The Australian Library Journal

The well-worn path

Mary Carroll

Any investigation of the origins of education for the library industry brings to the surface old conflicts, issues and controversies. In these we can see the origins of many of the debates that surround education for libraries today and to travel along the path with those who were present in the early establishment of library education to search for answers.

Manuscript requested February 2002

This is a refereed article

One of the key dilemmas that has faced the library industry since the introduction of accredited tertiary/VET education has been the degree to which the two sectors of library employment converge. That there is convergence has been evident even in the early years. In 1981 John Levett wrote:

...there is a zone of activities in which both the professional and the paraprofessional operate: it is the width of this zone which will be of continuing interest... (Levett 1981 p48)

And indeed it has been of continuing interest, not only in the workplace but also in the area of education and training. To do this area real justice requires an extensive analysis of historical developments, and contextualisation of these developments against a broad industrial, societal and education landscape, a task well beyond the scope of this article. Some of the key issues can however still be raised for our examination and reflection.

To take up these issues is to sense that you are following a well-worn path.

They are not new. The many threads that make up the debate surrounding the educational and professional spectrum have been discussed almost continuously since the advent of education for the library industry began in a formal institutional sense early in the 20th century. It does seem particularly pertinent however, in the new millennium, to take stock of where we now are with these issues, particularly in the light of the realigning of educational outcomes that has occurred in the education sector both for librarianship and library technician education over the last ten years.

It is almost with a sense of embarrassment that I follow this well-worn path, yet the fact that these issues continue to be raised over time only lends weight to the view that problems associated with task and role definition for library staff and education for the industry have not so far been resolved. This in turn leads to many other questions, but most broadly: Why not? The answer to this is not simple and in the Australian context many of the issues are closely aligned to broader historical, political and educational backdrops which are reflected in the nature of education, training and employment in Australian society generally. That these issues are pervasive and exist across a broad spectrum of professional disciplines is evident in Goozee's comment that:

Throughout its history there has been a conflict between technical education and the other sectors of education, particularly universities, about what has been an appropriate role.(Goozee 1993, p7)

Nor is lack of resolution of these issues due to lack of will or effort on the part of all those concerned in the industry in Australia. Much thought, debate, time and effort have gone into constructing paradigms and structures within which the library industry can operate. And the debate has continued.

In addition, beyond the particular Australian context there are themes dealing with the nature of the library profession that appear to be universal, and which persist. These include: the degree to which librarianship is a profession; the level of education needed to be a librarian; the changing focus of training/teaching for libraries and the vocational/educational divide.

Broadly speaking debate falls into two main themes. These are: the nature and content of education for library work; and the role and tasks performed by the various groups employed in the industry. In essence, education: and employment, and how these are aligned. These two spheres are the mirror image of each other yet the sub-themes that exist in each indicate how complex and how problematic resolution may be.

As Peggy Johnson wrote of the American context:

The roles of professionals and paraprofessionals seem clearly differentiated if we use abstract definitions. The problems become apparent when we try and apply these abstractions to the concrete reality of today's working library (Johnson 1996 p80)

Ideally a close relationship should exist between the nature of education for an industry, its educators and the practitioners. This is particularly true for industry training in the VET sector because of the strong emphasis placed on industry experience both for students and staff within these programs. VET sector training has a clearly established role to educate for industry. This has become an increasingly dominant theme that has seen 'the industrial relations and needs of industry becoming the driving forces in the 1990s.' (Goozee 1993 p11)

These issues have been problematic for the higher education sector as it has grappled with a need to establish to what degree it should be responsive to, and reflective of, the apparent desires of the industries it educates for. A constant theme in university education today is the debate surrounding a perceived drift from a generalist focus to preoccupation with the needs of industry and specific vocational issues. One consequence of this shift is that vocational and university education enter into a grey area contested by both. This is particularly difficult for librarianship with its long-established association between professional bodies and their role in the establishment and continuation of courses in the academy and the vocational/practical roots of the profession itself.

Education
Since the introduction of institutional education for the library industry clear distinctions have been drawn (theoretically) between the nature of the education of library technicians and that of librarians. However, these distinctions are based on a number of premises that do not stand up to examination which is indicative of the problems mentioned by Johnson previously. For librarians these are:

• librarians working in libraries today have consistent or similar levels of education including at least an undergraduate degree in librarianship.
• in receiving that education librarians were taught the same things and perceived their role and task in the same way.
• what librarians learned was fundamentally different to that which library technicians needed to learn.
• librarians needed to be educated to perform different tasks from the technician as their work would always be different.
• librarians would have an understanding of the pedagogy and history of their industry.
• that librarians have a clearly articulated and well defined concept of the nature of their professional standing and what it entails.

