The Making of a Reference Librarian

Abstract

ALTHOUGH IT IS STILL a matter of dispute whether reference librarians can be "made" at all,' in fact a considerable enterprise-almost a small industry-has been devoted for nearly one hundred years to that purpose.In this article both the developments themselves (e.g., library school courses and teaching methods, continuing education, in-service training) and the views promulgated about such developments, actual and desired, from the 1880s through 1981, will be reviewed.The coverage is almost entirely limited to the United States and Canada and the emphasis is on education for reference work in conventional libraries as opposed to education for information services in the information science context.The separation is admittedly illogical but utililitarian; the latter aspect has too large a literature to be adequately treated in the space available and in any case it has already been well covered in a number of reviews.2 Education for Reference Work in Library Schools: The First Ninety YearsThe subject is worth pushing back to its very beginnings, if only because a persistent criticism of education for reference work has been that i t is slavishly adherent to its past.Thus Andrew Osborn complained that "the pattern for teaching reference work was established in the first library schools and we are still operating on the basis of the methods of those days."3

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