Professional Diversity in Libraries

DIFFERENT CULTURES AND value systems that are brought into libraries by different types of professionals can create problems, tensions, and conflicts between nonlibrary professionals and professional librarians in library organizations. This article offers some solutions from the organizational perspective as well as the reward systems that can be used at their individual levels. INTRODUCTION American libraries have changed considerably over the last halfcentury. Their basic mission-to provide information resources to their primary constituents-has remained constant. The way in which this mission is carried out, however, is more complex and diverse today than it was prior to World War 11. Much of this change derives from technological and organizational developments. Information resources are now produced in many more formats and media than previously, and the organizations in which libraries exist-i.e., universities, corporations, and municipalities-bear little resemblance to their forebears. Today’s libraries, like other large-scale organizations, have come to depend on a group of diverse professionals to function effectively. Similarly, research libraries have also encountered the problems associated with diverse professionalism as they have grown in size and complexity-namely the discontinuities or tensions which inevitably result when an organization contains experts who have Paula T. Kaufman, University of Tennessee, Knoxville Libraries, 1015 Volunteer Boulevard, Knoxville, T N 37996-1000 LIBRARY TRENDS, Vol. 41, No. 2, Fall 1992, pp. 214-30 @ 1993 The Board of Trustees, University of Illinois KAUFMAN/DIVERSITY IN LIBRARIES 215 been trained in different professions. These discordances arise from the dissimilar frames of reference that different professions bring to the resolution of problems based on such divergent value systems and problem-solving techniques. Contemporary American library organizations still rely primarily on professional librarians to develop and provide resources and services. Many, however, also rely on the expertise of other types of professionals. Accountants, development officers, computer and telecommunications specialists, technical specialists, subject experts, human resource managers, and lawyers are a few of the nonlibrary professionals that have become necessary for many libraries to operate. Like nonfaculty professional staff in universities, many nonlibrary professionals are treated differently by their librarian colleagues and their library organizations. They are perceived to be involved only secondarily in the organization’s central purpose, even when this is not the case. The mission of most universities is to perform research and teach students. Faculty who perform these roles attain status and rewards well above those of other professionals who do not do research and teach despite their undoubted value to the organization-i.e., professionals such as attorneys, business managers, and computer specialists, but not top management. Similarly, providing information resources and services to users is the raison d’etre of most libraries-academic or not. Most library managers view professional librarians as being key to successfully achieving their mission. Of ten, however, library managers and professional librarians perceive nonlibrary professional colleagues to have inferior status. Inequality of status and rewards, whether real or just perceived, frequently leads to tension and competing interests between library and nonlibrary professionals. These tensions can manifest themselves as philosophical or conceptual differences, or in differing perspectives on an issue or problem with neither willing to compromise. They also can result in situations in which working conditions, responsibilities, or capabilities are viewed as inequitable, that is to say, that the other person is seen to have a “sweeter deal.” Contemporary libraries operate in dynamic environments. Change is constant and is caused, in part, by the spiraling development of information computing and communications technologies, the proliferation of information resources in diverse formats, and the precarious financial condition of many libraries and their parent organizations. Under such conditions, research libraries have sound reasons to develop human resource practices that attract, motivate, retain, and maximize the productivity of all professionals they employ. Library managers need to pay special attention to their nonlibrary professionals if the divergent functions 216 LIBRARY TRENDWFALL 1992 of the organization are to be performed well and the library’s overall mission is to be accomplished. Some tension, dissension, competing interests, and conflict are natural in any organization that is characterized by dependency on professionals, even when the organization has a well-articulated human resource philosophy (Von Glinow, 1988, p. 169). Therefore, library managers must design personnel policies that are flexible, that encourage the work of all professionals, and that reward effort equitably. The system must monitor and match the needs of all professional workers against the goals of the organization. This is not a simple challenge because the value systems of nonlibrary professionals may conflict directly with the values of the professional librarians. Library managers may have difficulty bringing divergent value systems into harmony so that the library’s goal of maximizing the productivity of all professionals is achieved (Von Glinow, 1988, p. 167). Nonlibrary professionals have worked in library organizations for many years. While the phenomenon is not new, it is a growing one. The library profession, a group often obsessed with issues of professionalism, curiously seems to have paid scant attention to the issues of treating nonlibrary professionals as partners rather than as second class citizens. The library literature is noticeably void of any treatment of the problems library organizations face in their efforts to integrate a group of disparate professionals into a healthy and functioning team. Scanlon’s (1990) recent article is unique in providing a clear description of the problems faced by one manager whose working group was comprised of equal numbers of librarians and computer specialists. This article describes some of the difficulties of having nonlibrary professionals in research libraries and offers managerial strategies for responding to problems. The literature of other professions, such as health science institutions, manufacturing companies, and research laboratories, provides useful analogies. Some of the insights into the treatment of professionals in these settings are used to shed light on the similar situations faced in libraries.