional schools in the eight institutions show extremely wide variations. In the schools of law and of religion four fifths of the teaching personnel were in the two top ranks; more than half were full professors. In the schools of nursing, of social work, and of engineering, on the other hand, only 1 1 , 37, and 37 percent, respectively, were in the two upper ranks. In the other professional schools, architecture, business, education, journalism, and librarianship, the distribution was nearly fifty-fifty between the two upper and the t w o lower ranks. T h e library schools with 47 percent in the t w o upper ranks were below, but not far below, the average f o r this middle group. Tabulations for the four academic ranks only fail to bring to light one important fact about the distribution of teaching

4o6

t h e

f a c u l t y

personnel in the professional schools which appeared in the returns from the eight universities. This is the sizable group of staff members employed as associates, assistants, lecturers, and having other special titles. Personnel in these auxiliary grades constituted a quarter to nearly half the total instructional staff in eight of the ten professional schools represented in these universities. In the eight library schools, however, they constituted only 1 1 percent of the total teaching force. A s in a majority of cases those bearing the auxiliary titles do not equal in salary or in status the four professional ranks, actually the comparison with regard to distribution of academic ranks is more favorable to the library schools than is revealed by comparisons limited to the four traditional ranks. Comparing the distribution of academic ranks today with those in the earliest years of library schools is even more encouraging. In 1921 Williamson found that in library schools attached to universities, as well as in those attached to libraries, "with f e w exceptions everyone on the staff, except the director, ranks as an instructor and has only the salary of an instructor." 12 Comparisons with 1936, however, indicate very little if any improvement in the succeeding twelve years. Wilson gathered the figures for all the faculty members of that year, including deans and directors as well as associates, assistants, and lecturers. His totals compared with the figures for 1948-49, excluding administrative officers, show practically identical percentages in the full-professor rank and in the two upper ranks. In one respect, however, there has been some improvement. In 1936 there were seven schools with no full-time full professors and three others with neither full-time full professors nor associate professors. 13 B y 1948-49 the number of "Williamson, Training for Library Service, pp. 42-44, 71-73. "Wilson, "The American Library School Today," pp. 230-33.

THE

FACULTY

407

institutions without full and associate professors on full-time status had been reduced to three. It seems evident from all the comparisons that in general the thirty-four library schools in 1948-49 were below the average of academic institutions of high standing in the percentage distribution of the higher faculty ranks and slightly below the average of professional schools in this respect. Actually, the T y p e I library schools are fully equal to the general standard, especially if the smaller numbers of people employed in auxiliary grades by library schools is taken into account. It is obvious, also, that over the years the average number of faculty members of library schools has been moving up the ladder of academic rank. Certainly library schools are not likely in the foreseeable future to pile up full professorships as have schools of law and of religion. But a shift of only 5 to 10 percent of the teaching personnel to the two higher ranks would put library schools on an equality in this matter with colleges, universities, and professional schools of good standing. SALARIES In library schools faculty salaries are obviously important as indices of the ability of these schools to compete successfully with academic departments and with libraries themselves for the best available personnel. In the long run, then, and with qualifications as to noneconomic motives which attract people to or repel them from teaching and research careers, the levels and range of instructional salaries indicate the adequacy of the teaching personnel in library schools. A s in the case of other criteria, comparisons of faculty salaries have been made available between types of library schools themselves, between the library schools and the fortytwo selected colleges and universities, between the library schools and the other professional schools in eight larger universities, and between library schools in 1948-49 and those in

4O8

THE

FACULTY

t w o earlier periods. Salary figures f r o m the Inquiry's sample of

professional librarians in public libraries have

provided

some comparisons, also, b e t w e e n the salaries of library school teachers and those of public librarians. T a b l e 77 gives the distribution of f a c u l t y salaries in the t h i r t y - f o u r accredited library schools in

1948-49. F o r the

w h o l e g r o u p the average salary w a s $4,272; the median w a s $4,240. T h e range of salaries w a s f r o m p a y m e n t of $700 f o r part-time services to $10,500 f o r a full professorship. W i t h i n the w h o l e g r o u p there is considerable variation bet w e e n the levels and frequencies in the T y p e I schools c o m pared w i t h T y p e II and III schools; the median f o r T y p e I schools is approximately $1,500 higher than f o r the other t w o t y p e s . A s might be expected, there are even greater differences b e t w e e n individual schools in the g r o u p of t h i r t y - f o u r w i t h regard to the medians and range of salaries. T a b l e 77 also reveals considerable variation b e t w e e n men and w o m e n

faculty

members of the library schools

with

regard to range o f salaries and median salaries. T h e over-all d i f f e r e n c e in the t w o medians is approximately $1,700. T h e distribution s h o w s that about 70 percent of the w o m e n rec e i v e less than $4,500; about 70 percent of the m e n receive more

than

that

amount.

No

women

faculty

member

in

1948-49 received as m u c h as $7,000; one fifth of the men ( 2 8 ) in that y e a r received salaries of that amount or more. It w a s noted in C h a p t e r 5 that public library professional salaries also s h o w a difference b e t w e e n the average salary of m e n and that of w o m e n . But there the differential, $290 bet w e e n the t w o medians, is m u c h less than in the library school f a c u l t y salaries. T h e median salary f o r library school teachers as a w h o l e in 1948-49 w a s nearly $2,000 higher than f o r the professional librarians in the Inquiry sample (see C h a p t e r 5 ) . F u r t h e r m o r e , a larger proportion of library school teachers w e r e in the

T A B L E 77 S A L A R I E S OF F A C U L T Y M E M B E R S 0 IN A C C R E D I T E D L I B R A R Y SCHOOLS, 1948-49, B Y T Y P E OF SCHOOL

ANNUAL SALr y P £ OF SCHOOL ARY, EXCLUDING Totoi (34) I (5) II (16) HI (13) SUMMER Total (59) Total (100) Totali 47) Men{ 76) Women(\Vi) SESSION No. No. No. No. No. < 1 0 , 0 0 0 - 10,500

3

9 , 5 0 0 - 9,999

1

9 , 0 0 0 - 9,499

3

8,500-8,999

1

8 , 0 0 0 - 8,499

1

1

7,500-7,999

4

2

7,000 - 7,499

3

1

6,500-6,999

2

6

6 , 0 0 0 - 6,499

6

6

5,500-5,999

3

5,000-5,499

·

.· •

·

•

·

No.

3

3

1

2

2

•

.

3

3

•

.

1

1

2

2

6

6

4

4

•

·

.·

7

1

8

2

6

8

14

5

2

5

5

10

8

2

8

10

8

18

4,500-4,999

8

9

2

5

14

19

4,000-4,499

5

12

8

1

24

25

3,500-3,999

2

14

7

3

20

23

3,000-3,499

1

13

4

2

16

18

10

6

4

12

16

2,500-2,999

a

•

Total(206)

•

·

•

·

2,000 - 2,499

1

4

1

2

4

6

Under 2,000

7

15

6

10

18

28

15,345

13,785