For technicians it was assumed that:

• they would not have an undergraduate or postgraduate degree.
• they would not need to manage a library.
• they would have no need for contextual education as their work would be supervised (by librarians) and routine.
• library technicians qualifications would be recognised in all sectors of employment.
• they would never be asked to perform the same duties as librarians.

For both groups:

• that those outside the industry would understand the nature of their roles and the differences between them.
• that the tasks they would perform would largely remain static.
• that each sector would have a clear understanding of the nature of the other's work.
• that the nature of their education would reflect the nature of work they found themselves doing.
• those educating for the two sectors would be different from each other in qualifications and experience and thus bring a different experience to their students.

In fact, very few, if any of these basic assumptions hold up to scrutiny. Is it any wonder then that the industry still needs to come to terms with nature of its workers and the work they do?

Many of the reasons for the weakness of these assumptions would appear to lie with the historical development of education and training for the library industry and in the nature of the industry itself; not least in an underlying uncertainty and lack of confidence at the academic level about the professional nature of librarianship. This has its roots in the very foundations of education for librarianship in this country and elsewhere where early professionals were trained not in the university but as 'apprentices'. Even foundation educators such as Melvil Dewey and Keyes Metcalfe saw library education as a 'systematic apprenticeship program on the trades model' (Wilson and Hermonson 1998 p2) or as a 'purely technical course, coming after the general education has been completed' (Wilson and Hermonson 1998 p5).

Further, most undergraduate courses in librarianship in Australia have their beginnings in the technical colleges and colleges of advanced education which have (largely by default) become part of the university sector through the removal of the two-tier tertiary education system by John Dawkins. A short survey of the original institutional contexts for library education in Australia illustrates this. These included; RMIT, Ballarat Institute of Advanced Education, QIT, SAIT, Riverina CAE and WAIT. This reflects a model which Goozee saw as a pattern for many technical courses:

The history of technical education in NSW in particular, is one where the top levels of technical education are continually creamed off by higher education institutions and subsequently upgraded to degrees, usually at the request of the relevant professional body. (Goozee1993 p7)

Outside the professional circle, librarianship was not initially seen as an appropriate field for university education. Two illustrations: the University of Melbourne's refusal to establish a chair of librarianship to be funded by the Myer Foundation in 1964 (Bryan 1971 p15); and the Martin report which in part said 'An undergraduate university course in librarianship could be arranged but it is doubtful whether the study of the subject is appropriate for a first degree' (Bryan 1971 p16). So negative was this report that Bryan believed that it not only subdued the call for the establishment of university-based schools of librarianship but 'tempered the enthusiasm for the idea of schools [of librarianship] in any kind of institution of tertiary education' (Bryan 1971 p16).

To add to the array of opinions on the nature of the profession at this time much debate occurred about the preferred sectoral context for courses in librarianship, that is the original preference for university schools or the then newly available option of CAEs. Inherent in this debate was discussion surrounding the concept of post-matriculation versus post-graduate qualifications as the preferred options; these sentiments still resonate in the debates surrounding the profession today. Against this bubbling mix of conflicting options, opinions and preferences we see the establishment of the first library technician course in Australia at the Whitehorse College of TAFE under the leadership of Wes Young.

Responsibility for these debates cannot lie solely with higher education. In 1976 at a conference to establish guidelines for the education of library technicians the keynote address was given by Noel Watkins, the then assistant director of TAFE in Victoria. It is interesting to note that in this keynote address Watkins felt it necessary to note that he saw: 'evidence to suggest to me that which I think is the essential nature of middle level education courses in danger of being lost in a sea of academic drift'. (Watkins, 1976 p5)

Even more strongly: 'There is a very real danger that the objectives of library technicians' courses, vis-à-vis the objectives of the professional courses, are going to be confused and intermingled.' (Watkins, 1976 p5). Another observation of interest is that library technician courses are often taught by librarians or teacher-librarians, not technicians. What impact does this have on the focus of material taught in courses and the way it is presented? Often these trainers are in fact experienced educators with a professional interest in providing more than training and value context and depth of understanding in the skills they teach. What impact does this have on the nature and form of the learning process? These issues train the focus on what is happening in the VET sector.

