The Editor Learns How Librarians
Are Made
 

ws
 

lAT distinguishes a profession which has really
"arrived"? "An out-going, social motivation," said
rl White, Dean of Columbia's School of Library
Service. AVe were visiting the School recently, curious to see "how
librarians are made." The Dean continued: "This is as true for the
profession of librarian as ir is for that of physician and teacher.
Nowadays, the library schools look with something less than
favor on the would-be librarian who seeks admission with merely
the 'I-just-lovc-books' motivation. This kind of person wants to
be left alone witli books, and resents the fact that in the modern
library with its myriad readers, people are always interrupting
him!"

There is nothing anti-social, certainly, about the Columbia
Libraries. We once wrote an editorial entitled "A Library is
People," emphasizing the friendly out-goingness which we have
always found there, and naturally we were pleased when Dean
White recalled the editorial, and said that it caught something of
the spirit which goes into the making of librarians at Columbia.

None of the lixely-looking young people we ran into later at
the School looked as if they were going to turn into crabbed
custodians of books, like the fierce old librarian we remember in
our school-days. AVe called him "Monkey," perhaps because of
his agility in dodging around among the bookshelves in order to
chase the boys out. To elude him and to steal forbidden, bookish
pleasures in the stacks became an occupation for a few of us, but
sometimes "Monkey" would surprise the most persistent by an
unexpected welcome into the world of books which he guarded
so passionately from the profane.

This treatment may have challenged some into a life-long affec¬
tion for reading and books, but many were discouraged. The

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