On Access Services and Recruiting Future Library Leaders

For as long as librarianship has claimed the status of a profession, its practitioners have wondered and worried about the kinds of people that it needs to attract to the field to ensure its growth and vitality. As far back as 1876, Justin Winsor, the first president of the newly formed American Library Association, cautioned bluntly that librarianship would not thrive if librarians were perceived to be “. . . teachers who have failed in their discipline, or clergymen whose only merit is that bronchitis was a demerit in their original calling.”1 Rather, he insisted that librarians must be seen as “positive individuals who had entered the calling by choice.”2 Quite explicitly, he stated the need for librarians to exemplify the values, skills, and qualities of character that would attract talented and dedicated people, who might have any number of other career options, to the library profession as a first choice.