Raw Nerves: John Metcalfe and the Encel Survey of Librarians in New South Wales (original) (raw)
2013, Australian Library Journal
The 1972 publication of Librarians: a survey by Sol Encel, C. G. Bullard and F. M. B. Cass was the culmination of a six-year research project at the School of Sociology, University of New South Wales (UNSW), at the behest of the Library Association of Australia (LAA). The study was intended to cover the social and educational backgrounds of library employees in New South Wales, their attitudes to their occupation, the structures in which they worked, their gradings and salaries. Questionnaire responses were supplemented by interviews and research by Cass and Bullard, two of Encel’s honours students. A draft of the survey was even-handedly reviewed in the Australian library journal (ALJ) but then scathingly criticised within the LAA. Attention was drawn to factual errors, lack of analysis of supply and demand, and failure to distinguish between professional and non-professional workers. There was dismay at the report’s emphasis on the ‘second-class status’ of women in libraries. These criticisms were expanded in the ALJ by John Metcalfe in an excoriating review of the report and of the theses of Encel’s collaborators. Metcalfe questioned ‘the authority, reliability and credibility of all three’ works. This paper examines the background to and conduct of the survey, the LAA criticisms and Metcalfe’s reactions. It explores why Metcalfe was disturbed and affected by the implication that there had been systemic discrimination against women in librarianship in Australia, particularly at the Public Library of New South Wales, in the first half of the twentieth century.
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