KimBoo York: Text Technologist

“Evidence shows that the MLS Project has been costly, has created confusion outside librarianship and polarization within, and has met some but not all of its objectives. The same complaints from librarians about recognition are made decade after decade…” (p. 136)

Here Swigger gets to the question all of us want to answer, but it is important that this chapter comes last. Everyone wants to give our two cents about what needs to be done, but without the solid grounding provided by Swigger of the history and outcomes of the MLS Project, most of us should just shut up. Including me, because honestly, my early ideas about solutions proved to be neither unique nor exceptionally helpful in light of Swigger’s analysis.

Swiggers gives four very different but realistic options for addressing the status of the MLS Project:

• Continuation of the present system, with some fine tuning of curriculum;
• Separation of library education from information science education though creation of new accrediting agencies for master’s degrees;
• Recognition of bachelor’s degrees, either in lieu of or in addition to accreditation of master’s degrees;
• Development of multiple models for professional training (e.g. certification/licensing).

I think anyone who has been watching the debate about these issues as it filters through blogs online will recognize each of these options as having been put on the table at one point or another.

The first one, continuation of the present system, is summed up Swigger with a nicely turned phrase:  “…there is no reason to expect different outcomes as long as one keeps on doing the same things.” (p.138)

The second solution, which is to essentially strip out “information science” from “library science” would be costly and, more importantly, confusing. The current atmosphere of uncertainty about how either field is defined, much less whether they are indeed separate fields at all, makes this option the opposite of a solution. It would, in fact, probably compound all the existing problems.

However Swigger does end his discussion of this option with an intriguing concept: “Recognition of IS undergraduate degrees as legitimate credentials for entry-level librarians would go far to enhance the difference between librarianship and information science and to clarify the nature of each.” (p.140)  I’m not entirely sure I agree with that, but then, my own personal view is that librarianship is actually under the umbrella of information science, not the reverse.

My personal favorite solution is the third, which is to reinstate a bachelor’s level track of education that would create entry-level professionals and para-professionals in the field, while still allowing for a terminal master’s degree for those who want to pursue either an academic or managerial track in the field. Swigger makes a very strong argument for this, based on the idea that “form should follow function,” that is, the education should be geared towards the actual work graduates will do.

Sadly, the “disadvantages” of this option that Swigger lists boil down to territorialism and mutual distrust by the schools, a shying away of responsibility by the ALA, and both a sense of entitlement and a fear of status loss by ALA members who hold an MLS/MLIS (these are not random accusations, as Swigger backs these statements up with facts quite effectively). In short, the reasons not to implement this very sensible solution are petty in the extreme. Very disappointing.

The fourth option, “multiple models of professional training,” essentially refers to relying on certification and licensing of individual librarians as opposed to the accreditation of schools. Swigger spends several pages on this, discussing as an example how school librarians/media specialists are one sub-group of librarians for whom an MLS is not always required, as different states/school boards have certification requirements that do not include the applicant possessing an MLS, but rather passing a test and possessing a master’s degree in any field. While this isn’t a bad suggestion (Swigger clearly likes it a lot) I only see a monumental amount of bureaucracy and confusion. Certification isn’t a bad idea for specialized sub-fields, but I think that Swigger does not make a strong enough argument for it to serve as replacement for the MLS Project model.

Finally, Swigger states that while the MLS Project was in no way a success in that it did not meet the desired outcomes envisioned by those who implemented it, it is not really a failure, either. It was simply an attempt to solve a problem that didn’t work really well. It’s time for information science professionals to admit that, and look for new solutions.

To close this series off, I’d like to quote Swigger from his final recap. I think this statement clearly addresses both the problems with the MLS Project as it stands and how we can resolve them, if we are willing to accept some change and responsibility:

“Each option described above rests on its own principle, but the principle underlying the general proposition that there should be multiple models for preparation for library work is simply this: organizations and institutions that survive are those that adapt to circumstance rather than attempting to force their will on the world.” (p.148)

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“In [MLS advocates’] approach to professionalism, they have confused two issues: whether librarianship is a profession, which is a factual question, and whether it ought to be a profession, which is a question of values.” (p.107)

This is the chapter I made the most notes about, because I’m something of a theory whore. So bear with me. Or skip it, honestly I won’t mind. However it does make for some interesting food for thought.

The core problem with the MLS, as described here, is that the issue of professionalism was reduced to a “trait model”, that is, “the method for an occupation to become accepted as a profession is to acquire the traits of the recognized professions.” (p.116)

Swigger does a lot to back up this argument. His analysis of the faults of the trait model go on for a few pages, but the most informative aspect of his argument is that applying an ideal type as a recipe (“lawyers have degrees; lawyers are professionals; therefore professionals have degrees”) is a recipe for disaster. He also discusses the symbiotic relationship of librarians to libraries (can you have librarians without libraries? It is a valid question given the digital revolution, but it is also valid in regards to defining what a librarian’s job is at a more theoretical level). As Swigger points out, “the issues of libraries’ roles in the future are ultimately ideological issues, not technological ones” (p.113), despite appearances.

