Every profession needs its own body of knowledge to be exclusive, such that it sets it apart from other professions and establishes its identity as a profession. Medicine, Law, Engineering, Education, etc. have their own core of knowledge and mastery of their specialised core set them apart from each other and from the para professional group within their own category. This core makes them so exclusive that, as an example, even if the doctor were to sit under the coconut tree with his stethoscope, he can still practise his profession. Can we say the same for the librarian? Can a fresh graduate without library qualifications undertake cataloguing and classification, indexing, abstracting after being trained for a week? I say yes! All he needs is intelligence, subject knowledge, general knowledge and the ability to look up AACR II and LCSH. Now with OCLC and Bibliofile CD ROM databases, why does one need the librarian? And if the fresh graduate can do what any librarian is trained to do, what then, is so special about librarianship? This approach will provide a solid foundation this subject on which the student will continue to build during the remainder of his or her professional life and most certainly during the remainder of his or her professional education.
