The status of university library staffs, with reference to its professionalization

Abstract

　Since 1950 when the Library Act was promulgated, the problem of status of university library staffs has been eagerly debated, but has come yet to no definite conclusion. That comes from the fact that there has been no unified opinion as to this problem even in library world.
　The writer thinks whether one of occupations is recognized socially as a profession or not depends upon a cultural and social function which an occupation carries out. From a historical point of view, we can say that a librarian has filled a role as a custodian of books. Secondly, a librarian has been considered not only as a custodian of books, but also as a collector of book. By getting each book together as a collection, it can produce a new value beyond what each book has had. However, a Iibrarian's role in these steps is only subordinate to a cultural- social value which a book or a collection of books have had. As a result, what a user of library wants to depend on is a cultural- social value of book itself rather than an activity of librarian. Here we can think the third step of librarian's role, that is reference work. Only in this step, a user can depend on a librarian's role itself rather than that of books. Only when an activity of librarian is considered as playing an important role culturally- socially, an occupation of librarian is recognized as a profession.
　From a point of view like this, the writer discusses concretely on the problems of the relation between a professional librarian and an administrator in a university library，university librarians, training for university library staffs, and offers a new point of view on these problems.