Gender In The Academic Library[1]

Gender in the Academic Library By Wilma L. Jones May 2004

Research Question: In what ways has gender played a role in the evolution of the profession of librarians in American Higher Education?

History of Academic Libraries
First Colonial academic libraries
Harvard (1638)
William and Mary (1693)
Yale (1701)
College of New Jersey (1746, now Princeton)
U. of Pennsylvania (1749)
King’s College (1754, now Columbia University)
College of Rhode Island (1764, now Brown University)
Dartmouth (1769)
Collections mostly on Theology
Gifts and bequests from influential scholars and Alumni
John Harvard in 1638
Purchases made by professors on tour in Europe
Pres. Harper, U. of Chicago

First Librarians . . . Men
Librarians during Colonial times were often, experts in the field:
Faculty members
Tutors
Presidents
Solomon Stoddard, former tutor, first appointed librarian of the Harvard Library in 1667

Impact of Morrill Act of 1862
Use of public lands to support higher education in practical areas such as agriculture and engineering – break away from “classical colleges”
State Higher Education Institutions mushroomed
Library collections expanded to support diversified curriculum
School of Library Economy established at Columbia in 1887 to train librarians

The field of Librarianship
Visible signs of changes in the profession
Establishment of the American Library Assn (1876)
Standardization of library practices (1886)
to facilitate use of the materials in the collection, starting with the Dewey Decimal Classification System
Opening of School of Library Economy (1887)
To train male and female librarians
Establishment of the Association of Research Libraries (1932)

Census figures of U.S Librarians 1870 - 1990

Characteristics of Male Librarians, 1890 – 1920
Well educated men (72.6% with bachelor’s degree)
Sons of clergy, physicians, as well as farmers & machinists
Had worked in a library (23.5%)
Veterans with disability
Retired clergy or teacher
One disillusioned with/failed in other line of work

Reason for men choosing the field
Encouraged by library professors to enter academic library or Library of Congress, not public or school libraries
Assured fast move up to high-level position
2-yr library program expedited entrance into workforce for males; 1-year secured a lucrative position

Feminization of Professions
Rapid change from male- to female-intensive fields between 1870 and 1920, influenced by the industrial revolution:
Teaching – 68% women in 1880 to 84% in 1920
Clerical – 95.6% male in 1880 to 54.3% in 1920
Library -- 80% male in 1870 to 80% women in 1900
(Passet, 1993)

Feminization of the Library field
By 1910, more women entering librarianship than men
Of 22 land-grant institutions west of the Mississippi, 15 had at least one woman responsible for the library prior to 1930

Reason for men exiting the field
Perceived low status as more women entered the field; some for pay, others as volunteers
Inadequate salaries paid to both men and women, minimal remuneration
Often got stuck in an assistant position for years; desired upward mobility
Low status of library work; aspired to be in leadership positions

First Women in the field
Grace Raymond Hebard, librarian at the University of Wyoming, 1894 – 1919 (Ph.D in Political Science, no formal training in librarianship)
Julia Pearce, first librarian to have no teaching responsibilities, Kansas State Agricultural College, 1863 – 1894.
Dorothy Porter Wesley, first African American curator & scholar of the Moorland-Springarn Research Center, Howard U. in 1930-1973

Others as Volunteers
Club women participation in public sphere
TX Federation of Club Women led the founding of community libraries (1898)
By 1904 Women’s Club in 34 states ran 4600 traveling libraries and established 500 public libraries
Approached Carnegie for funding of public libraries
Volunteered time to prepare materials

Evolving field of librarianship
Once the keeper of books …
now recognized for ability to provide access to local and global resources in libraries with and without walls.

Librarians in Academia since 1971
Masters degree from an ALA accredited program required for employment;
2 nd grad degree for tenure track
Faculty positions gave women better salaries, but lower than teaching faculty
Unionized institutions gave women higher salaries; equal to males

Librarians in Academia …
Requirement to publish in institutions with faculty status for librarians
Faculty status gained librarian more respect than non- faculty status
Improved work environment re: faculty benefits available to librarians (sabbaticals, research funds, tenure, etc.
Increased participation in college governance

Impact of Internet technology, 1995 -
“ net technology” yielding new roles
Systems librarian
Web librarian
Digital librarian
Virtual reference librarian
Increase in males entering the field
Library programs emphasizing technology
Library schools discussing omission of the “l” word
Library instruction expanding—teaching scholars to evaluate, retrieve, & use materials ethically

Anomolies persist
In a female-intensive field, 90 respondents surveyed identified themselves as directors, of which 34 were women (Jenkins, 1994).
2002 survey showed men had higher salaries in school, academic, and special libraries by 7.9% (Terrell, 2002)
High-tech positions filled by more men; however, women in these positions had showed increase of 6.8% in 2001 (Lynch & Smith, 2001).

