Refreshingly original thoughts on academic librarianship

Since I began Library School last fall, as well as my job as the Reference and Instruction Department graduate assistant at a university library, I have developed mixed feelings about the direction of libraries as a whole. There is such a tension in the field right now between those who are rallying for change and technological innovation, always lobbying for the use of the latest technologies and trends, and those who are determined to keep things "the way they used to be." Aka, formal, "old-fashioned", and what I sometimes perceive to be exceedingly uptight. I predominantly have identified myself with the former group, excited about change and making the library relevant. But I must admit, the library rhetoric of "change" and "innovation" has become very cliche, very quickly. Web 2.0, Social Networking, and Virtual Reference have become buzzwords that those in the library field hear no less than 50 times a day.

Furthermore, I have been rather skeptical of new library marketing initiatives, like setting up "librarian-information-booths" around campus, so we can answer a whopping 1 question over the span of two hours. It's not the lack of questions that most frustrates me, but this seemingly superficial attempt to dumb down the scholarly pursuit, by spoon-feeding the students; they no longer even have to take the effort to walk into the library building. How will they ever learn that true learning requires hardwork, sacrifice, and dedication? Not so long as we are doing silly things like doorstep information delivery.

I suppose that at some universities, many even many, the libraries are struggling to survive. Maybe these desperate attempts to market the library really are necessary for the library to maintain visibility within the academic community. Isn't this lack of reliance on the library a reflection of the importance of the scholarly pursuit as a whole? I suppose that I am just opening a pandora's box of university politics of which I am too young and naive to know much about, but it seems that if the university has a clear goal to provide students with a liberal education, using the library resources will necessarily follow; setting up carnival-like booths around campus will not be necessary. Rather, the use of the library will be an expectation ingrained in the educational mission of the university.

I recently came across a book about academic librarianship with some strikingly refreshing perspectives on academic libraries and information literacy. While I haven't yet finished the entire book, I have found some of the chapters incredibly enlightening and thought-provoking.
It's called "Musings, Meanderings, and Monsters, too: Essays on Academic Librarianship," edited by Martin H. Raish.


While I found lots that was interesting, I found the following most thought-provoking:

• In the essay "Information Literacy As Liberal Education," Douglas M. Stehle questions some of the "entertainment" style approaches to information literacy education. He proposes:

"Information literacy strikes me as nothing more than the librarian's deep passion for liberal education."

Hmm...you probably haven't heard it stated like that any time recently. Furthermore, he says,

"Librarians introduce students to collections that provide and even embody the liberal quest of knowledge. The library and it's collections are the greatest assemblage of parts, and a whole greater than those parts that together provide for liberal education awareness and it's development of the openly critical spirit alluded to by Matthew Arnold. I believe that we can reach more students through collection marketing than through instruction programs to accomplish this."

• Another favorite of mine was "Place and Space" by Barbara Fister, in which she argues for the importance of the library as a physical, contained space and cautions against a complete reliance on the seemingly boundless, spaceless electronic libraries. She says,

"Being oriented to a place gives us confidence because we are rooted in personal, sensory, experience. It is ours in a way that isn't until we have been able to relate it to our experiences in some fundemental way...The library, as a physical place, is small enough that it can be experienced and mapped...the coordinates established through the experience of a library, then, can orient the explorer heading out into the unknown. "

Fascinating, I say, and worth mulling over.