College and Research Libraries B y O L I V E R L I N T O N L I L L E Y Public Documents Instruction in Library Schools Mr. Lilley is an associate, School of Li- brary Service, Columbia University. T T o w MUCH, and what kind of instruc- tion in public documents are the students getting in today's library schools? T h i s is a question that seems to be asked with some frequency whenever librarians get together. In part, no doubt, it reflects an awareness of the increasingly important role the various agencies of government are playing in the daily lives of every individ- ual, and a recognition on the part of librar- ians of the importance of public documents f o r many purposes in libraries of all kinds. In part it grows out of a realization of the complexity of government publications and an understanding of the need f o r special knowledge about documents on the part of those who handle them in libraries. B u t still another factor, likely to be responsible in some degree f o r the frequency with which the question is asked these days, has to do with the library schools themselves. H o w have the curriculum changes with which many of the schools have been experi- menting f o r the past f e w years affected the teaching of documents? W h a t has hap- pened in those schools that once offered courses in government publications and that now make no mention of the subject in their catalogs of course offerings? In 1 9 3 4 when the A L A Public Documents Committee sponsored an earlier study con- cerned with the teaching of public docu- ments in library schools it w a s found that two patterns of instruction were in exist- ence: in the one the major attention to government publications was provided in separate courses; in the other various aspects of documents topics were distributed through the curriculum in reference, bibli- ography, cataloging, and other courses. T o what extent are each of these patterns being followed today? A r e there major differ- ences in the amount or kind of instruction provided under the two plans? It is a healthy sign of professional interest in the training of our oncoming librarians that we should find these questions being posed, and it was f o r the purpose of trying to find some answers to such questions that the Public Documents Committee asked the writer to make a report to it on this subject during the A L A Conference in N e w Y o r k in 1 9 5 2 . T h e present article is an adapta- tion of the paper read before the Committee on that occasion. Because adequate answers could not be found in any printed sources it became nec- essary to prepare a questionnaire. In this an attempt was made to discover the perti- nent facts not only about the documents courses as such, but also about every course offered, in a sampling of library schools, in which one hour or more was normally de- voted to some aspect of government publica- tions. Copies of this questionnaire were sent out in M a y , 1 9 5 2 , and most of the returns were in by early J u n e . F o r the sampling of schools to which the questionnaire w a s to be sent, the list of library schools approved by the Board of Education f o r Librarianship was selected OCTOBER, 1953 425 in spite of its known limitations. T h e chief of these, as w i l l be found explained on page 1 5 4 of the ALA Bulletin f o r M a y , 1 9 5 2 , is that no names have been added to, or re- moved from, this list since A u g u s t , 1 9 4 8 , and it therefore fails to include any of the good new schools that have developed since that date. B u t despite its omissions this seemed to be the only practicable list avail- able f o r sampling purposes, and it did have the merit of distinguishing between schools operating at three different levels of library education. T h u s it included five schools known as T y p e I which meant that they re- quired a college degree f o r admission and/or that they gave advanced professional train- ing beyond the first year of library science. I t named 1 8 T y p e I I schools which required four years of appropriate college w o r k f o r admission but gave only the first f u l l aca- demic year of library science, and finally it included 1 4 T y p e I I I schools which gave only the first year of library science and included the curriculum within the f o u r undergraduate college years. One school was accredited f o r both a T y p e I I and a T y p e I I I curriculum, and another school had voluntarily given up its accredited standing before this study w a s begun, so that there was a total of 3 5 schools to which the questionnaire could be sent. Replies either in whole or in substantial part were received from 3 0 of these 3 5 schools so that the figures used in this report are based on an 8 5 . 7 1 % return f r o m the sampling. B y means of letters, or f r o m information available in the catalog descriptions of courses, it w a s possible to get information about an even higher percentage of the schools on some points. F o r example, it could be determined that every one of the 3 5 schools gives some attention to govern- ment publications. N a t u r a l l y the amount and kind of attention varies from school to school. B u t the rumor heard every now and then that " m a n y library schools today don't teach government documents at a l l " would appear to be just not so. Another piece of information that could be dis- covered f o r every one of the 3 5 schools was whether or not a separate documents course is offered. T h e answer is that 1 9 schools ( 5 4 . 2 8 % ) do have documents courses, 1 6 schools ( 4 5 . 