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Standards for Special Libraries Possibilities and Limitations Author(s): Leon Carnovsky Source: The Library Quarterly, Vol. 29, No. 3 (Jul., 1959), pp. 168-173 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4304895 . Accessed: 12/06/2014 13:47 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Library Quarterly. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 91.229.229.177 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 13:47:12 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Standards for Special Libraries Possibilities and Limitations

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Standards for Special Libraries Possibilities and LimitationsAuthor(s): Leon CarnovskySource: The Library Quarterly, Vol. 29, No. 3 (Jul., 1959), pp. 168-173Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4304895 .

Accessed: 12/06/2014 13:47

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

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The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to TheLibrary Quarterly.

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STANDARDS FOR SPECIAL LIBRARIES

POSSIBILITIES AND LIMITATIONS1

LEON CARNOVSKY

T HE title selected for this address involves a paradox. By their very nature special libraries are unique;

not only is an art library different from a business library, but one business li- brary differs widely from another busi- ness library. If it is unrealistic to apply public library standards to special li- braries, it is hardly less so to assign standards for one special library to an- other. For if the word "special" implies uniqueness, the word "standard" implies generality; hence the paradox.

Is there any way in which this para- dox may be resolved? Partially, I think, by expanding our conception of the spe- cial library, looking for elements that are common among them and framing standards to fit such elements; but this may result in standards so general as to be virtually meaningless. To illustrate: in spite of differences among special li- braries, one element common to all of them is books, but a standard stating that "all special libraries should have books" is not very helpful. Even in quali- fying this by saying "all special libraries should have the books they need," we are not doing much better. If there is a solution, it must lie in selecting elements common to all and in framing prescrip- tions or standards applicable to all, at least of the same general type. Each spe- cial library will still retain its unique characteristics, but it may be helped if some of its more general aspects were isolated and subjected to evaluation by

raising questions that are relevant to it. Let us then consider certain areas of li- brary operation and administration and in each case raise the question concern- ing the applicability of standards.

For the public library, standards were formulated in 1943 in nine areas: objec- tives, service, government and adminis- tration, size and area, book collection, technical processes, personnel, finance, and buildings. The 1956 new formula- tion, incorporated in Public Library Service to America,2 after a background section dealing with purpose, functions, and structure-all conceived in terms of large and comprehensive "systems"- presented guides and standards in struc- ture and government, service, materials, personnel, physical facilities, and organi- zation and control of materials. Because public libraries have so many elements in common, it was thought possible to draw up standards applicable in some degree to all of them; but even so it should be noted that the "standards" in many cases consist of little more than ideals or desirable goals, with some sug- gestions concerning means for their real- ization. In other words, the concept of "4standard" is used in the sense of desid- erata, what libraries ought to strive for, rather than in terms of measuring in- struments.

Though we tend to think of public libraries as a uniform group, this is true

' Paper read before the Business Division, Spe- cial Libraries Association, June 12, 1958.

2 American Library Association, Public Libraries Division, Public Library Service to America: A Guide to Evaluation with Minimum Standards (Chicago: American Library Association, 1956).

168

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STANDARDS FOR SPECIAL LIBRARIES 169

to only a limited extent, and, in fact, the differences are often more emphatic than the similarities among them. Standards to be applicable to all of them must be couched in the most general terms. The goal of "providing information," for ex- ample, applies to the New York Public as well as to the Middletown library; the implementation of the goal, involving matters of scope and intensity, differs significantly between the two-so sig- nificantly, in fact, that having a single objective to cover them both requires the broad and generalized formulation that we have.

Can a standard for library objectives be set for special libraries? Only if we frame one in similarly broad terms. We might say that the objective of all special libraries is to provide informa- tion, but this is too general to be very useful. On the one hand, it is terribly obvious; on the other, it gives us nothing by way of criteria that we can use in measurement. This is not to imply that special libraries should not have objec- tives; every library does, whether or not the objectives are codified. However, each one formulates its own specific ob- jectives, and the objectives of two special libraries-even of two business libraries -are not necessarily the same. Think, for example, of one serving a bank and another a mail-order house. Though many of their services and resources are identical, their differences are quite sharp. In short, the objectives and the means of achieving them are quite dis- tinct as between one library and another, and it is difficult to conceive of a single standard that will apply to all of them.

Let us now consider personnel. What can we learn from the American Library Association standards? Can we arrive at standards on the basis of special library experience? Standards on personnel are

usually conceived in two ways: the na- ture of personnel to be employed and the principles of personnel administration. Concerning the first, we usually begin with some all-embracing and obvious statement, emphasizing the point that the individual, by personality and com- petence, should be suited to his job. Many of the qualities listed are those that anyone ideally should have regard- less of the nature of his work; other qualities derive from the work itself. We need no standards to tell us that we should be intelligent, imaginative, friendly, and kind. Beyond this, and more specifically, library standards have attempted to spell out how successful librarians are made. Here the major components are ( 1 ) a well-balanced aca- demic education and (2) graduation from a library school. The assumption obviously is that a causal connection ex- ists between this type of preparation and competence on the job. This assumption has much to commend it on the basis of common sense and experience; it has been made the basis for numerous certi- fication plans and, more particularly, for hiring and classifying practices adopted by public and academic librar- ies throughout the country. Whatever shortcomings lie in the assumption are at- tributable to its generality-its failure to identify particular kinds of preparatory education as especially suitable to par- ticular kinds of library work. What, for example, do we mean by a well-balanced academic education? Surely it must mean something more than four years of college culminating in a degree. About the best we can say is that such educa- tion will contribute to intellectual devel- opment and that such an accomplish- ment is a firm asset in library work of whatever kind. As far as library-school training is concerned, we probably mean

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170 THE LIBRARY QUARTERLY

that such training furnishes the best means whereby librarianship can be mastered. Parenthetically, we may note that it is not only the public and aca- demic librarians who indorse this view; special librarians in considerable num- bers and of diverse kinds also subscribe to it. Many, however, do not. In the latter group will be found those who re- gard library training as irrelevant and unnecessary and others who complain about the limitations of library training, saying that it does not go far enough to prepare for special librarianship. The critics in the special library field, then, suggest either elimination of library training, on the one hand, or its exten- sion, on the other.

To revert to academic training, there probably would be general agreement concerning its indispensability to special library work. (I am referring, of course, to professional activities.) Beyond the prescription of the college degree, one might expect a requirement about fields of concentration: e.g., a major in busi- ness and economics for the potential business librarian, in art for the art li- brarian, in science for the chemical or scientific-research librarian. Even here one might question whether a person trained in some aspects of physical sci- ence, say, geology, has a particularly useful background for a position in a bio- logical library; or, in reverse, whether a trained bacteriologist would be properly trained for a library specializing in oil geology. Thus, it is doubtful whether, as a personnel standard, we could obtain agreement on anything more specific than a statement calling for college graduation plus concentration in a field closely related to the area represented by the special library.

It is the second aspect, however-li- brary-school training-that would bring

the sharpest disagreement. Let me say at once that I am by no means prepared to state that such training is so indis- pensable that it should be incorporated in a standard. "We all know of too many successful practitioners who have never attended a library school; we also know of library-school graduates who failed to qualify as special librarians. It is cer- tainly true that many aspects of bibliog- raphy, cataloging, and reference work taught in library schools have no bearing on special library work at all. We fre- quently say that the library school teaches principles that may later be ap- plied in any library-but I am not so sure. I wonder how much an indoctrina- tion in "principles of reference work" would help one to solve a reference prob- lem on, say, prospects for investment in Argentina. Whether courses in "special librarianship" to supplement the basic curriculum would prove significantly helpful, it is difficult to say. Many schools have, of course, added such courses, but the contribution to job per- formance remains pretty much un- known. This does not mean that library schools have nothing to contribute to special librarians; on the contrary, they do. But to urge that library-school train- ing be incorporated as a basic principle in a standard for special library person- nel seems to go too far. In general, the larger and more complex the special li- brary, the more it would be helped by a library-school product in certain aspects of its organization and operation; the smaller the library and the fewer de- mands made upon it, the less necessary is formal library training.

