ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries 324 REPORT ON THE SEVENTY-FOURTH MEETING OF THE ASSOCIATION OF RESEARCH LIBRARIES HELD IN ATLANTIC CITY Program Meeting W ith the unsettling painted presence of the Playboy of the Gay Nineties—surrounded by opulent beauties wining and dining with a few male companions—as the backdrop, the Associ­ ation of Research Libraries settled down to business as best it could in the Diamond Jim Brady Room of the Shelburne-Empress Hotel, Atlantic City, New Jersey, on Saturday, June 21, at 2:00 p .m . ARL President Douglas W. Bryant (Harvard) presided and introduced the representatives of the six libraries newly elected to membership—the University of Alberta, the University of California at Davis, Case Western Reserve University, Dartmouth College, the University of Massachusetts, and the New York State Library. This brings the total mem­ bership of ARL to eighty-five. Special guests and those other than the regular representa­ tives of member libraries were also introduced. The afternoon program was devoted to two reports. The first was on the University Library Management Study being conducted for ARL by Booz, Allen, and Hamilton (BAH) with the advice of a committee composed of Warren J. Haas (University of Pennsylvania), chairman, Mr. Bryant, Herman Fussier (University of Chi­ cago), John McDonald ( University of Connec­ ticut), Robert Vosper (University of California at Los Angeles), Willard Boyd (Vice-President of the University of Iowa), Allan Cartter (Chancellor of New York University), Howard H. Johnson (President of Massachusetts Insti­ tute of Technology), and Richard Lyman (Vice-President of Stanford). The Council on Library Resources, Inc., made a grant for the first phase of the study, which was designed to identify problems of major significance in uni­ versity library management that may possibly be solved by applying methods of scientific management and to establish priorities. The libraries of six universities—Connecticut, Cor­ nell, Duke, Iowa, Pennsylvania, and University of California at Los Angeles—served as sam­ ples in the survey. University presidents and academic, business, and planning officers, as well as librarians, have been interviewed. The American Council on Education is co­ sponsoring the study and named the non-li­ brarian members. “Thus,” said Mr. Haas, who presided over this presentation, “the result will not simply be librarians talking to themselves, but university administrators will also be involved.” The progress report, presented by Douglas Metz and Tom Bertone of BAH, was, Mr. Haas stressed, very preliminary. Mr. Metz outlined some of the trends and challenges facing higher education, such as changing attitudes and expectations, the neces­ sity for designing new programs that are action- oriented and meet social responsibilities, and the need to maintain a faculty and student body that constitute an outstanding community of scholars. He pointed to the increased en­ rollment (22 per cent “in the most recent” three years), new academic programs such as ethnic studies, a 74 per cent increase in mas­ ter’s and a 119 per cent increase in doctoral degrees conferred between 1949-50 and 1963- 64, and an estimated 151 per cent increase in the number of faculty members between 1949- 50 and 1967-68. Providing financial resources for such growth and change, particularly in private institutions, will be increasingly difficult. Organized research in universities has been “largely federally sponsored,” but will this con­ tinue? These trends have, of course, affected li­ braries. In less than a decade there has been a 50 per cent increase in the number of volumes in university libraries, from 176,721,000 in 1959 to 265,000,000 in 1965, Mr. Metz said. How­ ever, the number of volumes per student has declined from 46.5 in 1959 to 41.2 in 1965. Over the same period, the number of “regis­ tered titles” has doubled, from 15,000 to 30,000 in the United States alone. Library costs have risen, for personnel, but especially for books, and financing of libraries has become increas­ ingly complex. Demands upon university li­ braries, not only by the academic community, but by business, industry, and other nonaca­ demic users have both increased and changed. Thus, larger library budgets are required. Be­ cause increased financing may not keep pace with these needs, efficient management is im­ perative. Effective planning, budgeting (espe­ cially Program Planning and Budgeting Sys­ tem ), organization, staffing, and interinstitution- al cooperation are essential. But there are difficulties in comprehensive, systematic library planning. Often the universi­ ties themselves, although they have long-range plans, tend to operate on an ad hoc basis, and there are few effective systems for relating li­ brary planning to university planning. This, plus the limited time and scope university li­ brarians and their staffs have for planning, leads to short-range, rather informal planning. Budget preparation is the best documented planning in libraries, but budgets are only for Two new editions of Current