Frederick Friend
12.1 Introduction
When Reg Carr began his career the role of a university librarian was reasonably clear. Admittedly the profession suffered then as it does now from poor public understanding of what a librarian does, but within a university many members of the academic community held library staff in respect and had clear ideas of what they expected from them. It is very unlikely that the academics who appointed Reg Carr to his first job would have expected his last role as a librarian to be that of a fund-raiser. This was the time of university growth in the 1960s, when taxpayer money was poured into universities in abundance and the task of a librarian was to spend money, not to acquire it. Likewise, in respect of my own career, which began in Manchester University Library around the same time as Reg’s career, nobody would have expected that my career would end in a role known mysteriously as “scholarly communication”. What has scholarly commu- nication to do with libraries? Has a librarian ceased to be a librarian when they become a fund-raiser or a scholarly communication consultant?
12.2 Learning Priorities in Manchester University Library
There were and are many types of jobs available within a library, and a librar- ian’s job description (usually verbal with only a general written statement in the 1960s) would vary according to their role and according to their position in what at that time was a fairly rigid hierarchy. Despite the rigid hierarchy there were opportunities for young librarians to gain a wide variety of experience in different roles, provided that they had the encouragement of the chief librarian.
Separate staff-rooms for academic-related and clerical staff were one mark of hierarchical distinction in some libraries. Two key features of a successful future career were available to be experienced in the situation at Manchester.
155
The first was the opportunity to gain managerial experience in one of the small departmental libraries, and the second was the understanding of the impor- tance of acquiring academically-rich special collections of rare books and manuscripts. Such collections make a huge difference to the value of a univer- sity library to the research community. Dr. Ratcliffe acquired many important collections during his time at Manchester, and it was very instructive for a young librarian to watch this process. Maybe this role will become less impor- tant in the internet age, when digitized manuscripts and books can be accessed from anywhere in the world, but the understanding of the research process which directed the acquisition of physical collections will still be important in the acquisition of virtual collections. Collecting the right “stuff ” always has been and always will be a vital skill for a librarian to acquire. (The use of the word “stuff ” to describe the variety of content needed in an academic library to feed the research process is attributed to Joseph Scott, Librarian of University College London, 1954–1982).
Work in Manchester University Library in the 1960s illustrated the expectations library users have from library services. University staff expected to come to the library building and to find the books journals and manuscripts they needed for their research on the library shelves. The role of the library staff was to acquire by purchase or donation the materials academic staff needed, to know enough about different academic subjects to be able to answer subject-related enquiries with a minimum of explanation by the reader, and to enable as many as possible of the items the reader needed to be taken to the reader’s office for as long as possible. If a dispute arose between a member of library staff and a member of academic staff it would generally be about some restriction placed upon the removal of a book from the library, a petty restriction to the reader but part of the custodial role for a librarian. In the days before electronic formats, the custodial role was very strong in the minds of librarians. Many books were stolen from libraries, and library staff were very aware of the number of occa- sions a reader looked for a book on the library shelves and found it was missing.
If this happened frequently a library would acquire a bad reputation and its ser- vice to readers current and future would be diminished.
For students, university library staff performed a more prosaic role, essentially to have a high proportion of the books on a student’s reading list waiting on the library shelves in time for the student to complete her or his essay on the last minute before the deadline. Once student numbers rose after World War 2 this expectation posed the challenge of purchasing multiple copies of student text- books, a challenge which required library staff to liaise closely with lecturers and obtain copies of reading lists in time for the books to be purchased and made available on the library shelves. The high turnover of books used by undergraduates also involved a librarian in decisions on loan periods and sanc- tions for the non-return of books on time. While there was a case for very lengthy loan periods for items required by researchers, undergraduate services demanded loan periods measured in days if not hours, combined with strict rules for non-return on time. Problems arose when an item required by under- graduates was borrowed by a member of academic staff, sometimes for their own use and sometimes to loan out unofficially to their own group of students.
It could be a daunting task for a young librarian to telephone a senior member of academic staff to request the return of a book required by an undergraduate.
