114 FURTHER RESEARCH NEEDED

serve critical attention. Too often critics have improperly held
quantitative methods to blame when they did not approve of |
the nature of the problem under investigation (or, indeed, the
results). To focus such disapproval upon the use of statistical
or quantitative methods shows a lack of sophistication about
research problems.

To some extent, it seems fair to say, the researchers have
been held responsible for conditions properly attributable to
the profession as a whole. The researchers have been dismissed
as producing “only another quantitative study,” yet the pro-
fession’s latest official statement of public library standards is
itself largely “quantitative” in the same sense. Actually, the
researcher can produce much more than is implied in this dis-
approving phrase—if the profession will accept responsibility
for helping to define problems for research. It can do this in a
significant way, for example, by co-operating in the formula-
tion of important problems (which would incidentally be
a valuable educational device for researchers and librarians
alike). More than this, however, the profession can help to
identify significant problems by developing more fully its
own objectives and standards. Frequently the researcher is
handicapped by inadequate bases of evaluation for library ac-
tivities. Such standards cannot be set up in isolation, but only
through some sort of professional discussion and agreement.
Without sound and substantial standards of action accepted
by the profession generally, the researcher cannot make more
effective use of his methods and techniques. For better re-
search, there must be a more favorable intellectual climate
within the entire profession.

But beyond such general deficiencies there are particular
areas in which important problems of public librarianship
have been given little or no systematic investigation. Although

'ALA Committee on Post-War Planning, Post-War Standards for Public
Libraries, ALA, 1943.