ON THE "L" WORD AND ITS CONNOTATIONS

James H. Sweetland, North American Convenor

Item:	A growing number of universities in the United States drop the term "Library" from their names as "Library and Information Science";
Item:	In a recent discussion about the new academic year, a faculty member comments that his undergraduate class is particularly enthusiastic, to which a colleague replies "yes, unlike those other classes aimed at librarians."
Item:	U. S. schools find that international students don't want to apply for a "library" degree, but are very interested in an "infomatics" or "information science" degree.
Item:	Various popular media report that academic administrators are willing to fund such things as computer connections in dormitories, but resist library materials and construction requests.
Item:	At least one new U. S. college begins a new campus consciously avoiding any library building at all.

What does this mean? In one sense, it is just the latest version of the ongoing discussion about what to call those professionals who work in libraries. In another, however, it is new�in the sense that the discussion is not only about terminology, but really about the very function of the job.

In short, there seems to be a developing consensus that the "library profession", whatever exactly that is, is obsolescent, if not obsolete, and that the few functions currently of some slight value carried out by librarians could as easily (if not better) be done by someone else.

Certainly, when some of the most prestigious and well-respected library schools in the United States close their doors, and when many of the others feel a need to eliminate a long-used term, something is happening. In fact, it is significant that a common euphemism for the term "library" among many is the phrase "the L-word", thus putting the word in the category of scatology, if not obscenity (a common U. S. practice is to substitute the first letter of a highly objectionable term for the term itself, a practice reminiscent of 18th century customs).

The librarian image, of course, has had a long history of ridicule: the common conception conjured by the word is of an unattractive person, almost always female, dressed badly in out-of-style clothing, with poor posture, even worse eyesight, and either a very sour disposition, or a very shy and retiring one. This image is so common that, for a time, the journal American Libraries actually had a section reporting the latest most outrageous version found in the popular media.

However, it would appear that the development of computerized information systems has not improved the librarian image, but in fact made it worse. For a time in the Sixties and Seventies, librarians who used computers (as catalogers or, especially, in doing literature searching) seemed to be gaining in status and image. However, in the last twenty years, as computers-as-information-engines finally became common, the image has reverted to that of a stodgy, out of date, and generally unpleasant if not incompetent person, of little value to society.

Ironically, it was the library schools on many campuses who first accepted and used the personal computer as a teaching, learning, and information handling tool, outside schools of engineering who tended to prefer larger mainframes. Yet, as the smaller machines become more common, and were adopted by business and schools of business, as well as the general public, there seems to have been a movement to try to eliminate the library schools' role in the area, and eventually (or concurrently) to eliminate the librarians' role as well.

Several reasons for this state of affairs have been given:

• Librarians are, in fact, not very good at the newer information technologies;
• Librarians tend to be humanistically trained, thus do not understand the more complex technical aspects of the technology;
• Alternately, that humanistic training leads them to try to make the technology look too easy;
• Librarians tend to have quite, retiring personalities;
• the image of librarians is so ingrained that no matter what they do, they will never gain respect, power, or good salaries.

If the first two claims are true, then maybe librarians are obsolete, but if any of the claims are true, perhaps it is time for those to whom the claims do not apply to come up with a new term. So far, the following have appeared, among others:

• Cybrarian
• Information Specialist
• Informatician.

What do you think? Should there be a new term for that collection of skill and knowledge which we have thought of as "librarian"? Should librarians who do not meet the stereotype try to do a better job of changing this image? Or, in fact, is the collection of skill and knowledge usually associated with librarians nearly obsolete? Please feel free to post your comments on the central Library Link discussion forum.

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