In Wednesday's class (LS 531) we had a discussion/debate regarding internal conflicts between public services and technical services librarians in academic libraries. This conflict is derived mainly from the differences in the scope and occupational descriptions of the two groups. Public services librarians are mainly responsible for dealing with the public; assisting patrons with their needs and requests. Technical services librarians are those who provide needed services such as cataloging and maintaining databases and digital resources. There are some attitudes held by public services librarians toward their technical colleagues which contribute to this conflict. For instance, there is a general feeling that technical librarians are too dependent upon their technology and do not possess qualities which would suit them for the public services role. They sometimes are viewed as inferior to the public services group, although they have had some public services (i.e. reference) training. On the other hand, technical services librarians respond that they are an essential part of the library; their skills make it possible for public services librarians to find a requested item (through the catalog, for example).
In order to resolve this conflict, these things need to be considered:
1. The role of the technical services librarian is to complement the public services professional and to provide specialized services and, therefore, to assist the public services librarian in his or her job.
2. If we can assume that technical services personnel have received an equal amount of training in their library science program, there is no reason to consider the technical services librarian as inherently inferior to the reference librarian.