Contents® are being born. The next two noises we make in your library the others, will be published weekly. They will will be titled: Current Contents— Agricultural, each cover over 700 significant journals in Food & Veterinary Sciences and Current their respective fields. Contents— Engineering & Technology. Their And they will be current. Many contents goal is the same as yours. To help make the pages appear in advance of the publication’s library a more efficient, meaningful source of arrival in your library. information. If your library doesn’t use Current Contents, These are the sixth and seventh Current let us send you a free copy so you can evaluate Contents® offspring of the Institute for Scien­ its great worth for yourself. tific Information. (The others: Physical Sci­ If you are one of the many Librarians who ences; Life Sciences; Chemical Sciences; Edu­ already subscribe to other editions of Current cation; Behavioral, Social and Management Contents, let us send you free copies of these Sciences.) If they enjoy as much success as newest members of the family fo r your perusal. the rest of the family has known, we’ll be very After that we promise to be q u ie t… at proud parents, indeed. least until we announce the arrival of the next These new editions of Current Contents, like edition of Current Contents. QUIET! N O W AVAILABLE ON MICROFICHE American Academy of Arts and Sciences. PROCEEDINGS Vols. 1-40 (1848-1905) ........................................... $120.00 American Philosophical Society. PROCEEDINGS. Vols. 1-53 (1838-1914) $150.00 BRITISH CONTROVERSIALIST A N D LITERARY M A G A Z IN E . 1850-72 $120.00 FRAZER'S M A G A Z IN E . Vols. 1-106 (1830-82) $475.00 JO U R N AL OF SO C IAL SCIENCE. Vols. 1-46 (1869-1909) $ 6 0 .0 0 LIBRARY OF SOUTHERN LITERATURE. New Orleans, 1908-23 17 vols. $ 50.00 M USICAL TIMES. Vols. 1-52 (1844-1912) $360.00 NAPOLI G IORNALE DI M ATEM ATICHE. Vols. 1-52 (1863-1914) $150.00 Washington, George. THE W RITINGS OF GEORGE W A S H IN G T O N FROM THE O R IG IN A L MANUSCRIPT SOURCES, 1745-99. Washington, GPO, 1931-44. 39 Vols. $130.00 ZEITSCHRIFT FUR KRISTALLOGRAPHIE, MINERALOGIE, UND PETRO­ GRAPHIE. Vol. 1-105 (1877-1944) ( 16 mm m icrofilm ) $495.00 327 one- or two-year periods. Furthermore, budget formats are “resource input rather than objec­ tive and program output oriented,” Mr. Metz felt. Mr. Bertone of BAH discussed problems of staffing. The most serious deficiency is lack of management training, he said. The preliminary study indicated that the status of librarians is uncertain; job classification structures do not generally reflect the highly skilled professional contributions made, but are weighted on the supervisory side; there is no inventory of the kinds of librarians that are needed; and there are recruiting difficulties. The high turnover of nonprofessional staff ( students and faculty wives) is a serious problem for academic li­ braries. Library organization, Mr. Bertone asserted, often results from unplanned response to evolv­ ing needs rather than to long-range planning and consideration of alternatives. In regard to operations, the role of the library in relation to the academic program and the university’s com­ mitment to the library have not been clearly defined, he said. Obviously, there is need of a strong library if the quality of the academic program is to be maintained and an outstand­ ing faculty retained. There is a serious com­ munications gap, which is a systems as well as an organization problem, the BAH study in­ dicated. Evaluations are difficult, for they tend only to reflect comparisons. But are “the best” li­ braries good, too good, or bad, Mr. Bertone asked, but found inadequate information for answering. Statistics are in terms of volumes held, circulation, etc., and they do not provide, he said, a data base for establishing relation­ ships between university and library programs. Operating policies are generally not codified as management guides, Mr. Bertone continued. Most systems used in university libraries are the traditional manual ones and the application of automatic data processing has been limited. While some university administrations are pres­ suring for the use of automation techniques in certain library operations, the library’s needs for computer time “do not interface” with those of the university as a whole. Automation can im­ prove library operations, b ut practical results will have to be demonstrated, and it is essential that systems and programs be transferable, and improvements can also be made in manual sys­ tems, Mr. Bertone felt. Main libraries seem to have adequate facili­ ties to meet current needs but have little room for expansion. Storage facilities at a distance from the campus are resisted by librarians and faculty alike, the study indicated. “An evolving solution seems to be the establishment of large decentralized libraries covering several major academic fields, e.g., the life sciences. An addi­ tional trend appears to be the provision of separate facilities for graduate and undergradu­ ate students.” More centralized services, such as LC’s Shared