Re-Imaging Public Librarianship Education

This paper demonstrates the importance of historicizing seemingly novel phenomenon as a means of defamiliarizing what is presented as obvious and inevitable. Thus, the popular constitution of the library as community hub and the placement of social workers therein is problematized when read against a parallel history involving the introduction, in the 1960s, of social workers into the library to assist in the delivery of community Information and Referral services (I&R). Starting from the question, if social workers are the solution, what is the problem their employment in public libraries is meant to solve, a literature search of social work and library science databases was conducted followed by a textual analysis of the research revealing competing narratives about professional competencies and legitimacy. The analysis surfaced critical questions regarding the current state of public librarianship and why a return to the reference desk might be a good idea.