Discussion provides a window to the more complex and universal themes which have underpinned this debate historically, including such concepts as the nature of professionalism and librarianship's status. Abbot points out that librarianship is often regarded in sociological circles as a 'semi-profession' whose members cannot call on 'knowledge as esoteric as law and medicine' (1998 p5). Can librarians clearly call on the wisdom of their 'Dead Germans' (Ostler 1995), that is, their philosophers and visionaries when defining what they do and what are the basic tenets of their professions? Or has the:

Oscillating debate, several decades long, about the proper nature of graduate education: should it be practical or theoretical, should it be training statesmen or scholars, humanistic bookmen or information scientists' (Wilson and Hermanson 1998)

so consumed the profession that it can no longer define itself (or perhaps has moved beyond definition) as a single entity to what Richardson predicted about the possible future of librarianship:

...I believe we will see significant areas of librarianship fragmented off and taken over by professionals of a different name, though in fact they may do no more than practice librarianship as we believe it to be. (Richardson 1971 p18)

Issues such as 'librarianship versus information science', the concept of librarian versus information/knowledge manager, and even the use of the term 'library' in our library schools all go to the heart of the issues surrounding the definition of the profession, not in task-related terms but in terms of its philosophy and sense of being. One needs to have a clear sense of a profession to be able to draw distinctions between it and para-professionals. Have we got this sense? This is vital not just for the profession but also for the para-professional: 'Unfortunately, librarians also influence the library technician programs by having poor control of their own profession' (Davidson-Arnott & Key 1998). Are in fact these distinctions relevant, practical and viable in the current climate?

The educational context we now find ourselves in suggests that there appears to have been an unacknowledged shift in the distinctions we draw between the nature of educational outcomes for librarianship and training for library technicians. This is a shift that appears to have occurred largely undebated in the literature of the profession and certainly not amongst the VET sector educators who find themselves implementing national agendas largely unconsulted, nor, for reasons which require examination, contributing to the debate. If we look at the literature of the early 1970s and 1980s we can see a strong relationship between the two sectors with library technician educators contributing to the development and definition of their programs and having strong bonds with their higher education counterparts and the professional association. Does this still exist?

In the past library technicians and librarians were seen to have complementary but distinct career paths. This informed the foundation principles of VET sector training - to

Produce paraprofessional staff who supported professional librarians in the provision of information services. It was to be generalist, vocational and terminal, rather than a pre-professional program.(Smeaton 1983 p35)

and the training to be 'terminal courses preparing their students for a separate and distinct career structure' (Radford 1977 p147) or as Levett was to state: 'The library technicians courses should be complete vocational courses and not introductions to a professional course.' (Levett 1981 p48) Does anyone believe this anymore, or as in the United States do we believe '…that roles and responsibilities of professional librarians and support staff are on the same continuum with para-professionals moving ever towards the professional side...' (Johnson 1996 p280)

With the advent of training packages and competency-based training it would appear that we now have a continuum of incremental stages leading to a professional qualification so that the library technician would appear to be in effect a 'low level' librarian. We speak in terms of competency levels developing from the initial Certificate II through to Advanced Diplomas with later competencies overlapping with those of the tertiary sector.

Are both sectors of education for the library industry (as was asserted at the recent Hobart technicians conference 'preparing workers for entry into the same profession at different levels'? (Sanders 2001) This would bring to reality the warning given by Noel Watkins, assistant director of TAFE Victoria, in 1976:

There is a very real danger that the objectives of library technicians' courses, vis-a-vis the objectives of the professional courses, are going to be confused and intermingled...(Watkins 1976 p5)

And Levett who was to say:

...librarianship has the potential to produce considerable conflict in this regard given the wide range of paraprofessional duties conceded by the LAA... (Levett p50)

If it is now the case that these distinctions have disappeared do we need to continue to draw them between professional and para-professional education? Does this mean that all sectors of the education community are in fact learning/teaching the same skills but at different levels so that no unique set of skills exists? Can the professional level be said to 'exercise exclusive control over the knowledge base of a field' which Christine believed was the 'hallmark of a profession' (Christine 1974 p201)?

Training packages and national accreditation have meant that the VET sector of library education has a reasonable degree of coherence nationally. There are those who would seek to lay any blame for confusion over roles at the feet of those involved in the training of library technicians (or who would in fact dispute the need for its existence at all). Yet the vision and parameters of this sector have, at least within the TAFE colleges, been clearly defined and have a long history based on established and key principles which underpin vocational education.

These include: education for the individual rather than to meet the manpower needs of industry; availability to all; flexibility in access and delivery and that the vocations have an integrity in their own right (Watkins 1976 pp4-5) There is also a clearly articulated set of outcomes and a national expectation of quality. Can the professional level of education demonstrate the same level of national coherence?

What are the national philosophical underpinnings that drive education for professional level librarians and is there a common pedagogy regarding the nature of the profession, what it entails and its principles and focus? Does this defy institutional and national boundaries because it is understood to be the cornerstone upon which the profession is built? Or has education for librarianship become so attenuated and fragmented that no clear or unified pedagogy is possible? One only has to look for the word 'library' when searching for information in this field to realise that even this defining point no longer exists: who then can claim exclusive control over the knowledge base?

Employment

Much thought was put into articulating and differentiating the nature of the tasks that librarians and library technicians would perform and the role each would undertake as evidenced by ALIA's Work level guidelines: Role and task description (1985). Much of this work of definition was undertaken by the professional body and does not appear to have been taken up in education for these two groups. It is only when these differences are clearly evidenced in our educational model and articulated to future practitioners that the nature of these distinctions can be fully appreciated.