This in turn gives rise to the next argument that Swigger makes, which is that the problem with “using the trait model as a checklist is that the social need addressed by an occupation or profession may change substantially.” (p.115) No kidding.

There is a very powerful paragraph on page 117 that starts, “The MLS Project experienced difficulties in developing a library science…” and is addressing the utter lack of a sophisticated body of knowledge and theory within the field. There is theory, I will grant you, but sophisticated? Not so much, in my experience. I found much more complex and deep theory of information studies in the humanities courses I took (in connection with the History of Text Technology certificate offered via the English Department). Swigger poses the question of why we are not asking “What is beautiful librarianship?” which is something I’m not sure has been seriously addressed since Ranganathan.

Page 117 also has an important comparison of librarianship to law, profession to profession, and why it is pretty much a given that the two will never be seen equally in terms of prestige and status. Swigger does not mention, as I have brought up previously, the fact that librarianship has been viewed historically as a feminized profession, whereas law has always been the provenance of the social elite (middle to upper class white men, for the most part). I still feel this is a critical issue to address openly if we are going to attempt to identify Information Studies as a professional profession; are we simply trying to ape the masculinized ideal of what a professional is or are we willing to try to retrofit what a valid “profession” is to librarianship as it stands? That is, instead of running from the “Marion Librarian” stereotype as fast and hard as possible (as the MLS Project was designed to do) are we going to fight to hold up our feminized history as its own valid model of professionalism? (I would like to point out that Marion the Librarian was the hero of the musical, smarter than pretty much everyone around her, better read, better educated, and held herself to a very high level of professionalism in her career…the fact that she was a soprano was incidental).

The rest of the chapter delves into two other “models of professions”: “power” and “jurisdiction”, which are both important but too complex for me to recap here in a meaningful way. However one thing that got me thinking is that for the public to recognize librarianship as a profession, we as professionals would have to be viewed as solving an important problem. Most people today, especially in the Google era, see no problems with information searching or wrangling because most of those problems are “behind the scenes,” so to speak. If anything, the digital age is ushering a new era of invisibility for information professionals.

I’ll finish this part of the series with two quotes that encapsulate the issue as Swigger sees it, and as I feel it truly stands:

• “The concept of professionalism in the MLS project was flawed because it focused on the characteristics and rewards of librarians rather than on the needs of clients or the kinds of expertise required to serve them.” (p. 126)
• “The question ‘Is librarianship a profession?’ is unproductive. A more important question is ‘What are the functions of libraries as social instruments?’…until librarians can answer the question of function without rhetorical flourishes, more complex questions and answers will perplex them.” (p.129)

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Here Swigger breaks down his negative analysis of the outcomes assessment of the MLS Project:

• Recognition of the MLS as a prestige/status degree of higher learning and competencies: By focusing all efforts at the master’s degree level, the ALA and other proponents of the MLS overlooked the crucial necessity of undergraduate-level (entry level) training. With no where to get that kind of training, the MLS became the defacto dumping ground for those courses: “The MLS is not only an entry-level degree to the profession, but the courses are also entry level to library science.” (p.95)
• Technological ignorance: “A major unforeseen consequence of the MLS project is that is rendered library education inadequate in scope to deal with preparing librarians for the information technology revolution.” (p.96)
• A caste system: “The economic and status gains of those who have accredited degrees have been accompanies by a sharp declines in the status and pay of library technicians, yet it is not clear that the work itself is different.” (p.97)
• Inconsistency and confusion: “The MLS project sought to achieve status for librarians without clarifying their roles except through credentials. The persistent problem is how to define the role of librarians, if it is different from the support staff.” (p.98) Here Swigger also addresses the insidious rise of “knowledge workers” in the corporate world, the information wranglers behind such behemoths as Google and Amazon, who are often practicing information science at very high levels of expertise without any sort of relationship to the library (information studies) profession.

Swigger ends the chapter with the statement that librarians themselves are at the root of the problems. I pretty much agree with him down the line, particularly as my own graduation date draws ever nearer. I remember vividly the conversation with one of my peers who stated that he simply wanted to work in the industry, not go back to school, and that if the MLIS program we were both enrolled in had proven to be “difficult and demanding like other mater’s programs” he would not have bothered to pursue it. Quite frankly his opinion is not a minority one, in my experience.

If this is the expectation we have of our own professional training, then yes, we are the root of the problem.

