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[Forums Moderator]

Two librarians writing this week in The Chronicle take opposite positions about whether librarians need tenure. One says that librarians' academic freedom demands protection, just as professors' does, and that the status tenure conveys would help ensure that librarians' voices were heard in university decision-making. The other says that the service role of librarians makes academic-freedom protection unnecessary, and that tenure may work against a library's best interests by making some librarians resistant to change. What do you think?
Read more...
 * Yes, It's Crucial to Their Jobs
 * No, It Can Hamper Their Roles

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[Earl Lee, Pittsburg State]

It seems foolish to provide researchers with the protection of tenure while ignoring the people with responsibility for providing access to that information.  The recent scandal over the display of the Enola Gay at the Smithsonian proves that institutions often respond to pressure groups.

Certainly it seems foolish to pretend that librarians aren't under pressure to censor information.  Tenure provides some protection from the knee-jerk reactions of university administrators.

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[DanielD]

Librarians are part of the educational team.  They help students, faculty and staff find information.  Their students could be anyone from the newest freshman to the seasoned scholar.
They should have an option to seek tenure with comparable other academic faculty.

[Anon, Indiana U System]

In the IU system, librarians are eligible for tenure and tenure track.  The information on tenure can be found on many IU websites, and the process mirrors closely that of faculty.  

One starts out as Asst. Librarian, then Assoc, then Full, or however the "normal" progression goes.  One may be a visiting Asst. Librarian.

[Jenny Reiswig / UCSD]

I was really pleased to see the tenure issue on the front  page of the Chronicle today.   I work in an environment  where we have academic but not faculty status.  In our "sister" university system, librarians are full faculty and I can see  advantages and disadvantages of both.  

I would like to address one of the points that Deborah Carver made in her article, that librarians are not knowledge creators.  I believe that more librarians should be doing this.  This is an  information economy. We are seeing the library and its associated information landscape becoming a key frontier for academic research. Search behavior, metadata, digital archiving and preservation,
etc. - these are all areas in which librarians are qualified to do research, teach, and to publish.   We operate in a living incubator for these and many other information-related activities.   But the reality for many of us with positions outside the tenure system is that if we wish to engage in research, it must spill over into "spare time," so as not to take away from our densely-packed  work schedules.  I am aware of faculty researchers on my own campus in academic departments such as cognitive science, computer science, and pharmacology who are working in the information sphere.  While some of these faculty are in touch with people in our libraries, our  librarians don't really have the same kind of time to devote to this work, so it doesn't translate  into many opportunities to be co-investigators or authors.  But I don't believe that's indicative of  any lack of expertise or interest.  I believe it is in the long term interest of libraries to have librarians at research-oriented institutions being true participants in discovering, describing and really *thinking* about our future knowledge environment, not just staffing its virtual desk.  Maybe this can be achieved without tenure, but it requires a real shift in thinking about the nature of our work - and our workload.

[Joseph King]

I wrote this to Ms Carver with regard to her opinion.  I read your argument against faculty tenure and I disagree with your opinion.  I find it fallacious and unsubstantiated.  You speak of our not needing academic freedom and I can think of at least five cases where I was in danger of loosing my job for taking the stand I did and how tenure did and did not protect me.  

Two quick incidents that come to mind were when I was questioned by a patron at USC School of Medicine about a fatal disease she had.  I insisted that it was her right to know that information about the disease and that I had the academic freedom to inform her.  There was much debate and I told her and several months later I was denied continuing appointment and I have always felt that it was related to this incident.  I sponsor a gay and lesbian group on campus and several years ago, there was a series of attacks against students who were from the LGBT community.  I took a stand with them and some of them wanted to investigate S and M sexual literature which I provided.  There was a great deal of controversy but I took a stand based on the ALA Code of Ethics and my tenured status.  I have no doubt that without it; I would have been eventually removed.  I also saw a library director fired because she protected the right of academic freedom of allowing a book on childhood masturbation in the library because she supported academic freedom and in her own lectures she discussed subjects that put her of risk of loosing her job and she did.

At our college, we cannot participate in shared governance or embrace the stands on academic freedom that we take without it.  

Inherent in the very nature of our work as gatekeepers to information and knowledge is the right to instruct and to provide information that is not always popular.  I actually can’t think of a group who needs it more.

I can only think that your stand is based on the assumption that we have little to share with the world that how to look up a book.

[Kathryn C. Millis, DePauw U.]

Whether one believes librarians should be tenurable or not, Deborah Carver's reasons why we shouldn't make no sense.

Librarians need academic freedom _precisely because_ our jobs and our professional values call for us to create collections of widely diverse and controversial materials, including the unorthodox, unpopular, etc. The ALA Bill of Rights didn't stop a previous director from ordering me not to purchase material that dealt explicitly with sex, lest "someone" find them offensive. My professional responsibility is to order (over time) books that offend everyone. Why should I need protection any less than a mathematician or oboeist (who probably aren't all that controversial these days), or someone whose writings offend only a few?

