Collection › LCMS Convention Proceedings (St. Louis, Missouri) › 1941 · 38th Convention, Fort Wayne › Page 48

LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1941, Page 48

Scan: The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod

Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

48 Seminaries and Colleges, — Individual Institutions

Granting River Forest a Full-Time and Academically Fully Qualified
Librarian
(Memorial 118)

Fifteen years ago our college applied to Synod to grant us a
full-time librarian (Eingaben fuer die Achtzehnte Delegatensynode,
versammelt zu St. Louis, 1926, p. 12). Synod did not grant this
request. We were therefore compelled to administer our library
in the same manner in which we had administered it prior to 1926;
that is, we placed an instructor or an assistant instructor in charge
of the library and had him operate it as best he could under the
circumstances. This arrangement is, as we beg to inform Synod,
not at all satisfactory. We are therefore once more applying to you
to grant us a librarian who can devote all his time to, and make his
chief interests bear on, the administration and development of
our library.

But it is not only important that our library be in charge of
a full-time librarian. It is equally important that this person be
academically fully qualified for this position. In the words of
Dr. George Walter Rosenlof, secretary of the North Central Asso-
ciation, “the librarian of a teachers’ college should be a person of
the same degree of academic training as that of a full-time
professor in the college, having, in addition, technical training
equivalent to that required for the Bachelor of Library Science
degree, and he shall be accorded the same privileges as any
other members of the instructional faculty” (Library Facilities of
Teacher-training Institutions, Teachers’ College, Columbia Uni-
versity, New York, 1929, p. 152). The standard set by Dr. Rosenlof
is, in our opinion, not too high. Its realization at our college will
be a significant step toward achieving the double goal for which our
school is striving; namely, (1) the training of teachers who will
be ever more adequately prepared for service in Synod’s schools
and congregations; (2) the assurance of complete and permanent
certification of our teachers in the various States where our Church
carries on its work.

May we therefore plead with Synod to grant us a full-time
and academically qualified librarian whose rank will be that of
a regular professor.

Tue Boarp or Controu or Concorpia TeacHers’ COLLEGE

Ernest T. Lams, Chairman
Ap. BarTLina, Secretary
THE Facutty or Concorpia Teacuers’ CoLLece
ArtTHuR Kuinck, President
Martin Locuner, Secretary