7 1 % ) do not. T h e division therefore is not quite half and half. Break- ing this result down according to the three types of schools it w a s found that docu- ments courses are offered by 4 of the 5, o r 8 0 % of the T y p e I schools; by 1 2 of the 1 8 , or 6 6 f % of the T y p e I I schools; and by 3 of the 1 2 , or 2 5 % of the T y p e I I I schools. In order to find out w h a t subjects are most commonly covered in the special docu- ments courses, and which ones receive em- phasis, the questionnaire provided a list of 1 2 suggested topics ( w i t h space f o r others to be inserted), asking the schools to report the number of hours spent on each topic in each course. F o r the 1 8 documents courses f o r which this information was supplied, 7 of the 1 2 topics are included in at least 1 7 courses: " S u b j e c t content of government publications," " R e f e r e n c e w o r k with gov- ernment publications," "Bibliographies and indexes of government documents," Legis- lative procedures and l a w s , " " M e t h o d s and problems of acquisition," " O r g a n i z a t i o n of government documents in collections," and " H i s t o r y of the printing and distribution of government publications." T h e s e 7 topics account f o r nearly 7 0 % ( 6 9 . 6 % ) of the total class time of the documents courses. F i f t e e n of the 1 8 documents courses also spend time on " O r g a n i z a t i o n of govern- mental issuing agencies," and 1 4 of the courses consider both "Selection tools f o r use with government publications," and "Activities and publishing policies of the various issuing agencies." T w e l v e courses 426 • COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES provide "Special consideration of the almost infinite variety of types of publications issued by governmental agencies." B u t only 8 of the 1 8 schools include some in- struction about the cataloging of govern- ment publications in their documents courses. T o get a better picture of the complete instruction in government publications offered in these 1 8 schools, w e must add to the topics covered in the special documents courses such additional instruction as is provided in other courses in these same schools, for no school reported that it gave all of its instruction about government publications in its documents course. E x - amining the returns to discover the topics on which time is spent in outside courses in those schools that offer a basic documents course, we find " R e f e r e n c e work with docu- ments," "Bibliographies and indexes of documents," " C a t a l o g i n g of government publications," and "Subject content of gov- ernment publications" heading the list, and representing 6 8 . 1 7 % of the total time spent on government documents in the outside courses. T h u s reference, bibliography, and subject content of documents commonly represent important aspects of government publications both in the documents courses and in other courses in the same schools. Cataloging of documents, as might be ex- pected, is usually studied only in the non- documents courses. T u r n i n g now to the schools that do not have special documents courses, we find exactly the same four subjects heading the list: "reference work with government pub- lications," " c a t a l o g i n g , " "subject content," and "bibliographies and indexes of docu- ments." T h e major emphases on subject matter are therefore the same in both kinds of schools. M a k i n g a closer comparison, topic by topic, there is found to be some variation in every subject as to the propor- tion of total time it receives under the two kinds of programs. B u t the surprising thing is that the greatest variation shown for any subject is only 6 . 3 % , while the average for all variations is only 2 . 5 8 % . It seems fair to say, therefore, that not only are the same subjects covered under both teaching programs, but the difference in emphasis on individual subjects is relatively insignificant. I t might be interesting at this point to take a look at the kinds of courses in which these topics are covered in those schools that spread their documents instruction through the curriculum. According to the reports received, these schools provide on the aver- age about 5 6 . 5 % of their total coverage for government publications in the Reference courses, 1 9 % in Cataloging and Classifica- tion, 6 % in Bibliography courses, a b o u t 5 % in Administration, between 3 % and 4 % each in^courses devoted to Book Selection or to the various subject fields: Social Science, Science, or Humanities Literature, and only about 3 % in miscellaneous courses. O v e r 8 0 % of the total instruction in government publications therefore, takes place in the Reference, Bibliography, and Cataloging courses. So f a r we have been considering only the proportions of total time spent on various topics under the two kinds of teaching programs, and have not yet examined the actual amounts of time spent on documents instruction. F r o m the information re- ported by the 3 0 schools, the tabulations f a v o r those schools with documents courses when it comes to considering the total num- ber of class hours of document offerings. F o r those schools with documents courses, supplemented by some document instruction in other courses, the average amount of time provided for public documents is 50.77 class hours per school. T h i s is to be compared with an average of only 3 4 . 3 7 class hours OCTOBER, 1953 40 7 spent on documents in those schools that do not offer a separate documents course. T h i s difference of 1 6 . 