(If Haworth Press decides after all to publish  Same-Sex Desire and Love in Greco-Roman Antiquity and in the Classical Tradition of the West, despite outcry from conservatives, will Carver feel 100% safe ordering copies for her library? Most librarians without tenure won't.)

The argument that few librarians do much original research, in part because most are required to work year round on other things is pointless. Job descriptions can easily be revised to expect (and provide time for) scholarship in and beyond librarianship. Regularly doing research (in any field) keeps us in touch with what it's like to be a scholar or a student, and must almost certainly make us better librarians.  One could just as easily give faculty members 11 month contracts, & lots of committee work to do, or point out that time spent publishing might (at non "research" institutions) take away from their core teaching responsibilities, then argue against giving them tenure too.

As Carver notes, libraries are undergoing rapid, unprecedented change. People are more likely to take risks if they know they're safe to act boldly. Tenure doesn't just protect classroom or scholarship activities, it protects those who express strong opinions in university governance, and all areas of intellectual freedom.

She notes that tenure helps universities recruit the "best and brightest" faculty. Do universities not also want the "best and brightest" librarians?

[Doris Van Kampen]

The opposing viewpoints of two librarians written in the Chronicle today, on whether librarians should get tenure, highlights a growing tension on academic campuses.

Should librarians be treated as full faculty members and provided with the same rights and privileges that other faculty members enjoy, such as full academic freedom (including that of free speech), research and writing release time, breaks, and academic collaboration with other teaching faculty, or should they be demied the chance to strive for tenure, and treated as support staff, rather than as professional, and faculty who are just as interested and vested in the future direction and growth of academe; conducting research, teaching classes, and contributing in other meaningful ways to the academic experience of students and scholars?

My answer is a resounding yes! Librarians are just as much faculty as "teaching" faculty are faculty; we also have terminal degrees, many of us with a second masters, or a doctorate; we also teach classes, both in the library and as adjuncts or as an overload; we also conduct research and contribute to the knowledge base; and we also need to be able to speak freely and passionately without worrying if our "annual contract" will be renewed.

Doris J. Van Kampen, M.A.(LIS) Ed.D.
Systems Librarian and Assistant Professor


  Jenny Reiswig / UCSD wrote:

> I was really pleased to see the tenure issue on the front  page
> of the Chronicle today.   I work in an environment  where we
> have academic but not faculty status.  In our "sister"
> university system, librarians are full faculty and I can see
> advantages and disadvantages of both.  
>
> I would like to address one of the points that Deborah Carver
> made in her article, that librarians are not knowledge
> creators.  I believe that more librarians should be doing this.
>  This is an  information economy. We are seeing the library and
> its associated information landscape becoming a key frontier
> for academic research. Search behavior, metadata, digital
> archiving and preservation,
> etc. - these are all areas in which librarians are qualified to
> do research, teach, and to publish.   We operate in a living
> incubator for these and many other information-related
> activities.   But the reality for many of us with positions
> outside the tenure system is that if we wish to engage in
> research, it must spill over into "spare time," so as not to
> take away from our densely-packed  work schedules.  I am aware
> of faculty researchers on my own campus in academic departments
> such as cognitive science, computer science, and pharmacology
> who are working in the information sphere.  While some of these
> faculty are in touch with people in our libraries, our
> librarians don't really have the same kind of time to devote to
> this work, so it doesn't translate  into many opportunities to
> be co-investigators or authors.  But I don't believe that's
> indicative of  any lack of expertise or interest.  I believe it
> is in the long term interest of libraries to have librarians at
> research-oriented institutions being true participants in
> discovering, describing and really *thinking* about our future
> knowledge environment, not just staffing its virtual desk.
> Maybe this can be achieved without tenure, but it requires a
> real shift in thinking about the nature of our work - and our
> workload.

[Barbara Fister]

Ms Carver appears to believe that tenure - not just for librarians, but in general - hampers flexibility (which I have heard from college administrators; it usually refers to the ability to reallocate positions at will) and discourages innovation or change. I don't believe that to be the case. There's also the suggestion in the essay that tenure exists because it's entrenched, not because it's of value. I strongly disagree with those claims. I do support her statement that "tenure fosters the high level of creativity and independence that is essential to the mission of higher education." But aren't those qualities also essential for the mission of libraries? It's inaccurate, I think, to say librarians must be "neutral." Disinterestly committed to  the pursuit of knowledge and able to complicate people's ideas by providing multiple perspectives - yes. Neutral? No.

I agree with Joseph King and others that librarians are just as in need of academic freedom as other academics. That doesn't in any way diminish our abililty to provide in a library collection a variety of perspectives. The idea that librarians serve up ideas but don't (or oughtn't) have any of their own is disturbing and certainly not descriptive of most academic librarians I have met. Further, I dispute the distinction that people who teach skills don't need tenure; tenure is only appropriate for people who are highly speciailzed and/or teach content. Does that mean that compositionists aren't in need of tenure because they teach writing, not literature? Or studio art professors, because they teach students how to paint, not art history?

Finally, I'd like to point out that at my institution the bar for tenure is just as high for librarians as for other faculty. And I wouldn't want it any other way.

