Education and library automation

Abstract

I shall try to develop in this paper a rationale for library education that will, I hope, have a direct bearing on certain major issues that have been of concern to the profession for perhaps half a century. These issues are reflected in questions such as: How much of the work performed by librarians really requires professional education; are professional librarians used effectively ? Is it practical to expect library education to deal in depth with subject specialities? If subject depth is acquired at the undergraduate level, let us say in chemistry, can the library profession hope to attract the better students, or is it more likely to attract those who have been unsuccessful in coping with their initially chosen specialty? That is, do not those who do well in chemistry usually become chemists ? What undergraduate specialty does indeed constitute the best preparation for graduate study in librarianship ? Is there a science underlying "library science"? What does all this have to do with automation and data processing?