Showing papers in "Library Trends in 1969"

Computerization: The Advent of Humanization in the College Library

Abstract: IN 1964, PHILIP MORSE astutely observed of libraries that, “When the collection grows beyond a certain size, or the users increase in number and range of interest beyond a certain degree, there seems to be a sudden change in the character of the library and of its service The larger mass of material makes it hard for the user to find what he wants and hard for the librarian to keep track of the material, and the larger number of users and their wider variety of interests decrease the personal contact between librarian and user” This paper is concerned with those college libraries whose numbers of volumes and users have enlarged to the extent that personal contact between librarian and user has ceased to exist for a high proportion of users Indeed, this circumstance does or will exist for every library whose community of users continuously grows and changes As size of collection and user group enlarges, college libraries become monolithic arrangements of volumes, catalogs, and indexes Ideally, books and journals should be arranged, cataloged, and indexed for an individual user, but as the number of users expands, it becomes increasingly Wcult, and then impossible, to classify, catalog, and index for individuals Instead, volumes are processed on the basis of content rather than for use and, except in the smallest of libraries, it is difficult to see how the collection could be handled otherwise, Nevertheless, this enforced disregard of individual users yields an intractably monolithic arrangement of materials that is depersonalized Fortunately for users, the electronic digital computer has immense potential for individual treatment of people and events One major ultimate goal of computerization of college libraries must be the recapturing of humanization lost when libraries grew beyond the stage

Branch Library Planning in Universities

Abstract: TWEXTYEARS AGO, Joseph Hudnut, then Dean of Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, wrote of the dramatic and threatening rate of growth of the Harvard University Library, and foresaw a great mound of books, as high as the Pyramids, covering the famous Harvard Yard, He also observed Harvard’s pattern of branch and departmental libraries, noting that the library “does not grow like a melon, enlarging its periphery in concentric rings, but like a strawberry plant which sends out creepers which take root and blossom into baby libraries.” 1 The Harvard University Library is the oldest university library in North America and the largest university library in the world, and it is probably no coincidence that it is also highly decentralized. For although other factors play a part, it can be generalized that the older and larger a library, the more decentralized it will tend to be. With almost 100 departmental, special, and graduate school libraries, and a number of new ones in the planning stages, the Harvard University Library is highly decentralized, not only from the point of view of space needs and the needs of users, but also because of its fiscal and administrative structure. “Every tub on its own bottom” sums up, as accurately as any metaphor can, the University’s organizationa2 The Harvard University Library reflects the decentralized structure of the University, and by the judicious coordination of these ninety-odd libraries through the Office of the Director and the University Librarian, a workable pattern of branch libraries developed.3 Keyes Metcalf stated explicitly the policy of coordinated decentralization and further expressed this development with the construction of the Houghton Library for rare books and manuscripts, the Lamont Library for undergraduates, the New England Deposit Library for storage of infrequently used materials, and further de-

Community Use of Academic Libraries.

Abstract: WE A R E I N C R E A S I N G L Y involved in a growing non-Yale community. The library is rapidly finding itself in the position of the man who is supporting two families with the wages from a job barely sufficient for one. The statistics for this past year detail the rising number of non-Yale users, within the Yale Libraries as well as through interlibrary resource sharing. The Library has actively cooperated in the library affairs of the State. . . . Demands from the outside continue, encouraged by the University’s open-door policy. Our desire is to cooperate to the fullest extent possible, but our means are already overextended. In concert with the Library, the University must define the role of the Yale University Library in both New Haven and the States1

The Library-College Idea: Trend of the Future?.

