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The Library Schools and a Historical Dilemma

The Library Schools and a Historical Dilemma When the Library Association decided ten years ago that greatly extended facilities for fulltime training should form part of the programme of postwar library development, few of the people concerned could have been expected to foresee what has now become one of the major problems in education for librarianship in Great Britain. It is indeed possible that it was not foreseen by anyone at all. Roy Stokes has reminded us in his article in the Library Association Record, January 1954, that there was not a single British librarian in 1945 with any experience in the management of a fulltime agency for professional training. Nor is there evidence of any consultation with similar agencies in those countries, the United States and Denmark for example, in which fulltime training had for long been recognised as the only adequate form of preparation for professional librarianship. It was in these rather strange circumstances that the nine new schools were founded between 1946 and 1950. In the eyes of the Library Association Council and the profession at large they were simply training agencies within the longestablished framework of the Association's examination and registration system a system which had developed over a period of sixty years against a background of apprenticetype training, with little intellectual content to the work, and a confused pattern of methods of preparationprivate study, parttime classes, summer schools, weekend courses, correspondence tuition. This system had operated reasonably well, without claiming to be anything more than mere technical training, because the Association's exclusive control over both syllabus and examinations ensured reasonable standards of national certification. All candidates, whatever their background, practical experience or method of preparation, had to submit themselves to the one series of tests. That in the minds of many was all that mattered and, despite the greatly changed circumstances brought about by the establishment of nine fulltime professional schools, there are still many who think it is all that matters today. Which brings us to what has been called the historical dilemma of professional education, the problem of relating fulltime training for a profession with what is expected of the products of it by those who examine them and those who employ them. In this connection let us also remember that at present hardly any of the examiners and only a small minority of the chief librarians concerned have themselves had any personal experience of fulltime professional training. Time is on the side of the schools here but there may still be many years of frustration and misunderstanding which will cause most distress to the most important person of all, the student who is on the road to professional qualification. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Library Review Emerald Publishing

The Library Schools and a Historical Dilemma

HARRISON, J.C.
Library Review , Volume 15 (3): 5 – Mar 1, 1955
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Publisher
Emerald Publishing
Copyright
Copyright © Emerald Group Publishing Limited
ISSN
0024-2535
DOI
10.1108/eb012239
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Abstract

When the Library Association decided ten years ago that greatly extended facilities for fulltime training should form part of the programme of postwar library development, few of the people concerned could have been expected to foresee what has now become one of the major problems in education for librarianship in Great Britain. It is indeed possible that it was not foreseen by anyone at all. Roy Stokes has reminded us in his article in the Library Association Record, January 1954, that there was not a single British librarian in 1945 with any experience in the management of a fulltime agency for professional training. Nor is there evidence of any consultation with similar agencies in those countries, the United States and Denmark for example, in which fulltime training had for long been recognised as the only adequate form of preparation for professional librarianship. It was in these rather strange circumstances that the nine new schools were founded between 1946 and 1950. In the eyes of the Library Association Council and the profession at large they were simply training agencies within the longestablished framework of the Association's examination and registration system a system which had developed over a period of sixty years against a background of apprenticetype training, with little intellectual content to the work, and a confused pattern of methods of preparationprivate study, parttime classes, summer schools, weekend courses, correspondence tuition. This system had operated reasonably well, without claiming to be anything more than mere technical training, because the Association's exclusive control over both syllabus and examinations ensured reasonable standards of national certification. All candidates, whatever their background, practical experience or method of preparation, had to submit themselves to the one series of tests. That in the minds of many was all that mattered and, despite the greatly changed circumstances brought about by the establishment of nine fulltime professional schools, there are still many who think it is all that matters today. Which brings us to what has been called the historical dilemma of professional education, the problem of relating fulltime training for a profession with what is expected of the products of it by those who examine them and those who employ them. In this connection let us also remember that at present hardly any of the examiners and only a small minority of the chief librarians concerned have themselves had any personal experience of fulltime professional training. Time is on the side of the schools here but there may still be many years of frustration and misunderstanding which will cause most distress to the most important person of all, the student who is on the road to professional qualification.

Journal

Library Review – Emerald Publishing

Published: Mar 1, 1955

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