Cataloging Program, and more cooperative and interinstitutional arrangements are needed, but the support of university ad­ ministrations is necessary for the last-mentioned, and they seem to have low priority in planning. Library financing is becoming more and more crucial and complex because of the multi­ ple sources of funds. Grants, which are uneven and uncertain, pose major administrative prob­ lems and alternative funding sources must be sought, Mr. Bertone concluded. Mr. Vosper, opening the panel discussion by the librarian members of the advisory commit­ tee, said that libraries face one of their most complex problems in determining how best to organize and utilize library staff. More profes­ sionalization is needed, he felt, and the sub­ professional staff should be trained in order to release librarians for professional work. Too often, the professional staff members have an “academic outlook,” whereas it is management skills and interests that are needed. They do, however, recognize the need for change in li­ brary management. Herman Fussier, while strongly supporting recommendations for prudent management of libraries and library resources, felt that libraries were not always the guilty parties. There may be a serious mismatch between what universi­ ties expect of libraries and the resources that are available. In such cases, good management alone cannot solve the problems. He felt that ad hoc planning is one of the strengths of a university, even though it may adversely affect library planning. The communication gap be­ tween the library and the university adminis­ tration may, he suggested, be intentional and fundamental; libraries in such cases could en­ gage in long-range planning of a sophisticated nature that would prove to be useless. On the other hand, there is evidence that universities are recognizing the need for more careful plan­ ning; but there is also a need for recognition of the demands that are made on big libraries by other academic institutions. There is no formula for solving the centralization versus decentral­ ization question, but it is a very important one; and interinstitutional relations constitute anoth­ er fundamental problem with which universities are not yet able to cope, because, he said, they do not have the necessary mechanisms to link systems. Mr. McDonald commented on the financial observations made, noting that many of the recommendations in the report would mean in­ creased costs at a time when competition for funds is great. He noted particularly the dif­ ficulties of budget-making in some state institu­ tions, where the levels through which a budget must pass are numerous and complicated. Mr. Bryant observed that libraries are not in­ 328 dependent agencies but are largely guided and controlled by the programs of the parent in­ stitution. It is very important to stress this. He also pointed out that the sources of support for private universities have become increasingly complex, yet the base of support must be broadened even further. Discussion from the floor brought out that one of the tools of modern management, Pro­ gram and Performance Budgeting System, now a requirement in a number of universities, is it­ self costly; that the university librarian is fight­ ing a battle for the faculty, for the university itself, and not for the library or the librarian; that library costs actually start with the faculty; that greater emphasis should be given in the report to interinstitutional arrangements, which can be very effective, especially in large metro­ politan areas, but which must have the support of the administrators; that organizational “ef­ ficiency” should not be carried so far as to be­ come “a straight-jacket”; that charges for li­ brary services, which had been suggested, would be comparable to supporting a fire de­ partment by leveling charges only against the people who had fires; that state universities may not be able to plan because of outside pres­ sures and that in most universities there are po­ litical problems, which are not amenable to or­ derly planning or decision-making; and that an effort should be made to get student opinions and reactions as input to the study. As the second major presentation of the aft­ ernoon, Burton W. Adkinson, Head of the Of­ fice of Science Information Service (OSIS), National Science Foundation, summarized his paper on “A Program for Support of University Centered Information Systems.” The resources of his office are being concentrated, he said, on “developing information systems in basic disci­ plines which take advantage of the available technology.” He stressed the limited funds available as contrasted with the resources of the Office of Education (O E ) and the fact that OSIS tries not to duplicate OE–supported ac­ tivities but to foster projects “in harmony with the broader program of OSIS on behalf of in­ formation systems development.” NSF has assisted libraries in four areas: (1) direct support of library operations, including help on construction, acquisition, and even sal­ aries; (2 ) funding for curriculum development and training for professional