Within the education and training process at both levels there needs to be discussion about the roles and expectations of both levels: if not, how can librarians and technicians really define their respective roles when they know so little of what the other does? Any formal documentation of task and roles however has always failed to take into account the actual nature of working libraries and the realities of staffing and operating them, and the cultivated ignorance especially amongst employers, regarding those distinctions that the industry has worked so hard to articulate. In one-person libraries the distinctions cannot be sustained because the lone librarian (or technician) must perform duties across the spectrum regardless of level of qualification. For the reality is, and always has been that many librarians and library technicians work in small or single-person libraries where the niceties in distinguishing between roles and tasks cannot apply.

Turning its back on these realities, the sector however seems determined to define itself largely in terms of the workplace as represented by large academic, state and national libraries. While these are important, and definition is clearly necessary, both in terms of the nature of education for these two groups of professionals, and in their employment, industry itself appears to have become confused about the level at which these groups will operate. We know that workers enter the industry with varying degrees of ability and skills and graduate librarians will often find themselves functioning in that grey area inhabited by both the professional and para-professional. What other profession allows its graduates to jointly inhabit this space? The doctor, lawyer, teacher?

These professions allow their newly qualified graduates little status or responsibility within the confines of the profession but they and their work are still clearly differentiated from that of the nurse, the clerk or the teacher's aide. There often appears to be an unspoken agreement in larger libraries that the graduate qualification requires augmentation in the form of an 'apprenticeship' served alongside often senior technicians and other more experienced librarians thus unwittingly reflecting the origins of education for the profession in the workplace itself.

How much awareness exists in the workplace regarding the steady increase in hours required for the technician to qualify? How many are aware that technicians study for two or more full-time-equivalent years often on top of significant employment experience, and other qualifications including, in many cases, a degree? Where then do we draw the lines in the sand?

The last few years have also seen the emergence of an increasingly active, vocal and professionally organised body of library technicians: it is involved not only in its own profession but is increasingly representing co-workers in relation to their education, industrial issues and professional development. This parallels the emergence of other similar groups overseas as educational, social and industrial imperatives have made it necessary to revisit old concerns and demarcations and perhaps to re-imagine solutions.

The last decade and particularly the last five years have presented many challenges to the industry. As we have changed and adapted to meet wider agendas in order to survive in a technological world and to redefine our position in a new information society those unresolved issues from the past now rise up to meet us demanding an answer so we can move forward along new paths rather than treading the one well worn.

Bibliography

Bryan, H (1972) 'A decade of change: The Library Association of Australia and education for librarianship 1961—71.' Australian Library Journal pp15-20.

Christine, E R (1974) 'Paraprofessionals: plague or promise.' Australian Academic and Research Libraries (December): pp201-205.

Davidson-Arnott, F and D Kay (1998) 'Library Technician programs: skill-oriented paraprofessional education.' Library trends 46 [3]: p540.

Goozee, G. (1993) The development of TAFE in Australia: an historical perspective. Leabrook, NCVER.

Johnson, P (1996) 'Managing change roles: professional and para-professional staff in libraries' Managing Change in Academic Libraries ed J J Branin, Hawthorn Press: pp79-99.

Levett, J (1981) 'Para-professional workers in four fields: a comparative study.' Australian Library Journal 30: pp47-54.

Ostler, L and T C Dahlin (1995). 'Library education: setting or rising sun?' Library Journal [7]: pp683-685.

Radford, N (1977) 'Redefining the LAA's role in education for librarianship.' Libraries in Society: 19th biennial conference of the Library Association of Australia, Hobart, LAA.

Richardson, W D (1971) 'Of the making of librarians.' The Australian Library Journal 20: pp16-20.

Sanders, Roy (2001) 'It seems like an odyssey: upgrading to a professional qualification' paper presented at the 11^th National Library Technicians Conference Hobart. Australian Library Journal, v51 no2, p153-159, http://conferences.alia.org.au/libtnat2001/papers/sanders.html

Smeaton, H (1983) 'Library technicians in Australia, past, present and future.' Australasian College Libraries 1 [1]: pp34-37.

Watkins Noel (1976). Guidelines for the education of library technicians. Melbourne Library course vocational standing committee

Wilson, A M (1998). 'Educating and training library practitioners: a comparative history with trends and recommendations.' Library Trends 46 [3]: p467

Biographical information

Mary Carroll has a background in teacher-librarianship, special education and reference work prior to her current employment at Victoria University teaching library studies. She is currently undertaking a PhD in Applied Science at Charles Sturt University in which she is examining the degree of curriculum overlap in the education of technicians and librarians.