Educating and training library practitioners: a comparative history with trends and recommendations - includes appendix on history of library education

In that the rhetoric in libraries has not caught up with actual practice, and given that in many, if not most, institutions delegation has been more ambivalent than complete, and given that the M.L.S. staff has not defined a clear role for itself, it is not surprising that there is a considerable blurring of roles in the eyes both of observers and of the staff itself. Generally speaking, personnel and compensation systems have not caught up (or caught on) either, leaving a fertile ground for resentment all around.

Support Staff Self-Awareness

A groundswell of self-awareness and identification with library work is implicit in much of the above discussion and references. The wide participation in the initially frustrating but ultimately very successful "Soaring to Excellence" teleconferences is further evidence. Much of the discussion, when support staff themselves are involved, has to do with adequate recognition. St. Lifer (1995) reports that "almost four of ten paraprofessionals working in public libraries say they don't get the recognition they deserve, while nearly half of those working in academic libraries say they feel the same way" (p. 30).

The Journal of Education for Library and Information Science devoted its Winter 1995 issue to "Educating Support Staff." In that issue, Ed Martinez (1995), in an article on encouraging support staff to write--to tell their story--reports that Library Mosaics, the magazine he edits for support staff, "is accused by librarians of serving no purpose, except to raise expectations and create problems for librarians and support staff" (p. 39). Given the existence of libsup-l, Library Mosaics, Soaring To Excellence, the Issue Papers arising from the World Book-ALA Goal Award Project on Library Support Staff (1991 b), the Web-based Library Support Staff Resource Center (1995), and the ubiquity of e-mail, we think it is too late for librarians to be worried that support staff will talk to each other.

Certification

Certification is applied to individuals as a social means of quality control among the practitioners of the certified occupation. Accreditation of educational programs serves much the same social purpose (in addition to protecting the aspirants). The two activities can be intertwined as, for example, in Washington State where certificates are issued to graduates of accredited M.L.S. programs without further examination. Certification for support staff emerged as Issue Paper # 1 of the World Book-ALA Goal Award Project on Library Support Staff (1991a). Many versions of certification are under consideration--national, local, government-run, association-run, voluntary, and involuntary. In our view, once support staff in general are found to want a certification mechanism, all the players in the library community should help it happen in such a way as to strengthen the community as a whole while providing all the benefits sought by those being certified.

Continuing Education

If we define continuing education as that which meets the educational needs of the library staff, the issue becomes one of institutional support and for whom. Who is assigned to leave the irregular duties to learn or be trained on a new piece of software? Who gets to go to conferences and workshops? Who gets leave or release time to work on a certificate or a degree? Who is encouraged to take internships at other institutions?