4 class hours is equivalent, depending on variations in course lengths and number of class meetings per week in different schools, to something like a third or a half of an entire semester's work in one course. Schools without documents courses therefore, offer on the average only a little over 3 / 5 as much time with government publications as do schools that have docu- ments courses. B u t of course there is another w a y of looking at this situation. T h o s e w h o f a v o r the integration of documents topics with related subjects through the curriculum may point out here that w h a t really matters is not how many hours of instruction a school offers, but how many hours of in- struction the average student receives. In this connection the questionnaire results show, first of all, that most of the special documents courses are elective. O n l y one school reported that its documents course is required. One other school reported that students must take either the documents course or one in the Bibliography of Sci- ences. A l l the other 1 6 schools that reported on this point stated that their docu- ments courses are elective. J u s t what this means seems to vary with the school. One school, a f t e r stating that its course is elec- tive added: " B u t most students usually seem to take i t . " Another school com- mented : " T h e requirement of 3 0 hours in L i b r a r y Science leaves no opportunity for the extra elective in Government Docu- ments except in the case of an honors course f o r a previous graduate coming back f o r additional w o r k . " It is probable that neither of these extremes is typical. B u t it is equally reasonable to suppose that every school having an elective documents course graduates a number of students each year who did not enrol f o r this course. H o w much documents education do these stu- dents get? T h e answer seems to be that they get less than students who have taken the required courses in a school that has no documents course. T h i s is a perfectly un- derstandable situation. If one school puts the bulk of its documents training in one elective course, and another school spreads all of its training in documents through courses like Reference, Bibliography and Cataloging, which usually are required, the former school may provide more oppor- tunity for instruction, but the latter actually demands more of each student. T h e results of the study show appreciable differences here. T h e average required class time on public documents in schools with elective documents courses is 1 5 . 3 hours (the range is f r o m 1 hour to 4 4 ) . T h e average required class time on government publica- tions in schools without a documents course is 2 6 . 7 9 hours (the range is from 3 hours to 7 0 ) . T h u s , taken as a group, the latter schools require every student to have i f times as many class hours in documents as do the former schools. In a kind of rough summary of this part of the findings, it can be shown that a student who is interested in documents, who attends a school that offers a course in docu- ments, and who takes the course, can receive considerably more instruction about govern- ment publications than can a similarly inter- ested student who attends a school where there is no documents course f o r him to take. O n the other hand, a student who takes only the required courses in either kind of school receives more than half again as much instruction in documents if he goes to a school that has no documents course. W h i c h is the more meaningful w a y of in- terpreting this situation? T h a t , undoubt- edly, is a question that w i l l continue to be debated by librarians and by library school teachers just as enthusiastically in the 428 • COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES future as it has been debated in the past! T u r n i n g now to see what kinds of docu- ments are being studied in the various schools, and leaving out the Canadian schools f o r the moment, the tabulations show that all the other 1 7 documents courses about which information on this point was supplied spend from 5 0 % to 9 6 % of their time on U . S . Federal publications, averaging 7 4 % . T h r e e documents courses do not include publications of the States, and 6 omit Municipal publications. A l l but four of the courses touch upon League of Nations materials, and all but one in- clude the study of United Nations docu- ments. Seven courses out of the 1 7 omit consideration of British documents, and only three of the courses reported time spent on any other kinds: county docu- ments, or those of Canada, the major European countries, or South America. Although this breakdown into kinds of documents has little meaning f o r some courses, such as cataloging, the figures for all schools, and for all courses where this analysis was reported, show about the same distribution: about 7 5 % of the attention is given to Federal documents, around 1 0 % of State documents, a little over 6 % to United Nations, about 5 % to Municipal, and 2 % or less each to League of Nations, to Brit- ish, and to " o t h e r " documents. T u r n i n g to the Canadian schools it is not surprising to find they average 5 5 % f o r Canadian docu- ments, 2 2 ^ % f o r British publications, 6 % for League of Nations and United Nations combined, and i6j% for U . S . Federal and State documents. Since only one school in the United States reported spending any time at all with Canadian publications, there seems to be a certain lack of reciproc- ity here! T