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 “Instead of the progressive training in librarianship envisioned in 1948, with technical courses at the undergraduate level and professional courses at the master’s level, the master’s programs now carry the full burden of instruction in both skills and principles of librarianship.” (p.71)

I would take that further to say that most students I talk to, and my own observations, view the MLIS program as nothing more than a vo-tech style introduction to the profession. To be perfectly frank, that makes a mockery of the whole institution of master’s degrees, which are perceived as upper level education at a more complex level than what is offered at the undergraduate level. Ironically, this means that we are perpetuating our own problems in regards to a lack of professional prestige and status by the very institution we hoped would solve those problems: the MLS degree. It is viewed by other academics as a “lesser” degree, and even within our own profession it is seen mostly as a “union card” gateway to professional advancement. Talk to any practicing librarian, and most will admit that even if they learned some important things about information studies in grad school, they did not need an MLS/MLIS in order to do the job they are doing. This indicates that over the course of the last 50 years the MLS Project has become exactly what it set out to dispel.

This relates to what Swigger breaks down as a difference between theory and competencies. As it stands, most MLS programs float somewhere in the middle, doing neither very well. The theory has been shoved aside for the sake of competencies, for the most part. The result, as Swigger describes it, is that “there is a paucity of theory to describe the relationships between the roles, functions, and activities of libraries and other social institutions, or the relationship between libraries and individuals.” This is reflected in a recent blog post “What IS a library?” http://librarianbyday.net/2011/11/19/what-is-a-library/ by Bobbi Newman concerning the difficulty of describing what a library is these days, which applies just as well to what a librarian is, which is really is hard to describe, without getting so esoteric as to be nonsensical. Compare to professions such as law or medicine: a lawyer practices law, and a medical doctor practices medicine. Even a scientist in the most esoteric branches can usually get away with a distillation of their profession, such as astrophysicist or anthropologist.

What have we got?

Chapter five also delves into the thornier, and still very unresolved issue, of what the name of our profession actually is. Library Science? Library Studies? Information Studies? Information Science? There are turf wars and rubric wars going on here that have as much to do with the changing nature of the profession due to the digital revolution as much as it does with not having a good definition to start with.

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Chapters 3 (Librarians’ Standing: Status, Prestige, and Income) and 4 (Recruitment of New Librarians):

“The goal of improved standing involved an enhancement of rewards and the regard in which society holds librarians, as well as improved standing in relation to particular groups, specifically the library workers not regarded as real librarians and the professionals among whome they sought to be regarded as peers.” (p. 23)

Chapter three throws some statistics against an observation that most MLIS professionals are already aware of: that librarians “have not been particularly successful in advancing their status compared to that of the professionals with whom they would like to be peers.” (p. 28) It was about this point in the book that I began to wonder about the whole MLS Project, and thinking that it was misguided from the start. If the goal of better education is to improve status, as compared to improving the profession, it seems doomed to fail (this is revisited in Chapter . Particularly in regards to more academically rigorous professions such as law and medicine and science, creating an MLS degree program for the sake of creating an MLS degree program was counterproductive. It is one thing to demand recognition for the profession, and wholly another to stand around for fifty years patting ourselves on the back.

Chapter four continues throwing statistics at the MLS Projects outcomes assessment in regards to professional recruitment. Like most of the facts Swigger presents, these numbers show that while the MLS Project had a mildly positive effect, it was far from the expected (hoped for) outcome, and could possibly be explained by factors that have nothing to do with the MLS Project.

These two chapters really served up notice of where Swigger takes his argument, and while they are short (as is the whole book) they are well researched and difficult to argue. Swigger makes the important statement here that “recruitment, image, and characteristics of librarians are interrelated topics” in his discussion of the popular image of the librarian and our insecurities about that image. It has become a feedback loop that gets reinforced with every new class of MLIS students, an argument that furthers my conclusion that we are our own worst enemies.

But then, I was attracted to the information studies profession because of my perception of the “librarian image,” which was iconoclastic, intelligent, culturally fringe, creative, and independent. Which gets back, then, to the idea of whether the MLS Project was trying to create a new image for library science as opposed to capitalize on the one it already had. While the old “Marion” stereotype (from the character Marion in the musical The Music Man) is lamented, perhaps we would have been better served by making her our heroic champion. Of course, the difficulty with that was (and is) that Marion was a woman; from the start, the MLS Project was clearly defined by a desire by male library professionals to bring their career out of the “female ghetto” of librarianship.

I’m not suggesting that the MLS Project was a tool of the patriarchy on purpose but rather that the social mores of the era it grew out of, which was the mid-20^th century, were very sexist and tied to traditional aspirations of success. Sexism was intrinsic to the values of society at the time, and “woman’s work” was a genuine slur. It might be that the MLS Project should be reframed in gender terms, not in order to place blame on one gender or the other but to critically analyze whether it was doomed from the start.

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