Principles of personnel administration have been well worked out in the area of management, and they are applicable in library management-at least in the management of larger libraries. Actual-

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STANDARDS FOR SPECIAL LIBRARIES 171

ly, some of these principles are matters of common sense, and to inflate them to apply to the operations of the typical library-whether public, academic, or special-is pretentious. Such principles as unity of management, small span of control, ease of communication, etc., are not burning needs in most libraries. Even such sensible devices as classification and pay plans do not seem highly impor- tant in a two- or three-man library.

As we know, principles of personnel administration have been elaborated in textbooks and monographs for many types of organization, both in govern- ment and in private industry; we also have them in librarianship. A good codi- fication appears in the Postwar Stand- ards for Public Libraries (1943),3 and though many of the principles seem re- mote from the actualities of special li- brary practice (as they do, in fact, from actualities of practice in many public libraries), they may serve as a useful point of departure in drawing up person- nel standards for special libraries. Such matters as appointment and promotion on the basis of merit; probationary peri- ods before permanent appointment; pro- visions for staff welfare; service ratings; in-service training; pension systems; and numerous others are not the sole prerogative of any one kind of library; they are applicable to all, and therefore they may be taken over, with suitable variations, by special libraries.

As already suggested, it is all but im- possible to say much about book-collec- tion standards that would transcend the fairly obvious. It would be foolish to say how many books any library should have or how many periodicals it should sub- scribe to. The statement that the collec-

tion "should be conceived as a living and changing organism, subject to the inevi- table processes of obsolescence, wear and tear, and loss" carries with it the implication that it be kept up to date and relevant to its users' needs; it also implies that out-of-date materials be eliminated. This statement is too sensi- ble to require justification, whether am plied to a public or a special library. But it does mean that continuous attention must be devoted to bibliographies, book reviews, and lists of publications; it means that the process of book selection is one of the most important duties that any library performs. (The word "book" is used to pertain to all materials; for many special libraries one might better substitute "periodicals," or "abstracts," or "pamphlets.") Similarly, "obsoles- cence") may require periodic review of vertical files to remove the superseded, the duplicates, or the inaccurate. Surely in the special business library, above all, the need for currency can hardly be overemphasized.

The special library, however, is rarely sufficient unto itself or to the organiza- tion it serves. Even if we grant the im- portance of immediacy in ferreting out the required information, the special li- brary will frequently find it necessary to call upon other libraries in its area- particularly the large public and univer- sity libraries-to supplement its own re- sources; and thanks to interlibrary loan, the facilities of countless libraries scat- tered throughout the country may be tapped for relevant materials. It is far more important to have a personnel alert and intelligent enough to range far afield in the search for material than it is to attempt to have everything immediately at one's fingertips.

Can standards be set for the organiza- tion of special library collections? Only

s Committee on Postwar Planning, Postwar Standards for Public Libraries, June 1942 (Chica- go: American Library Association, 1943).

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172 THE LIBRARY QUARTERLY

in the most general sense: we need or- ganization as a means to use. But the f orm of organization will surely differ as libraries and their needs differ. No single classification system is ideal for all; some libraries may find it preferable to forget conventional classification alto- gether and devise schemes of their own. Presumably every library should have a catalog as a guide to its holdings, but whether dictionary or classed, author or subject, can only be decided by the re- quirements of each library. The use of ready-made catalog cards, the employ- ment of Library of Congress subject headings, the maintenance of guides to vertical files, the construction of peri- odical indexes to supplement those com- mercially available-no one should pre- sume to tell any librarian what he ought to do in these respects. So we come back to the most general, common-sense formulations, leaving the particular ap- plication to the library itself.