h e reports of two other topics covered by the questionnaire may be interesting enough to be included here: what do the schools conceive to be their goal in docu- ments instruction, and how satisfied are they with the w a y the courses are working out? F o r the first of these questions each school was asked if it was an objective of its gov- ernment documents instruction that ( a ) the students should acquire a high level of competence in the actual handling of docu- ments, or if ( b ) the courses were intended primarily to provide a background of knowl- edge to which the techniques of handling documents could be added when the student started working with them in a library. These two statements were intended to rep- resent extreme points of view, and the schools were invited to modify them, or to substitute more accurate statements of their actual objectives. T w o schools reported that they tried to achieve a 50-50 balance between the two extremes. T w o other schools said a high level of competence was an objective of the documents course, but that supplementary courses were intended only to provide background information. T h r e e schools accepted a high level of com- petence as their goal, while one thought a " f a i r " degree of competence came nearer to expressing its objective. T h e other 1 9 schools that replied to this question accepted the background statement as an objective of their instruction in documents. Of these, one school commented that the background objective w a s probably "nearer the t r u t h " implying, perhaps, a recognition of the fact that a high level of competence is a desir- able but difficult goal. O r as another school expressed i t : " T h e course in government documents attempts to achieve both aims but necessarily, since only one semester is given to government documents material, we must provide the student with a f a i r l y good background of knowledge. It is not possible f o r a student to achieve a high level of competence by devoting only one course to such a complex subject." OCTOBER, 1953 40 7 N o w what do the schools and the instruc- tors think about their present programs? It is interesting that the most favorable comment came from an instructor w h o is approaching the subject f r o m a point of view that if not new, at least was not re- ported as being common. H e w r i t e s : " I am particularly enthusiastic regarding the inter- est of students, especially as w e w o r k on problems which deal with the promotion of the use of documents in various types of libraries." T h e more usual responses ranged f r o m " f a i r l y successful" to " v e r y dissatisfied with course." T h r e e schools that do not now have documents courses plan to introduce them within the next year or two. In another school one instructor states: "there is need f o r a course concen- trated on government publications," while a different instructor in the same school sug- gests the need f o r a more careful study of the proper allocation of parts of the subject in existing courses. T w o schools with doc- uments courses report dissatisfaction, in one because as the course has been taught in the past, Federal publications tend to swallow up all other kinds, and because there isn't time f o r enough individual student reports; in the other because the course is so short ( 1 2 hours) that more than an introductory study of documents is impossible. Perhaps the w r i t e r is too optimistic, but the most encouraging thing found in the replies to this questionnaire seemed to be the general air of dissatisfaction that ran through so many of these professorial comments. Com- placency is a bad thing in a teacher. B u t when an instructor thinks a course isn't doing as w e l l as it should, the w a y is open f o r changes, and with changes can come improvements. In summary, the results of this study may serve to reassure those who have been worried about the kind of instruction in public documents the library schools are offering. A t least as f a r as this sampling is concerned w e know now that some in- struction about documents is being provided in all of the schools, and that over half of them have documents courses. E v e n the fact that two patterns of instruction exist need be no cause f o r alarm, because the same topics seem to be considered with essentially the same degrees of emphasis under both programs. T h e actual amounts of instruction offered and required v a r y from school to school, but apparently no student graduates from any school without having had some introduction to public doc- uments. Some librarians may be disheart- ened that so many schools renounce the objective of training students to a high level of competence in the techniques of handling documents. B u t this, perhaps, merely re- flects a more fundamental problem of library schools, namely, that no curriculum under present conditions can possibly be long enough to teach the students all we think they ought to know about both the theory and the practice of any subject. Expansion of Farmington Plan Under a new type of Farmington Plan coverage, the University of California Library has agreed to accept all publications of research value from the Philippines and Yugoslavia. The volatile political situation in these countries makes total rather than subject field coverage desirable. Arrangements have been made in both countries for the selection and shipment of current books, works issued in series, and sample copies of periodicals. 430 • COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES