A “Despised” “Semi-Profession”: Perceptions of Curricular Content Relating to Gender and Social Issues among 1993 MLIS/MLS Graduates.

Describes a survey of graduates from master's in library and information studies programs concerning social responsibility and gender issues and the treatment that these subjects received in their classes. Results are discussed that indicate that librarians and library education are less progressive than commonly depicted, and a copy of the survey is appended

The Male Librarian and the Feminine Image: A Survey of Stereotype, Status, and Gender Perceptions

Although the literature of librarianship is replete with personality studies, which purport to link the psychological characteristics of librarians with problems of stereotype, professional image, professional status, and occupational prestige, most assume that the only negative Image is that associated with the female stereotype. Only rarely have feminist studies challenged the assumptions upon which such claims are based, due to the fact that men's studies in the field have been virtually nonexistent. This article reports the results of a survey of male librarians relating to the existence and nature of the male professional stereotype, and the impact of social expectations and gender-related work issues on the attitudes of male library and information professionals. Because male librarians are rarely studied as men, it was necessary to design an exploratory instrument. Although categorically ranked responses provided indicators of general attitudes towards gender-status issues, open-ended comments revealed a greater diversity of attitudes than had been previously supposed. The study illumines an unexplored area of research in the field, and establishes the need for further qualitative research in the area of gender studies in librarianship

Atlanta's Female Librarians, 1883-1915

It is commonly assumed that female librarians at the turn of the century lacked autonomy, were paid less than their male contemporaries because the male establishment was exploiting them, and served in their librarian roles largely as cultural adornments. The evidence presented in this study suggests that in Atlanta, Georgia, at least, female librarians of the period dominated in library affairs; discrepancies in pay occurred along regional rather than gender lines; and Atlanta librarians and graduates of the Atlanta Library School seemed to move easily from librarianship into marriage without resort to feelings of guilt or "betrayal." Other distinguishing regional attitudes are noted in the correspondence of the School and serve as cautionary tales against wholesale revisionism

Sexual Orientation and Gender Expression

Our ability to use words as we see fit is perhaps the primary measure of our intellectual freedom. Otherwise, we would live in a dream world, largely unexpressed. We form hierarchical classifications of value, create laws by which we function as societies, interpret law and custom, and make decisions that in turn are justified by ethical and moral understandings through words. This essay discusses words and their changing meanings over time as they have referred to sexual orientation and gender expression, and how language generally engages intellectual freedom. How humans have designated meaning by symbols and signs is one of the enduring objects of study

Southern Librarianship and the Culture of Resentment

The development of library service in the southern states occurred in a supposedly reconciliatory period of American history following the Civil War, but the reforms of Reconstruction, the indigenous remnants of "southern culture," and feelings of isolation from larger professional affairs bred dissent and feelings of estrangement between natives and outsiders. This article relates "the southern problem" to early key events in southern library development and current fractures in American cultural politics

Correspondence

Forgive me for resorting to the Nether Ether1 for this communication. Scandalous things were said of Mme. Blavatsky and her followers before I was even a dimple in my mother's cheek (well, almost before then, but I've never corrected that little mistake on my library school and Library of Congress application forms), but actually, I have grown quite fond of the Great One over here, as she lends me her shawl when it gets chilly, buttressed as she is by a bit more avoirdupois than I ever possessed. I resort to this medium only because Mr. Gates' highway is glutted with vulgar commerce and lucre, and my previous missives have been inexplicably devoured by something called a "black box," and never reached you

Walter C. Allen and Robert F. Delzell, eds. Ideals and Standards: The History of the University of Illinois Graduate School of Library and Information Science.

Library and Information Science, provides abundant evidence of why the Illinois program has thrived while other equally prestigious schools such as Columbia and Chicago have folded, for while Illinois has remained on the cutting edge of research and technological change, it has never entirely abandoned the grass roots of librarianship. The school has also been blessed with strong leadership, although the personalities of the school receive somewhat short shrift (and no criticism) in this collection. As Walter C. Allen remarks in the introduction to the current volume, these essays are intended to "put the new developments [for example, technology and information science] into the context of the School's total history" (p. iii). Readers interested in additional information on directors and faculty who shaped the school-most of whom receive only cursory treatment here-or in "local color," would be well advised to consult Laurel A. Grotzinger, The Power and the Dignity: Librarianship and Katherine Sharp (New York: Scarecrow, 1966); and two previous publications concerning the school's history, Fifty Years of Education for Librarianship, University of Illinois Contributions to Librarianship, no. 1 (Urbana: University of lllinois Press, 1943); and Barbara M. Slanker. ed., Reminiscences: Seventy-Five Years of a Library School (Urbana: University of Illinois, Graduate Library School, 1969)

The Future of the Past

he recent specter of missile launchers looming over the deserts of Iraq and Kuwait, near the site of Susa where Alexander the Great in 324 B.C. performed a mass marriage between himself, and his soldiers and Eastern princesses in order to affect a unification of his empire, emphasizes the fragility of historical record. The architectural and historical remains of the region are indeed irreplaceable, representing a span of civilization occupying at least one-third of the average "History of the Book" course. Today most library professionals are only peripherally interested in the history of the book or their profession's history. The more pressing demands of feeding dollars into the computer technology and publishing industries while maximizing their customer service potential rightly take precedence. Still, it is startling to realize that twenty years ago school children could describe in detail achievements of social worker Jane Addams, while even library school students have been hard pressed to name one librarian who worked among the urban poor and immigrants during the same epoch. Why have we "lost" that information

Segal, Judith. “The Library Association of the City Colleges of New York, 1939-1965,” Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, 1991 [Review]

It may come as a surprise to these who grew up under the shadow of organizations like Students for a Democratic Society, which flourished on New York City college campuses, to learn that the original city colleges of New York and the city university system which they spawned were not characterized by relatively enlightened administrations—a belief to which naive regional outsiders like the current reviewer subscribed in the mid 1960s. As Segal makes patently clear in her organizational history of The Library Association of the City Colleges of New York (LACCNY), the city colleges (and their libraries) were encumbered with an exceedingly complex political and financial structure. Although this administrative structure ultimately served for more than 20 years to keep the campuses among the most competitive, heterogeneous, and intellectually stimulating ones in the nation, it also subjected them to archetypical bureaucratic protocols, and city campus personnel were exploited shamelessly

The Revolution Is Not Over: Sedition and the Myth of Unisized Library Education

This spring marked the fifth anniversary at my very first opera, which I saw right across the street with my older sister and my parents at the Fox Theatre—it was “Carmen” with Risë Stevens, Richard Tucker and Robert Merrill. Back in those halcyon days, the Met’s coming to town was quite the event, and the little old lady pensioners would sit in their gingham dresses in rockers under the awning across the street at the Georgian Terrace and take social notes. I could hardly have had a more glorious introduction to musical theater, especially at the sumptuous Fox, but as was only five at the time, I fell asleep during the second act and woke up to find myself being carried down the stairs after the final curtain. My sister told me I had missed the murder and the tearing of a curtain as Carmen fell, and I have rarely fallen asleep in public since. In my college years, I learned more about the relationship between the Fox and the Georgian Terrace when I attended “Lohengrin,” and followed the crowds to the hotel bar between acts—Wagner was pretty heavy going for Atlanta at that stage. Frankly, Atlanta’s always touted itself as such a paragon of change that I’m surprised that either the Fox or the Georgian Terrace still standing. Heaven knows, there are other landmarks that didn’t fare so well in my lifetime—Lowe’s Grande, where GWTW premiered, and the locally famous Frances Virginia Tea Room upstairs, the markets, restaurants, bars on 14th & Peachtree, where hippiedom was born in 1967 at The Mandorla Art Gallery (now the area round the gentrified complex known as Colony Square), and the venerable Edwardian edifice of the Trust Company of Georgia Building where the formula for Coca-Cola was stored in a safe, and where Margaret Mitchell’s holographic three-page will was still on file fifty years after the movie of GWTW was made because business kept coming in, including a Japanese stage version with an all-female cast, with a live burning of Atlanta every night