Considerations of finance have pur- posely been left for the last. Financial standards in the public library field are perhaps better known than any others; surely no professional librarian is un- aware of the dollar per capita standard, later revised upward to permit greater flexibility in meaning and also to con- form to rising costs. Yet it is interesting to observe that in the recent reformu- lation of standards (in Public Library Service to America) finance is deliber- ately omitted. It makes its appearance as a supplement, and, when per capita figures are used, they are given no stat- ure as standards at all. We are told that the "supplement translates standard li- brary service into costs, at 1956 price levels," the figures valid for 1957 per- haps, but obsolete thereafter. The state- ment reads: "Beyond [1957], new cost figures must be used if financial planning

is to have any measure of reality." This approach to finance is I believe

entirely correct. It defines a concept of library service and then attempts to translate this concept into dollars. It says essentially this: Here it what li- brary service ought to be; achieving it will require so many employees, so many books, etc.; hiring these people and buy- ing these books will require so many dol- lars. Then, and only then, if you are interested in relating the resulting figure to population, you may do so, but the per capita is purely a derived figure and should not be considered a standard.

If this reasoning makes sense as ap- plied to public libraries, it is no less ap- plicable to special libraries. If anything, it applies with even greater force, for, as we have said, the essence of the special library is its uniqueness. How can we say that even two business libraries should cost the same when their programs, their collections, and their personnel vary so widely? The best we can do is clarify the particular program and then estimate what it costs-in salaries, materials, equipment, etc.

Can there be a standard for salaries? In other words, can we say what a special librarian ought to be paid? I do not see how we can. The basic salary determi- nants are what the employer is able and willing to pay for a desired service and what he is required to pay in order to hire the people he wants. This is affected by many factors-the availability of personnel, the attractiveness of working conditions, and the competitive position, that is, by the demands of other special libraries in the same or other areas, by the appeals of other kinds of libraries, and even by the relative attractiveness of other professions and spheres of activ- ity. Library salaries have gone up in re- cent years directly in response to such

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STANDARDS FOR SPECIAL LIBRARIES 173

factors. It is true that the decrease in the purchasing power of the dollar suggests that the increase may be more apparent than real; nevertheless, the increases have come about in response to social and economic forces, not to standard prescriptions.

I began by pointing out the paradox in attempting to create standards for special libraries, and this paper has con- sisted largely of developing this some- what negative theme. Instead of drop- ping the matter at that, I should like to suggest something of a more positive nature. Suppose we interpret the word "standard" not in the sense of supplying criteria or measuring instruments to test the quality of any library but rather in the sense of supplying principles, appli- cable to all libraries and therefore highly general, and leave it to the individual li- brary to apply to its own situation. To il- lustrate, I shall mention five broad prin- ciples, together with the questions they suggest for the librarian:

1. Each library should have the ma- terials necessary to supply the informa- tion required by the personnel of its parent institution. What kinds of infor- mation are currently needed? What books, periodicals, etc., provide such in- formation? How well supplied is my li- brary with such materials? Approxi- mately how much would it cost to get the materials not now held? Can a practi- cal scheme of priorities be developed for obtaining such materials?

2. Each library should have the per- sonnel necessary to collect and assimilate the information needed. What kind of personnel is needed-particularly, what abilities are required? What kind of edu- cational specialization is called for? Is library education necessary, or is it too

far removed from the realities of work in this particular library?

3. Each library should as far as pos- sible observe sound principles of person- nel administration. Is the work smoothly organized so that each staff member is aware of his responsibilities and his rela- tions to his colleagues? Are there provi- sions for comfortable working conditions (light, heat, etc.); retirement and pen- sions plans; opportunities for advance- ment and for increases in salary; decent wages in the light of living costs, etc.? Are opportunities provided for training on the job-either through in-service training or through taking courses, at- tending institutes, lectures, and the like? Is there a classification and pay plan? Is there a staff manual?

4. Each library should make use of materials available in other libraries. What other resources are locally (or regionally) available? To what extent may they be used for consultation, loan, or photographic reproduction?

5. Each library should be so organ- ized as to permit systematic location of desired information. Is the catalog up to date? Is it so constructed as to bring out the less obvious materials in the col- lection? Are the vertical files easy to use? Do they need pruning?

This is simply a beginning; many more may be suggested by special library experience. Whatever code of principles is set up, it is meaningless until it is interpreted in the light of individual li- brary requirements, and such interpre- tation ultimately must come from the librarian himself. The principles cannot tell you whether or not you have a good library, but they can suggest questions that might help a good library to become a better one.

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