Just Another Field?

摘要

To transform humanists with Ph.D.'s into academic librarians is the purpose of an initiative recently launched by the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR).The equivalent of an apprenticeship, the program involves postdoctoral work in an academic library in lieu of earning a master's degree from a library and information studies (LIS) program accredited by the American Library Association (ALA). Unfortunately, these apprenticeships are likely to undermine further the academic librarian's already unstable pkce within higher education. The program is viewed either as a short-term expedient to fill open, specialized positions in academic libraries, or as a welcome alternative to education in ALA-accredited programs perceived as abandoning librarianship to embrace information. By promoting the acceptance of trained apprentices from the ranks of Ph.D.-holders in the humanities as equal or preferable to formally educated librarians, such programs may actually hasten the transformation of LIS from an aspiring discipline whose members share a similar education, culture, and value system into a loosely structured academic "field." Such "fields" attract adherents with diverse education and training, united only by their interest in the study and provision of a particular subject-in this case, information. In this way, the case for professional Ubrarianship suffers another self-inflicted wound.