The Mission of the Normal School and
Teachers College in the Training of
School Librarians

C. P. BABER, M. A.,

KANSAS STATE TEACHERS COLLEGE, EMPORIA, KANSAS
T has come about, in this day, that training for
school librarianship is as distinctly a formal
educational process as is training for school
teaching.

Library work in schools will probably continue, for some time, to go forward on the as

sumption that class assignments will be pre

☎ pared through the consultation of large varieties of books on the library shelves. But we are taking much for granted. The future in educational processes may spring some huge surprises at any time. Radio and the screen may come to play so vital a part as to necessitate a revolutionizing of methods in classroom and library.

However, as the present tendency is toward an increasing emphasis upon general collateral reading and a corresponding decrease in the importance of the text-book in lesson preparation, it seems safe, as yet, to attack the problem in a manner suggested by this trend.

Some of the most obvious reasons for the need of teaching library science courses in normal schools and teachers colleges lie in the purpose of library science, the enormous bulk of print, and the rapid increase and development of school libraries.

Today the purpose of library science is not to lead the student to know the literature of a given subject but to know where the sources of the literature of that subject may be found. In remote ages a ripe scholarship encompassed, to a fairly complete degree, the content of all fields of knowledge.

With the present diversified and highly developed branches of learning it is nothing less than absurd that the librarian should set himself up as having a greater grasp upon the literature of a given subject than the specialist in that particular field. The librarian can, and should, however, be a specialist in the art of orderly processes in the search for the sources which produce the literature of knowledge in whatever field. The teacher, therefore, possessed of a knowledge of library science, has greatly multiplied his power of discovering the full literature of his chosen field.

A second obvious reason why the student in a teachers college (who is, in the nature of the case, a potential teacher) needs a knowledge of library science is found in the fact that the ever-increasing volume of print greatly complicates the task of selecting the really worthwhile literature on any subject. Library science tends to develop in the student a certain skill in differentiating between the spurious and the genuine, between propaganda and truth.

The third reason inheres in the rapid spread of school libraries. With libraries multiplying in our secondary schools and with the method of instruction shifting from textbook to collateral readings, the need for the teacher in training to include library science is obvious enough. In the teachers college with which I am connected library science is considered so vital a part of the prospective teacher's education that an elementary course in library methods is required of every student before he can receive a certificate or a degree from the institution. Many other normal schools and teachers colleges provide at least such an elementary course and in some of them, as in my own, the course is compulsory.

While the importance of such elementary training in library science cannot be too strongly emphasized, its value, at most, reaches but little, if any, beyond the mere preparation of the student to more intelligently use the resources of

the library in the pursuance of his own studies during his college career. By the addition of certain other library science courses the student not only gains materially in effectiveness in the pursuit of his own studies but also receives enough enlightenment in library work to give some degree of organization to the library activities of the school in which he becomes a faculty member. He is thus enabled to become a teacher-librarian, giving his main attention to the field in which his teaching lies, but prepared, "on the side," to bring order out of chaos in the library of his school. And a school library is invariably chaotic until it is taken in hand by a person who has had some training in library science.

I believe I may be justified in making the dogmatic statement that whether the school librarian is to be a full librarian or only a teacher-librarian, the proper and the logical place for him to receive his library science training is in the normal school or teachers college. My reason for speaking so positively on this point is that the library schools conducted by agencies other than teachers colleges commonly either place the chief emphasis upon certain phases of the profession foreign to the needs of school libraries or devote a large part of their curriculum to a more highly elaborate treatment of technical subjects than could be applied with reasonable practicability to a school library situation.

The prospective school librarian by taking his library science training in a teachers college gets a thorough knowledge of how to relate his library information to school work, how to make it fit into a teacher's work, as everything in a teachers college is steeped in the atmosphere of teaching, and the student in training for school librarianship is thus familiarized with school problems of every sort.

While I believe that the teachers college is by all odds the best and most logical place for a student to receive training looking toward a position as school librarian, I believe also that the teachers college can find no justification in establish

ing library courses designed to train for any other type of librarianship.

It is my conviction that no teachers college has any business to set about to train librarians for general positions. Even the best teachers college is not properly equipped for such a venture. Its resources are too meagre. Its facilities

are inadequate. Other types of colleges are better fitted for such a project. In training for librarianship the teachers college will wisely confine itself to the field of the school library. And in doing so it will have a field large enough for the exercise of all of its abilities in library training. The demand for school librarians is increasing so rapidly that the regular library schools are helpless to meet it. In the existing library schools there may be some danger of over-production for the filling of general library positions, but there is certainly no immediate prospect of producing an over supply of school librarians, as the need in this particular field is so overwhelming.

The extent to which normal schools and teachers colleges should go into the business of offering library science courses is a question that needs consideration. Most of the smaller normal schools, even, could, and should, offer at least one elementary course for Freshmen, to prepare them to pursue their own college work more effectively. Many of the smaller normal schools and teachers colleges have facilities that would permit their giving courses designed to prepare certain of their number for positions as teacher-librarians. But it would seem most unwise for any but a particularly strong teachers college to attempt to prepare persons for positions as fulltime school librarians.

A variety of reasons could be given to show that no teachers college should attempt a one-year curriculum in library science-nor, indeed, sufficient courses, even, for a majorunless it has resources of a very unusual character and unless it has a staff member having considerably higher professional

training than that of the average teachers college library staff member. If improperly trained staff members serve as instructors in library science their grade of work will be inferior and will fail to measure up in quality to that done by instructors in other subjects. This will produce two pernicious results, namely, a lowering of the dignity and importance of library science as a subject alongside other subjects in the college curriculum, and the sending out of school librarians who will be looked down upon by the other members of the faculty in the schools with which they connect themselves.

The school librarian of the past has commonly been given a rank and salary decidedly lower than that of a teacher; often because of the former's lack of educational background. If the library profession, as it relates to our schools, is to be lifted to a plane of equality with the teaching profession, the school librarian must have professional training that is equivalent to the academic preparation of the teacher. He will then deserve equal rank and salary with the teacher-and he will get it.

The recent broadside, "The Model High School Library," which the A. L. A. Committee on Education is asking the A. L. A. Council to approve, specifies college graduation and a library science course of from one semester to a full academic year in an accredited library school as the necessary training of the librarian. Another broadside entitled "What Constitutes Effective School Library Service" (approved by both the A. L. A. Committee on Education and by the Board of Education for Librarianship) states that the library is so essential an element in the present-day school that expert librarianship is imperative, and specifies college graduation and one-half to one year of library science in an accredited library school as the needed preparation.

The school librarian should have all of the pedagogical training of the teacher-plus a thorough library school training. And if his preparation is to reach this high level he