As time goes by…: revisiting fundamentals - The Library and Undergraduate Education

Library Trends, Fall, 1995 by David K. Kohl

As it has grown up, instruction has tended to find its home in reference departments, often as a kind of stepchild. Two important changes need to be made: 1. Instruction needs to be seen as the primary means by which the library

provides intellectual access to the collection and other information

resources provided by the library.

Reference and information desk services continue to be important but as rather specialized add-ons to the basic instruction function. We need to switch the place of reference and instruction, with instruction seen as the primary means of providing intellectual access to the collection. Expensive highly trained reference librarians can provide the frosting but not the basic cake. 2. Instruction services need to be located in their own department and

reporting as highly as possible within the library organization.

My experience has been that it is very difficult for the instruction program to be taken seriously within the reference context. There are not only substantial philosophical differences in how adequate intellectual access is provided, but the shortages and stresses on the reference department make it difficult to staff adequately, support, and develop a new program which appears to be cannibalizing the more traditional one. Instruction programs cannot adequately or fully develop as "little sisters"--they need a room of their own.

Reporting as highly as possible within the library organization is not to give the instruction unit "unfair" advantage within the library but is rather an organizational necessity given the university or college environment. Such reporting is an acknowledgment of the importance of upper-level library administration's helping to smooth and facilitate the path of instruction outside the library with the traditional teaching faculty and the nonlibrary administrative organization. It is difficult for library instructional staff to have access to the necessary forums, opportunities, resources, and information without upper-level library administrative help.

FOCUSING ON THE SELF-SUFFICIENT USER

Another one of the problems of "just growing up" is that it is possible for an important value to become a shibboleth--i.e., it continues to evoke religious veneration even when carried to an inappropxiate extreme. This has happened with service. We have become so focused on service, or our particular definition of it, that we have come close to losing our way.

The legitimate concern to provide good point-of-need service at the reference desk has led us too far in the direction of creating dependent users. Although this author is convinced it is not their intention, the concern of reference librarians to personally mediate access to information has led them to create environments which not only encourage, but at times require, dependency on the part of patrons.

The classic example of this orientation is the organization of reference areas. Although libraries have spent a great deal of time and money classifying library materials in an organized and effective manner, reference units invariably regroup the reference materials in ways that improve the efficiency of, and convenience for, the reference staff but which totally mystify most patrons.