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[Doris Van Kampen]

I cannot agree that tenure can hamper our role within the university. To argue that librarians need to not have tenure so that we can collect and organize items like squirrels sorting nuts is a weak argument against granting tenure.

To say that librarians don't teach, and therefore don't need tenure is also based on the assumption that any instruction done within the library confines or in conjunction with a class assignment should not count as "teaching"; yet if I have spent hours preparing a lesson plan, consulting with the faculty member(s), and creating handouts, would that not count as a lecture if done by a "teaching" faculty member?

And while many librarians do not currently conduct or participate as co-investigators of research, it is more from lack of time than from lack of interest. If given the opportunity of having 10-12 hours each week to devote to writing, research,  and keeping up with the literature I think many more librarians would be glad to conduct research..... including myself.

[coal_train somewhere in Texas]

This debate is ongoing in the workplace as well. The worst situation is where librarians have faculty status, but library admin would prefer that we not have faculty status. Librarians are required to work for tenure while admin provides as little support as possible. Get tenure, but do it on your own time is what we hear.

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[Jason Griffey]

I will join with the crowd here and insist that yes, absolutely, librarians are in need of tenure protection.

More often than professors, Librarians are at the center of controversial issues within a university. The limits of the information that are available to the university as a whole are often set by the librarians, and I doubt that anyone wants those librarians making their decisions about the collection based on fear of job security. As many have already pointed out, there are myriad types of information that may be seen as controversial by the public at large and by administrators under pressure from said public. To bow to this pressure and fail to provide information on gay and lesbian culture/literature/theory (or any other topic deemed "to hot to handle" by the public) because one might be fired is a major consideration for librarians without the protection of tenure.

Personally, I plan to continue researching and writing papers about librarianship and related issues, and forwarding the profession. I also am very glad that I have the option of the protection that comes with tenure. It is an important protection for those of us who might wish to protect the ability of marginalized groups to have access to information.

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[T. McFadden/Union]

Deborah Carver has written a nuanced defense of the idea that tenure for academic librarians is problematic.  It is unfortunate that her critics apparently did not read her essay carefully, because most of them attribute to her views that she did not express.  They certainly missed most of the qualifications she attached to what otherwise would be false claims.

It is always interesting to hear that tenure is a pre-condition of academic freedom, in as much as from 1/3 to 1/5 of faculty members do not enjoy tenure at all--and therefore must also have limited or no academic freedom.  This is particularly serious for tenure-track faculty who have not passed the tenure review yet--just the time when one might hope they would be willing to take chances and experiment with innovative teaching and research projects.  But this is always discouraged by senior faculty:  "Wait until after you get tenure", they invariably advise.

Ms. Carver's critics also fail to mention the extent to which the concept of tenure (as it is often implemented) has come under criticism from both within and without the academy.  Perhaps the real question is not whether librarians should have tenure, but whether anyone should.

In my experience, librarians regularly have to work hard to re-interpret what many of them do to show that this activity is somehow analogous to faculty work.  If librarians are really knowledge workers, knowledge creators, teachers, etc., then perhaps the criteria for tenurability should be:  Ph.D., journal articles in blue-chip journals, and maybe even a book or two.  How many of us would pass muster?

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[Germanna Community College]

   If the argument against giving librarians tenure is that it will stiffle their creativity and flexibility, then that is an argument against tenure in itself. However, as long as tenure can be earned by faculty, Librarians should also be able to earn this benefit and all the responsibilities that may accompany it.

  Librarians do have a discipline and one that is extremely important to learning in this age of information overload. Their selections for the library collection can be quite controversial, or haven't you heard of book banning?  When they teach classes, the classes are tailored to a variety of subjects, requiring some knowledge about nearly all subjects offered by the college or university. Anyone is free to study Library Science.  Let's not discriminate against those who choose this subject, just because some faculty don't understand it.  Most Librarians would be willing to take the risk of not being popular with individual faculty members, if it meant more recognition for their work and more security for the future.  Afterall, they have the courage to acquire controversial learning materials for the patron and keep that record private.  They have the courage to fight for intellectual freedom and write about it in the literature.  They have the courage to adapt to the constant change of the digital age and advise faculty accordingly.

[former academic librarian]

I do think tenure and academic freedom are useful and necessary for academic librarians--at the very least, even if they do not have tenure, librarians should be considered professional staff.

Tenure is helpful when arguing for inclusion of controversial information in the collection--which I used in my previous incarnation as an academic librarian when I discovered that a minority of paraprofessional library staff tried to "hide away" certain books so the students wouldn't be exposed to anything involving a naked human body. (sex education textbooks for a college health class!)

However, in my experience, university administrators have been moving to a more "corporate" model--more autocratic, less faculty governance, "let's be more like business" model. I'm not sure tenure has any place in this model, and I decided (among other reasons) that it was worthwhile to leave academe.

If the universities are to be more corporate and decide they do not need concepts like academic freedom, one can make a lot more money and have a lot less hassle by working for an actual corporation. I've never regreted leaving my tenured position :)