From Library Work to Library Science: Forming Canadian Librarianship, 1920-1960

Abstract

This paper explores the discourse presented about a distinctive chapter in Canadian librarianship when it emerged as a modern professional career between 1920 and 1960. During the four decades following the World War I (WWI), librarians sought to develop an intermediary role between different clienteles and the world of print. At the same time, library science evolved as a university-based discipline grounded in the knowledge and techniques of collecting, organizing, and managing printed records for public consumption. Three prominent issues are examined: the question of acceptable library education and training, the primacy of a service ethic, and issues surrounding the profession’s female-intensity during first-wave feminism. Before the 1960s, a two-term bachelor’s degree in library science was the standard requirement to gain entry into the profession. There was an identifiable blend of public-spirited service and print oriented stewardship to librarianship serving diverse clienteles in municipalities, universities and colleges, schools, businesses, and governments. As well, librarianship was a female-intensive career that strove to attain better public recognition. While there were many influences on the development of librarianship, the regional considerations, the everpresent English-French cultural divide, and the American precedents were very important. All these interconnected elements changed after 1960 as the core knowledge of librarians began to transition to library and information science, as they adopted new values, as the importance of print resources lessened, and as second-wave feminism came into being.