North Carolina's Special Libraries Revisited

When North Carolina Libraries published its fall 1967 issue surveying the status of libraries in the state, Dr. Doralyn J. Hickey, an Assistant Professor of Library Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, contributed “Special Libraries: A ‘Coming Force’ in North Carolina.” She had every reason to choose this optimistic title. There had been a steady rise in special libraries since the North Carolina Library Commission first began to record them in the 1930s, and their membership had seen a substantial increase during subsequent decades. Hickey attributed this growth to the expansion of the state’s industries, which needed dedicated repositories and subject specialists to serve the needs of individual businesses and further the state's social and economic goals. The recent establishment of the North Carolina chapter of the Special Library Association in 1966 added legitimacy to these unique repositories and anchored the state to its national parent organization. In this environment, it was easy for Hickey to imagine a world where special librarians across North Carolina would join together, through shared interests and better communication, to achieve “maturity and self-confidence as a profession.” However, this positivity belied her deep frustration with ongoing challenges yet to be sufficiently addressed within the field. These included the absence of a clear definition of a “special library,” problematic methods of statistical documentation, and deficient library staffing. Her concerns were prophetic, as these issues would plague the field for years and continue to do so today.