Page 19 - Training for Librarianship Library Work As a Career

TRAINING FOR

LIBRARIANSHIP

CHAPTER I

LiBRARIANSHIP AS A PkOFESSION

In the past the belief was common that
training for librarianship was not possible.
" Gustos librorum nascitur, non fit," the
sajang ran,—the librarian is born, not made.
It was not strange that such an attitude
should exist and that it should persist.
Librarianship, as modern librarianship is
understood and practised, had not yet won
its spurs. Libraries were regarded solely as
tools of the scholar, and the librarian,
himself, was frequently a scholar of no
mean reputation. Libraries existed pri-
marily for those who thought things; they
did not plan to serve, as they do to-day, the
man or woman who makes things and does
things. Furthermore, those phases of library
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