References
American Library Association. (2002). ALA presidents, treasurers, secretaries, and executive directors. Handbook of organization . Chicago: American Library Association
American Library Association. (1999). Office for research and statistics . Chicago: American Library Association.
Association of College and Research Libraries. (2001). Guidelines for academic status of college and university libraries. College and Research Libraries News , 62, 920 – 921.
Bargellini, M.L. & Bordoni, L. (2001). The role of the library in a new learning scenario. The Electronic Library . 19, 153-157.
Carmichael, J. (1992). The male librarian and the feminine image: a survey of stereotypes, status, and gender perceptions. Library & Information Science Research , 14, 411-446.
Carpenter. (1994). Harvard University libraries. In Encyclopedia of library history. Edited by W.A. Wiegand & D.G. Davis, Jr. New York; London: Garland Publishing, Inc , (pp. 255-257).
Committee on Academic Status of the Association of College and Research Libraries. (1975). Faculty status for academic librarians: a history and policy statements . Chicago: American Library Association.
Conaway, C. (2002). Virtual university. Regional Review , 12, 6-13.
Cramer, E. & Boyd, J. (1995). The tenure-track and parent track: a road guide. Wilson Library Bulletin , 69 41-42.

References, continued.
Daniel, J.S. (1999). Mega-universities and knowledge media: Technology strategies for higher education . London: Kogan Page Limited.
Digest of education statistics . (2003). National Center for Education Statistics, Office of Educational Research and Improvement: U.S. Department of Education, Washington D.C.
----- . (2002). National Center for Education Statistics, Office of Educational Research and Improvement: U.S. Department of Education, Washington D.C.
Dowell, D.R. (1998). Leadership: In the eye of the beholder? In Leadership and Academic Librarians . Edited by T. F. Mech & G.B. Mcabe. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, pp. 159-170.
Flagg, G. (2001). Educators consider their future at ALISE Conference. American Libraries, 32, 26-7.
Galloway, D. (1979). Status or stasis: Academic librarians 10 years later. American Libraries , 79, 349-352.
Guri-Rosenbilt, S. (2001). Virtual universities: Current models and future trends. Higher Education in Europe , 26, 487-499.
Harris, R.M. (1999). Gender and technology relations in librarianship. Journal of Education for Library and Information Science , 40, 232-246.

Higley, G. (1996). College, Community and librarianship: Women librarians at the Western land grant colleges. In Reclaiming the American library past: Writing the women in. Edited by Suzanne Hildenbrand. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Pub Corp. , pp. 53-98.
Hildenbrand, S. (1999). The Information Age vs. gender equity. Library Journal. 124, 44-47.
Jenkins, C. (1996). “Since so many of today’s librarians are women. . .;” Women and Intellectual Freedom in U.S. librarianship . In Reclaiming the American library past: Writing the women in. Edited by Suzanne Hildenbrand. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Pub Corp. , pp. 221-250.
Kirkland, J.J. (1997). The missing women in library directors: Deprivation versus mentoring. College and Research Libraries , 58, 376-384
Lynch, B. (1998). The development of the academic library in American higher education and the role of the academic librarian. In Leadership and Academic Librarians , edited by T.F. Mech and G.B. McCabe. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, pp.1-21
Lynch, B. P., & Smith, K. R. (2001). The changing nature of work in academic libraries. College & Research Libraries, 62, 407-419

Passet, J.E. (1996). You don’t have to pay librarians. In Reclaiming the American library past: Writing the women in, edited by Suzanne Hildenbrand. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Pub Corp. , pp. 207-220.
-----. (1994). United States of America. In Encyclopedia of library history, edited by W.A. Wiegand & D.G. Davis, Jr. New York; London: Garland Publishing, Inc , pp. 644-650.
-----. (1993). Men in a feminized profession: the male librarian, 1887-1921. Libraries & Culture , 28, 385-402.
Radford, N. (1984). The Carnegie Corporation and the development of American college libraries, 1928 – 1941 . Chicago: American Library Association.
Schuyler, M. (1999). The view from the top left corner . Computers in libraries. v19, Retrieved March 13, 2004, from the Library Literature WilsonWeb database.
Shiflett, O. L. (1994). Academic libraries. In Encyclopedia of library history. Edited by W.A. Wiegand & D.G. Davis, Jr. New York; London: Garland Publishing, Inc , pp. 5-14.
St. Lifer, E., & Oder, N. (1996). Net work: New roles, same mission. Library Journal , 121, 26-30.
Terrell, T. (2002). Salaries rebound, women break out. Library Journal , 30-36.
Statistical Abstracts of the United States (2003) . Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Gender In The Academic Library[1]

by Wilma Jones

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