In many university libraries fines were paid by students but not by members of academic staff, and a wise librarian would direct the income from fines into the purchase of more undergraduate textbooks. Many day-to-day situations tested a librarian’s commitment to service.
In some aspects administrative tidiness formed the best service a librarian could provide to library users. Keeping the books in good order on the shelves was a skill all library staff were taught from their first day in a library, and although many books went missing, it was usually when readers rather than librarians returned a book to the wrong place on the shelves – or at least that is a librarian’s view! Accuracy in record-keeping was also vital. In the days before libraries had computers, a card could easily be mis-filed in the catalogue (caus- ing a reader to think that a book was not in stock) or an issue slip could be mis- filed (causing the issue desk staff to think that a book was not on loan when it was). Cataloguing was one of the mysteries which a librarian learned and which marked out a “professional” librarian from one of the library’s “clerical” staff.
There was much that was pretentious about this system, but its benefit was in imparting the vital importance of accuracy in library services, an academic dis- cipline rather like learning Latin at school. Many is the catalogue card young librarians were asked to re-type by Manchester University Library’s Chief Cata- loguer because of the mis-spelling of an author’s name or the title of a book.
Accuracy in typing was not a skill young librarians expected to need when they started work in a library but acquiring that skill did none of us any harm. Cata- loguing was not without its lighter moments, as when at least one future library director mischievously joined in placing a card for a book written by a model involved in the Profumo sex scandal of the 1960s into the catalogue of Manches- ter University Library’s grand academic collections. Despite such youthful rebelliousness we learned a respect for the value of an accurate catalogue which is as important for digital catalogues as it was for card catalogues.
Both Reg Carr and I spent some time in Manchester’s departmental libraries.
This was a vital learning experience in which we could make mistakes without causing disruption to the services in the two largest libraries. In my case I remember ordering tables that were too large for the Social Sciences Library. In my zeal to fit in as many reader places as possible (this was a time of expansion in student numbers) I left so little space around the perimeter of the room that readers had to squeeze their way around the walls to reach a seat, an elementary mistake which made me much more careful in library planning later in my career. Whether Reg Carr made any such mistakes I do not know, but I am sure that experience at Manchester set a good course for his career as for mine.
12.3 Traditional Career Paths
The key to a successful career at the time was to move from one large research library to another large research library, staying long enough in one position to
make an impact upon library services but not so long as to become stale. The hierarchical structure of most academic libraries at the time allowed a progres- sion from Assistant Librarian to Sub-Librarian to Deputy Librarian to Librarian, but competition for promotion was strong and acquiring the right experience on the way was vital. Computers were beginning to appear in libraries for functions such as borrowing records or cataloguing, so gaining experience in evaluating different automated systems and installing them became part of librarian’s portfolio of expertise. There were also more mundane aspects of library automation to experience, as for example in the Brotherton Library at Leeds when the borrowing ticket reader jammed and had to be re-started with a gentle thump to the mechanism – a skill not taught at a school of librarianship.
12.4 The Librarian’s Responsibilities
All of the experience gained in various academic libraries was preparing us (although we did not realize it at the time) for the big day when we would be appointed to our first post of “Librarian” (as a “Library Director” was called until the 1990s). Although accumulating experience on the way was vital in making a success of the responsibility of being in charge, nothing could prepare us for the awareness that “the buck stops here” when decisions were being made on the future of library services. No new library director is left short of advice from members of her or his staff on what changes should be made, and there is a general expectation that changes will be made. A “honeymoon period” gener- ally allows time for a new library director to look and to listen, to form their own assessment of the situation, but the first two or three big decisions set the tone for the incumbency. It is very difficult to back-track or to change directions set in the first year in charge. In my first post as Librarian the priority was to intro- duce automation into the cataloguing system, and staff had to be persuaded to accept the OCLC system which was new to the UK at the time and which did not permit cataloguing to start until 3 p.m. because of the time difference with the United States. Risky though this decision may appear to have been, the OCLC cataloguing system is still used at the University of Essex (with normal working hours). In one sense earlier experience is preparation for such decisions, in learning what the priorities need to be, but in another sense nothing can prepare anybody for the responsibility.
Dealing with staffing issues also takes on a new dimension once “the buck stops here”. An awareness of employment legislation becomes vital, again something for which a course at a school of librarianship is no preparation. The University of Essex had a tradition of student militancy which fed through into awareness of the rights of members of university staff. When discussing changes to the duties of one group of staff, they even asked for a student leader to be present at the discussions. I accepted that request but it illustrates the delicacy with which a library director has to handle staffing situations. Libraries are team organiza- tions. Listening to work colleagues, meeting their legitimate concerns, and motivating the team to work together in the interests of library users is a vital
feature of a successful library service. The librarian needs to able to find the right combination of openness, firmness and fairness in order to make a success of relationships with work colleagues. This aspect of being a librarian is not something to be learned from a textbook but is part of the person himself or herself.
A library director has to look and to listen to what is happening outside the library as much as to what is happeninginsidethe library. Understanding what the institution’s priorities are is vital for library development. A library director’s diary is often full of meetings of university committees. The Library Committee is usually the formal body for determining library strategy, but a wise library director will already have picked up the right messages from conversations in the Senior Common Room. At times the messages may appear simplistic, such as
“open the library for longer hours”, and the library director may be tempted to reply with the problems, such as “security may be threatened”. The maxim “don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions” is, however, very important for a library director to bear in mind. At times academic colleagues do not understand the complexities of managing a large library, but their priorities are to be accepted and implemented if at all possible. In my experience the most difficult users to lis- ten to are students. They may be represented on a library committee but librari- ans often lack the more informal contact with students they have with academic staff. For many library directors, meetings outside the university have always been vital in enabling internal issues to be placed in the context of national and international developments. It surprises some to know how frequently a library director may travel. Reg Carr’s contribution to national and international librari- anship through bodies like JISC, CURL and RLG has been huge.
12.5 Changing Roles?
In recent years the librarian’s role at the Bodleian has been that of a fund-raiser, and this is a role which would not normally be thought of as the role of a librarian.
The role does, however, have its roots in the fundamental rationale for libraries and for librarians. A library exists to meet the information needs of its users. In order to meet those needs, adequate funds are needed for buildings, for staff, for collections, and for equipment. A library director needs to be skilled in fund- raising whether those funds come from within the university or from donors outside. All library directors have to make a case for the library’s budget, to persuade a university finance committee to allocate funds to the library when there are many other competing claims. Even when a library is funded adequately by a university, external funds are often needed to support special collections or special projects, for example when rare books are digitized to preserve the content. In the situation faced by a few libraries such as the Bodleian, external fund-raising acquires a higher priority than it would for an average university library, but fund-raising is a feature of modern librarianship.
Likewise today’s librarians cannot ignore the importance of scholarly commu- nication issues. The rise in journal prices well above inflation for many years
has changed libraries’ collection development policies, reducing the number of monographs purchased and concentrating journal purchasing into a small number of “big deals”. The systemic problems of which high price rises are a symptom have to be a concern of the library community as well as of the wider academic community. It is not for a librarian to tell an academic author how to disseminate their work, but it is a legitimate role for a librarian to make an author aware of the consequences of decisions that an author makes, for exam- ple the consequences for library users of restrictions resulting when an author signs away all rights to a publisher. Reg Carr’s time as Chair of JISC’s Scholarly Communication Group has been a time of increasing awareness of the impor- tance of such issues for the provision of information to university staff and students.
12.6 Conclusions
Weaving through all the new aspects of a librarian’s role, the traditional threads of service to library users and being part of an academic community can still be recognized. A library is a service organization. Changes are happening in the way library services are provided – and even more radical changes are to come – but the service priorities my generation learned are still relevant. Likewise the awareness of being part of an academic community that was such a feature of library life in Manchester and other major universities is still vital if a good service is to be provided to a librarian’s user community. Some of us may no longer be recognizable as librarians according to the public perception of what a librarian is and does, but however much our roles change we remain librarians at heart.