A generalist in the age of specialists: a profile of the one-person library director - The Library Director

THIS STUDY FOCUSES on defining the role of the one-person library director in public, academic, and special libraries. Some literature exists on the management of one-person libraries, but little research exists on the directors themselves. A profile survey of sixty-seven such directors reveals the career paths which led these individuals to one-person librarianship. Additional results provide data on education and training, staffing, issues of concern, job satisfaction, and demographic characteristics.

INTRODUCTION

Perhaps no term more aptly describes the one-person library director than the British acronym for such an individual--an OMB, the one-man band (St. Clair & Williamson, 1986, p. 2). The picture this brings to mind is an accurate reflection of a one-person library director--i. e., one individual who does it all. A one-person library is usually defined as one where all the work is performed by the librarian. A more specific definition, and one that more accurately fits the profile of this study, is that of the Special Libraries Association (SLA). SLA defines the solo librarian as "the isolated librarian or information provider...who has no professional peers within the immediate organization" (St. Clair & Berner, 1991, p. 4). However, the accepted terminology in library literature is one-person library. For the purposes of this study, the term one-person library director is interpreted as the one professional librarian within the organization. There is a broad range of responsibilities within this scope. The work of the one-person librarian may be limited to professional duties with support staff, students, or volunteers available to handle clerical duties, or the individual may literally do all the work. The official title of the one-person librarian varies greatly. They may be called director, head librarian, university librarian, coordinator, or simply the librarian, but they all direct the work of the organization and are responsible for its operation. The libraries these individuals manage include all types with the majority, as might be expected, holding positions in special libraries and in school libraries. However, academic libraries and public libraries have their share of one-person library directors. The Federal State Cooperative System for Public Library Data in 1988 reported that only about 10 percent of U.S. libraries serve populations of 50,000 or more. Nearly half (45.6 percent) serve populations of less than 5,000 (Berry, 1990, p. 6). Texas, for example, has one-person library directors operating approximately 280 public libraries and twentyfive academic libraries (Texas Public Library Statistics, 1991; Texas State Library, 1992). The library training and educational backgrounds of the individuals who manage one-person libraries range from M.L.S. degree professionals to information providers with no formal training. Of the 280 public libraries mentioned, fifty-five of those have directors with an ALA-accredited M.L.S. degree. The remaining 225 one-person library professionals are identified as librarians as opposed to "other paid staff." The profile study will shed more light on the educational background these individuals bring to their role as one-person library directors.

LITERATURE REVIEW

There does not appear to be a great deal of research in the area of one-person librarianship. For example, research conducted on First Search (WorldCat) yielded over 900 titles on the subject of small libraries, but only six of these dealt specifically with the one-person library. While much of the information concerning small libraries may overlap and can be useful in the area of research under review here, still about 85 percent of the titles deal with the "how-to" of small library operations. Virtually no research exists on the librarians who direct these operations.

Articlelst (First Search) produced twenty-eight articles on small libraries. Again, the majority of these records are limited to management issues, advice to small libraries, descriptions of programs, and other similar topics.

The ERIC database yielded 912 records under the heading of small libraries. Those that deal with one-person librarianship in this body of materials are scarce.

In all searches using keyword or subject searching under one-person libraries, one-professional libraries, and similar components of the phrase yielded few results. It is necessary to look at the larger body of records under the heading small libraries. How well does the term small libraries serve one-person librarianship? One might ask what specifically defines a small library? There are obvious criteria that serve to define such an organization--size of staff, population served, budget, or size of the collection. In perception, however, what is large in one particular state might be considered small in another (Reed, 1991, p. vii). For purposes of research, the body of work dealing with small libraries is currently the most useful available on the topic but is limited in that the major topic is management of such institutions, and very little deals with the directors who manage these organizations.