development; (3) support of translation, abstracting, indexing, im­ provement of bibliographic services, and re­ search into indexing theory and file organiza­ tion; and (4) grants for the development of computerized systems for library operations. He pointed out that from 5 to 15 per cent of in­ stitutional grants must go to libraries. Now, OSIS is emphasizing the development of “user-oriented, campus-based information services” in order to serve research scientists and students who will do the research of the future. These services will combine information retrieval, data reduction and analysis, and com­ munications. The objective is to enable “a meaningful dialogue with a corpus of recorded knowledge.” To obtain support for such activi­ ties, a university administration must meet the criteria of responsibility, of “representativeness” ( responsiveness to requirements for informa­ tion), and of “readiness” (technical compe­ tence). Systems oriented toward one or more of the scientific disciplines, interdiscipline and subdiscipline systems, and library systems and networks are the broad types of projects being funded. Mr. Adkinson cited a number of spe­ cific projects that illustrate OSIS’ willingness to support improvement in library operations in the interest of the scientist-user. But, he con­ cluded, the needs for total information transfer are just beginning to be explored, and ARL institutions can participate in and contribute to this effort. During the discussion, Mr. Adkinson said that lack of adequate funding compelled OSIS to divide its resources among many competing projects. He noted again that OE had larger sums available, but a representative of OE said that it, too, was handicapped by inadequate funding. This, Mr. Skipper (Calif., Berkeley), observed wryly, reminded him of the little girl who was complaining about how poor her fam­ ily was: “Daddy is poor, Mama is poor, and all the servants are poor.” He inquired about the cost of user-oriented SDI and noted that the BAH report recommended that libraries be concerned with cost effectiveness, yet he found it difficult to relate this to the new types of information systems Mr. Adkinson described. These systems are expensive, Mr. Adkinson re­ plied, but they are part of the university’s, not the library’s, budget. Carl Jackson (Pennsylvania State University Library) observed that the profession is being rushed to a confrontation—the library versus the computer center. William Locke (M IT) men­ tioned that the real problems are software problems. The hardware is available, but com­ puter tapes usually must be re-programmed. Mr. Fussier expressed the hope that the ARL could be helpful in developing an access system that would avoid waste; experimental work is necessary to identify issues, but methods could then be developed to provide appropriate means of access. Replying to an inquiry from Porter Kellam (Georgia) about how to get science books—li­ brary support for projects that receive grants— Mr. Adkinson noted that such support fre­ quently is part of a larger application, some­ times separately identified but often not. If an application does not include a specific provision for the library, OSIS does not even see the pro­ posal. To the suggestion that NSF should re- A lot of colleges are buying library books when they should be buying libraries. When you order your books through your college the expense of having the Xerox College Library Program, thousands of orders typed up and all you do to set up your library is mailed out. unpack it. 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PEASE AND THE EDITORS OF " C H O IC E " . " C H O IC E " IS A PUBLICATION OF THE ASSOCIATION OF COLLEGE A ND RESEARCH LIBRARIES, A D IV ISIO N OF T H E AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION. 330 This coupon opens a new approach to plays with Chicorel Index to Plays in Anthologies V O LU M E 1 … indexes plays of all types, in English and in translation, Broadway to Off-Off- Broadway, plays for children, texts, radio and TV, etc. “Unique, quick, comprehensive, uncom plicated…”, Celeste Ashley, Theatre Librarian, Stanford University. "Fills the void in play anthology index­ ing since 1962,” Marvin Scilkin, Orange Public Library. In one alphabetical arrangem ent full bibliographic inform ation: entry by anthology title, editor, play title, play­ wright; entries give publisher, place, year, pages, LC num ber, price. Descriptive note and contents. No double-look-up,”… a much needed work … compiled and organized by a librarian who knows problem s of the profession … ” , Richard Samuelson, Librarian, Som erset College, N J . Special pre-publication offer … good until December 31,1969. The price of admission only $14.40 (Reg. $16.00) in the U.S.A. & Canada CHICOREL LIBRARY PUBLISHING CO. 330 West 58 St. New York, N.Y. 10019 Telephone (212) 246-1743 quire that requests for grants be referred to the university librarian, Mr. Adkinson replied that NSF could not dictate; it can only say that support for library resources is an eligible item. Business Meeting President Bryant opened the business