Librarianship at CUNY �in the Period of �Open Admissions: ��Notes on Reading LACUNY Journal, 1972–1977

Roxanne Shirazi

CUNY Graduate Center

Intellectual Freedom and Social Responsibility in American Librarianship, 1967–1974

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Toni Samek (2001)

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CUNY Digital History Archive Collections: https://cdha.cuny.edu/collections/browse

vol. 3, no. 2 (1974)

• Basic library instruction should be a part of every student’s educational experience
• Instruction in subject bibliography should be given to support research assignments, or to serve as an introduction to the literature of a given field

• Remedial instruction should be given to meet the needs of open admissions students, SEEK students, and those in other special programs
• Each university library should aim to create a library instruction division headed by a full-time library instruction director who, in addition to teaching, will be responsible for the development and coordination of the program and for in-service training and supervision

—Dorothy B. Simon, NYCCC

“Educational freedom is found in the library,

the research laboratory, or other non-structured learning situations.

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We must teach these students about this freedom.”

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“We must show them that one’s mind can digress without penalty.

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The only joy that can be derived from learning to use the card catalog or periodical indexes will come as a result of this desire to digress.”

—Dorothy B. Simon, NYCCC

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Open Admissions and the Academic Library

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Patricia Breivik, 1977

“Many academic librarians seem too busy defending their shaky ‘turf’ to see themselves as servants. The biblical admonition that ‘he that is first shall be last and he that is last shall be first’ has long been ignored in the struggles for budget and faculty status. Librarians have yet to learn that they can only lose, so long as they strive politically to be equal with the teaching faculty, who always greatly outnumber them.” (p.23)

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Thank you!