Academic Status for College and University Librarians--Problems and Prospects

Academic librarians will achieve and deserve full academic status only after they cause changes in the bureaucratic structure of libraries and in library education, and when they provide professional service on a scholarly level.CoLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY librarians have not enjoyed overwhelming success in their efforts to secure full academic status. 1 With only a few exceptions, the benefits of academic status have been superficial; substantive areas-salaries, research support, self-direction on the job, voice in academic policy and practice, peer evaluation-have not .really been touched.The reason is because librarians have had great difficulty in demonstrating to the academic community, and frequently even to themselves, that they perform a function justifying full academic status.The situation is now changing.Not only do the new information demands and problems of the academic community provide an opportunity for the librarian to assume a role that is as sophisticated, demanding, and necessary as any other within that community, they require that he do this or step aside so someone else can take over this function.Furthermore, it is becoming clear that full academic status will not be simply an outgrowth but a necessary