Abstract: FORTHE LAST TEN Y E A R S , the library-college concept has increasingly engaged the attention of writers, readers and practitioners in the field of higher education. This recent development, however, was anticipated in both theory and practice by earlier articles and experiments. Louis Shores is generally credited with crystallizing previous thinking when he described a “Library Arts College” in a seminal paper given at the 1933 conference of the American Library Association in Chicago. Shores wrote, “the material unit of cultural education is the book. , . the library is the liberal arts’ laboratory. Only the conception of the library as the college and the college as the library remains prerequisite to the birth of the library arts college.” By the sixties, Shores was speaking of the “generic book” and had broadened his concept of the “liberal arts’ laboratory” to include use of multi-media and of technological advances ranging from programmed learning to dial access computerized systems of instruction. Basically, “The Library College is the inevitable culmination of the independent study movement. . . the essence of the learning mode is independent study at the individual’s pace, in the library, rather than group teaching at an ‘average’ rate in the classroom.” Although both definition and institutional application of the librarycollege are contemporary developments, its beginnings go back to the earliest ideas of education as the drawing out of each person’s individual potential for development. Robert Jordan: bibliographer extraordinary of the movement, traces it from the Alexandrian Library, through the English university tutorial system, to Carlyle’s famous dictum, “The true university of these days is a collection of books.”4 Carlyle’s thought was adapted by Ernest Cushing Richardson who

Undergraduate Libraries in a University

Abstract: The past ten years have witnessed a radical increase in the number of major libraries on large university campuses designed specifically for undergraduates. Between 1960 and 1968 at least a dozen such libraries were opened, and almost as many more are on the verge of occupancy or in various stages of construction or serious planning. All evidence points to a fair continuance of this pace in the decade ahead.

Changing Perspectives in Educational Goals and Knowledge of the Learner.

Abstract: CHAXGEIS THE E S S E N C E O F LIFE. Without this dynamic quality, individuals perish and institutions of society crumble and decay. On the one hand, some members of our society recognize and accept the necessity for change; on the other hand, some individuals desire to maintain the status quo and avoid the inevitable reorganization of social institutions with accompanying changes in behavior of individuals and various groups of individuals. Both of these points of view are essential and complementary, for the former produces growth and the latter provides a core of stability. In previous periods of our history, change has occurred at a relatively comfortable rate permitting individuals time to incorporate these changes into the codes, customs, and mores of the society. In other words, the rate of change allowed time for examining the consequences of certain patterns of behavior and, to some extent, reduced the force of its impact. Today, the rate of change taking place in American society makes it mandatory for leaders in all fields to examine in advance possible directions and consequences of impending change. This concept of preparing in advance for change has prompted the American Academy of Arts and Science to appoint a Commission on the Year 2000 to engage in long-range p1anning.l The predictions of occurrences in our society as a result of technological changes cause thought and wonderment. Several years ago there were predictions that by the year 1970 half the pupils then enrolled in high school would be engaged in occupations unknown at that time; by 1980 a young person entering a career will be retrained three times during his lifetime; and by the year 2000 the work day will be three hours and the work week three days. More recently, Irwin ,.

Collegiate Education: Past and Present

Abstract: WHENJAMES BRYCEundertook to describe American higher education in his classic of the late nineteenth century, The American Commonwealth, he was clearly torn between the fact and the potentiality. Conceding that American colleges were more like European secondary schools than like European universities, he nevertheless believed that of all American institutions, they were making the greatest progress and had the brightest future. “The higher learning,” he bravely concluded, “is in no danger.” Certainly the American academic scene was a lively one when this century opened. For one thing, the variety and number of institutions must have struck an Englishman with great force. Unlike the periodic reformers of Oxford and Cambridge, American educators had traditionally founded competitive institutions when confronted by problems in an older one. Thus, there were 977 institutions of higher education in Americas2 Small wonder that 80 percent of the colleges founded before the Civil War had not survived and that in 1900 the nation was again peppered with colleges of slight value and still slighter financial support. The number of undergraduates increased from 232,000 to 346,000 between 1900 and 1910: but neither this growth nor the variety of the institutions produced heterogeneous student bodies. One acute historian has described the undergraduate population of 1900 as “a parade of Anglo-Saxon names and pale freshly scrubbed faces.” Coeducation, not democratization, accounted for the increase in students. Women, who had first gained admission to college at Oberlin in 1833, had made their way rapidly and by 1900 constituted about 40 percent of American college students-a level they were to maintain, with occasional fluctuations, thereafter.6 Catholics, Jews, and Negroes were much slower to appear in significant numbers. Negroes, in particular, could seldom aspire to a higher education;

Trends of Developments in the Information Systems of the Soviet Union and the Comecon Countries

Abstract: THE PROGRESS WHICH H A S BEEN ACHIEVED in the Soviet Union and in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, the German Democratic Republic and other countries of the Comecon group has been based on the development of an economic system and on principles of organizing information which are unique to the countries of the Socialist world. The methods which have been employed, and the institutions which have been established, have been described as \"the easiest and most economical way to achieve the maximum coverage of world information resources in different areas of knowledge, to correlate and synthesize the material broadcast far afield.'' Thus, within the U.S.S.R., there are at the present time seven large All-Union Institutes for information:

The Changing Nature of School Library Collections

Abstract: T E NY E A R S A G O a student searching through the card catalog in his school library could expect to find books, pamphlets and periodicals listed for his assigned and personal quests. Today in a rapidly growing number of school libraries he would find indexed on cards or printout a larger number of books and pamphlets, and in addition, films, slides, filmstrips, discs, tapes, periodicals on microfilm, programmed learning texts, and remote access retrieval listings. Choosing from the materials available, he could decide to look, listen or read, or perhaps do all three. His chances for learning would seem to have improved. To give all students the tools they need for learning must be the shared responsibility of all workers in the changing curriculum: the administrator, the supervisor, the researcher, the classroom teacher, as well as the librarian and media specialist. Indeed, as the Committee for Economic Development points out, \"The task of improving education is the business of everyone-everyone who is concerned about the future.\" l To find the right materials for the right child at the right time is not a new goal for librarians, but the means of achieving it have changed and expanded and, for the first time, give more realistic promise of fulfillment. In a changing world, the explosion of knowledge, bursting school populations, new insights into the learning process, and phenomenal technological advances have combined to demand new curriculum patterns in the school. The upgrading of instruction following the launching of Sputnick; new concepts in the teaching of languages, the sciences and the social sciences; and the spread of the humanities movement, have all required significant, new, and additional instruc-

Technological Advances Affecting School Instructional Materials Centers

Abstract: THE N O N B O O K T E C H N O I ~ O G Y ~resently available is grossly inadequate to support the kind of school inedia program invisioned by the new Standards For School Media Programs.l Very little of the currently available instructional technology is designed to support individual use of the vastly expanded collection of educational medis. Specialists in the field have been forced to adapt existing devices for use in the media center with the resultant technological over-kill. The dearth of well-designed, quiet, inexpensive student-media interface devices for use in carrels in individual or small-group inquiry is one of the chief factors affecting more comprehensive use of media designed for this purpose. An examination of the current issue of The Audio-Visual Equipment Directory \"upports the general thesis of \"more of the same.\" Manufacturers of educational equipment have not kept pace with the current developments in curric~~lum and educational methodology. To be sure, the self-contained classroom with its typically undersize screen, a 16m.m. projector, record player, and possibly an overhead projector along with the ever present chalkboard is the overwhelming reality, but increasingly, schools are building and equipping facilities to support individual student use of media. The available equipment for this individual and sniall group use of media is what is lacking. Equipment designed for the thirty student classroo~n just does not fit well in a 2' X 3' carrel and is much too heavy for an elementary school youngster to carry home. The school media center, if it is to serve as a vital force in education, must be greatly expanded beyond its traditional role as a repository for booh to encompass that of an information center which

National Planning for Canadian Science and Social Science Information Systems.

Abstract: ONEOF THE BASIC R E Q U I R E M E X T S of every industrially developed country is a network of ~ u b l i c and non-public agencies that specialize in planning and coordinating the growth of scientific and social science information systems necessary to meet the needs of economic and social development. Unlike some countries, Canada has not established a policy to govern the growth of such services, but has continued over the years to set up ad hoc specialized regional or national information services dealing with particular subjects or meeting the needs of separate regions or provinces. It has been pointed out that there is a wide difference between the information resources of the various regions of Canada, and that only a small amount of money has been spent in past years in developing and maintaining these resources.l With the population of Canada now over twenty million, it is clear that such methods will need to be changed. Since 1963, there have been a number of important changes in the factors effecting Canadian information organization. There has been a great increase in the amount of money provided by industry, education, and governments for this purpose. One of the important results of the International Exposition held in Montreal in 1967 was the effect it had on the design of new methods of communication of information in Canada. The Exposition, responding perhaps to the problem of bilingualism and multi-lingualism, evolved an educational style based on visual displays, supplemented by non-verbal communication and electronics. Such a powerful concentration of effort in designing these systems has had a lasting effect on planning information services in Canada and on the development of electronic communication methods. The growing school age population in Canada has brought about

Design Fashions and Fads in University Libraries.

Abstract: EACHCITY H A S its glamor buildings which dominate the urban pattern-a capitol or city hall, court house or post office, cathedral, temple, tower or public library. These prima donna types-their very siting usually rivaling the monumental importance of their configuration-have been the style setters throughout the history of architecture and city planning. Each generation has watched them run the design gamut-sometimes for pride and beauty; sometimes for sparkle, glitter and show; sometimes to be the avant of the avant-garde, often simply to create a better building. This, oddly, many have done. Whereas the city has numerous glamor buildings, the college or university may have but one, and often the library is the one to wear the tiara of the campus. Here again the drama of the site of the house of books may upstage the design of the structure itself. But in spite of the theatrics, results often can be rated as excellent. In this article, I want to comment on the major design changes (yes, many of them have been fashions and fads) of the twentieth century in university buildings-principally libraries. I shall attempt to relate their architecture to the other three-dimensional ( and some two-dimensional) aspects of design. I shall at least touch on the rapidly-changing professions, old and new, which become involved in the programming, design and development of the total university library. The past seven decades on campuses, as in cities, have seen the tempo of design changes which were previously evolutionary, increase to such a degree that they may be termed reuoZutionary. Since the advent of the machine age with its rapid means of transportation and communication, and all of the accompanying technology of construe

The Organization of National Documentation and Information Services--United Kingdom.

Abstract: A T R A D I T I O N A L , A N D N O T I N E F F E C T I V E , W A Y of mapping the British scene is to use the various government commissions as landmarks. At present we stand between the Parry report on academic libraries which appeared in 1967 and the Dainton Committee on National Libraries which is due to report by the end of 1968. The latter Committee was appointed at a time (late 1967) when feeling was running high on the issue of the British Museum, its structure and future-a time when in fact the government and the Trustees met in head-on c~nf l ic t .~ The terms of reference of the Committee are \"to examine the functions and organization of the British Museum Library, the National Central Library, the National Lending Library for Science and Technology, and the Science Museum Library in providing national library facilities; to consider whether in the interest of efficiency and economy such facilities should be brought into a unified framework; and to make recommendation^.\"^ This concern about the need for some planning and central control within a national system has come none too soon: many consider it to be years overdue. It is clear that the bibliothecal riches and information potential of these islands should no longer remain at the mercy of individualistic development along paths that diverge and converge haphazardly. Somewhat paradoxically, it is the need for coordination and standardization imposed by mechanization, which, though technical in origin, has provided the intellectual insight and the spur to action. In this sense it was the Brasenose conference on the automation of libraries held in Oxford in 1966,4 which first brought the large national libraries together, and in significant confrontation with the American development, which had been sparked by the 1963 Automation and the Library of Cong r e ~ s . ~

Organization of National Documentation and Information Services in India.

Abstract: The Situation in Newly De~eloping Countries. Documentation as envisaged in this article refers to a service which is very much en rapport with the research environment in the fields of the natural, physical, and social sciences and the humanities. By research environment is meant not merely abstruse im-estigations, but also analytical insights promoting access to material. This latter service comprises the twin activities of dissemination and feedback. The tempo and success of documentation activity is determined by the degree of intensity and sophistication of the industrial and social environment. The logic of the situation in developing countries obliges the government to take the initiative in the establishment of documentation service relying upon the laboratories, research institutions, and universities operated with public funds. Naturally enough, this arrangement has a very limited effectiveness in the absence of any very strongly developed industrial and scientific complexes, which clamor for service. There is another difficulty in certain developicg countries where a mixed economy prevails. In some countries of the world where the economic structure is homogenous and politically determined, a central authority would insure nation-wide response, but the experience in countries with mixed economies is different. Even in so-called government and government-sponsored complexes, the response is very difficult to achieve. It is remarkable how the politico-economic structure of a country can mold the character and quality of its documentation service. In a mixed economy such as India, where govemment initiative and private enterprise have created industrial and scientific complexes side by side with those whicl~ have fiercely

Implications of Federal Programs for College Libraries.

Abstract: T o CONSIDER THE IMPLICATIONSof any legislation is essentially to attempt to assess the probable future impact of such on a given subject or activity-in this case, on college libraries. To do this well, in view of all the ramifications and complexities usually inherent in even the simplest of acts, an exceedingly clear crystal ball is needed-an article in very great demand and one in particularly short supply. Consequently, in hindsight our best efforts often can be seen to have produced mediocre results, frequently to our later embarrassment or regret. Several elements enter into the effect of an act, each of which is difficult to assess during time of enactment. To begin with, legislation, like war, always begins in the minds of men-it does not just happen. The individual who conceives an act always has what is to him a fairly clear idea of its implications, although even his own view of these may well be limited or even mistaken due to his background, experience, and knowledge (or lack of same) of the subject under consideration.l Again, language is an imperfect vehicle of communication since words or phrases which a writer uses and which may seem perfectly clear to him often prove to be quite unclear to others. The different possible meanings of terms, particularly in their application to certain situations, are seemingly endless. This may be illustrated by reference to certain provisions of the Higher Education Act of 1965, the implications of which were apparently not foreseen during passage of the Act. For instance, Section IIA provides that in distributing of money to libraries for acquisition of library materials, emphasis shall be given to those libraries participating in cooperative programs. But what constitutes a cooperative program? Interlibrary loan arrange-

Personnel and Manpower Needs of the Future

Abstract: LIBRARY ADMINISTRATO AND UCATORS coming together to consider ways to meet the library manpower shortage have noted the poverty of pertinent factual data. This lack of information, defeating to confident planning for the future, has been recognized by the ALA Ad Hoc Committee on Manpower Problems, which has recommended that a series of studies be developed in all types of libraries to analyze the work done in each library in order to encourage experimentation, demonstration, and observation of the proper use of manpower in 1ibraries.l Paul Wasserman and Mary Lee Bundy, directors of the long-range research project in library manpower for the 1970'~~ now under way at the University of Maryland, point out that the situation in libraries is particularly complicated by the state of change in the field? The Maryland study purposes to assess the direction of the field through analysis of advanced prototype forms of information service and library programs. It is therefore reasonably certain that within a few years a significant literature of manpower utilization will have been built up for the guidance of planners in all kinds of libraries. The purpose of the present article, lacking the benefit of research in depth, is to suggest some of the viable forces within and without librarianship which will inevitably shape the American college library staff of the future. For the past twenty-five years, librarianship has been very slowly moving in the direction of professionalization. One important principle of a profession, the clear distinction between the work of the professional and the work of the non-professional, has been violated in countless libraries. Library administrators have been too complacent, too restrained by local circumstances or too little possessed of the management viewpoint to base their staff organizations on actual job analyses and have been content to employ graduate librarians in positions involving duties which might be performed as well by good non

Development of a Comprehensive Network for Scientific and Technical Information in Japan

Abstract: THEFIRST REGULAR SCIENTIFIC J O U R N A L published in Japanese was inaugurated in the 1870's and secondary publications in the field of science began around the turn of the century. Both of these steps had been initiated by leading figures in Japanese science and had been backed by Japanese scientific and professional societies on the basis of European models. The creation of the Japan Information Center of Science and Technology (JICST) by the Japanese government in 1957 was a landmark in the history of science information work in Japan. With this step the government began to take the responsibility for establishing and promoting scientsc and technical information services in the modem sense. During and particularly after World War 11, many governments in other countries started setting up or subsidizing national documentation or information centers and laying the foundation for the science information networks of today. The establishment of JICST was therefore not an exception, and Japan was fortunate in having taken this decisive step and establishing such a powerful service to assist it in its rapid economic reconstruction. At the operational level, JICST was, from its beginning, destined to adopt mechanized means to process a Iarge amount of scientific information. Although this seems quite natural today, it should be remenbered that the situation of mechanized systems in 1956-57 was quite different, only a simple imported accounting machine was then available in Japan. Even in the United States the first operational computerized KWIC-index system, devised by the late W.P. Luhn, was being demonstrated at the International Conference of Scientific Information, Washington, D.C., in November 1958. At the same con-

International Trends in Documentation and Information Services

Abstract: ing and indexing and automatic text reading. Some problems could be solved by the use of abstracts as sources of

Changing Staff Patterns and Responsibilities.

Abstract: THE USERS of the school media center, students and teachers, are the key determiners in the staffing and operation of the school library. Users of the center should have the right to expect specialized and auxiliary staff (1) to provide needed services in support of the educational program with materials and facilities available in sufficient numbers and of appropriate capabilities to implement constructive use of collections and equipment, ( 2 ) to provide orientation toward maintaining a climate for a receptive and understanding attitude toward individual students, and ( 3 ) to provide imagination in exercising a leadership role in making materials for learning relevant for the students and teachers which the library serves. The student in today's and tomorrow's schools is an increasingly more independent learner-independent in his approach to learning and in the rate which paces his progress. He is critical in his selection and appraisal of materials of learning. He expects to determine how long he will spend in making a concept functional for him. In scheduling patterns which allow the student to determine the way he will allocate his time, with a varying number of class periods per subject and no commitment on where he will spend the same period each day, independence in his decision making is fostered. He expects to have the opportunity for dialogue with a variety 04 specialized personnel and services. Students are aware of the accessibility of information through retrieval systems which have replaced the method of each student making the search-a very time consuming process. Frances Henne, reminds us: \"In the viewpoint of many school librarians the mere process of locating and finding materials in the library holds little intellectual benefit for students, and time thus spent is generally wasted time. The many processes involved in what students do with

Lighting and Mechanical Progress in Universities.

Abstract: ILLUMINATION is presently at a low PRACTICE ebb. Illumination engineering has been dropped from the engineering curriculum, teachers of illumination are nearly a departed breed, and the expertise available to architects lies in the commerical engineering firms. These firms are largely geared to the demands for dramatic lighting required by the commercial world, and lighting quality is of little consequence to them. As a result, very few libraries built since the war have good lighting. This fact is ironic since illumination engineering is an exact science, and the basics of handling lighting equipment to achieve good quality illumination have been available since 1948 in a simple fortypage pamphlet, written for the nonspecialist, entitled American Standard Guide for School Lighting.l Since then similar information has been easily available in other publications. The physiological problem is simple. The pupil of the eye contracts in the presence of glare, which causes visual discomfort. Two procedures can then be followed-the glare can be reduced to an acceptable level so that at comparatively low intensities enough light gets into the eye for effective vision, or the intensity of illumination can be increased to the point where enough light will get into the eye, even though the pupil is nearly closed. Reasonable men prefer the former procedure; lighting companies the latter. For the past decade, library lighting practice has been running heavily in the direction of the lighting companies. While severe glare is the condition of most library lighting, the tendency to provide ever higher levels of intensity, running upward of 100 foot-candles, has greatly increased, and this has exaggerated even more the glare problem.