meet­ ing at 7:45 p .m ., introducing Thomas Buck- man (Northw estern), chairman of the Ameri­ can Organizing Committee of the recent Ja­ pan-U nited States Library Conference on Li­ braries in Higher Education, who reported on the meeting (see pp. 293-96 of the LC Infor­ mation Bulletin of June 5 ). The objective was to enable library leaders from the two highly industrialized countries to get acquainted, ex­ change views, and discuss areas of potential cooperation. Preparation for the conference brought together the three major university li­ brary organizations of Japan. They now propose to form an organization similar to the ARL to work on the kinds of problems with which ARL deals. Tatsuo Morito of Japan and Logan Wilson of the United States, the keynote speak­ ers, both made the point th at libraries can be the centers for higher education because they offer opportunities for independent work. In presenting his report as president, Mr. Bryant noted that: ( 1 ) ARL has accepted a grant from th e Na­ tional Agricultural Library to serve as the man­ ager of a National Serials Pilot Project involv­ ing the three national libraries. (2 ) An Interlibrary Loan Study Committee has been appointed, with Gordon Bechanan (H arvard), David Heron (Kansas), and Gor­ don Williams (C enter for Research Libraries) as members, and Arthur McAnally ( Oklahoma) as chairman. (3 ) ARL’s Board of Directors has author­ ized the formation of a Committee on Copying Manuscripts and Unpublished Materials, with Roy P. Basler (L C ), William Bond (H arvard), William Cagle (In d ian a), James Henderson (N Y PL), and Oliver W. Holmes (National Historical Publications Commission) as mem­ bers, and Verner W. Clapp (C L R ) as chair­ man. (4 ) ARL hopes to publish soon the Metcalf study of “Library Lighting” and the Ellsworth study of the “Economics of Book Storage.” (5 ) The American Council of Learned So­ cieties has organized a Committee on Research Libraries, with John Blum (Yale), Frederick Burkhardt (A C LS), William Dix (Princeton), Carl Overhage (M IT ), Gordon Ray (Guggen­ heim Foundation), George W inchester Stone, Jr. (NYU), and Robert Vosper (U CLA ) as members and Douglas Bryant as chairman. It is hoped th at this committee can relate both to the proposed National Commission on Libraries and Information Science and to university fac­ ulty members. 331 (6) ARL’s midwinter meeting will include not only a business and a program meeting— possibly discussions of staff participation in li­ brary decision-making and of automation as applied to university libraries—but also a visit to Northwestern University’s new library build­ ing on Sunday morning, January 18. Stephen McCarthy, in his report as ARL’s executive director, also mentioned the grant from NAL for the National Serials Pilot Project. ARL’s responsibility will be to produce a union list of the live scientific and technical serials held at each of the three national libraries and to obtain data needed by the management of these libraries to plan for effective utilization of their serial collections. Mr. McCarthy also re­ ported that: (1 ) The Board of Directors has authorized the appointment of an advisory committee to Raymund Zwemer (Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology), who is making a study to develop quality control for the input of scientific information in computer systems. (2) The first phase of the Microform Tech­ nology Project has been completed and an in­ terim report will be distributed to members. A proposal to OE for a continuation of this project has been approved and a contract has been signed. (3) The Center for Chinese Research Ma­ terials is expanding its reprinting and micro­ filming program. (4) It is expected that an appointment to the position of Director of the Slavic Biblio­ graphic and Documentation Center will soon be made. Mr. Vosper, as chairman of the Federal Re­ lations Committee, reported on the status of the proposed National Commission on Libraries and Information Sciences. The House bill provides for an independent commission, attached only for budget and housekeeping purposes to the Office of the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, while the Senate bill, which passed without opposition, places the commis­ sion in the Office of the Secretary. Commentary on the bill, Mr. Vosper said, seemed to protect the commission from being “sidetracked or downgraded.” The effectiveness of the commis­ sion will depend on the ability and dedication of its membership; thus, he said, ARL should be prepared to present the names of potential appointees. On advice of the Federal Relations Commit­ tee and on ARL’s recommendation, certain changes in the guidelines for the College Li­ brary Resources Program (Title II–A of the Higher Education Act) were made. They gave weighted advantage for doctoral programs, for Evan Farber —Librarian, Earlham College Richmond, Indiana —Chairman, College Libraries Section, ACRL (1968-69) — Author, CLASSIFIED LIST OF PERI­ ODICALS FOR THE COLLEGE LI­ BRARY, Faxon, 1957. (1970 edition now in preparation). HERE’S HOW 474 SERIAL TITLES IN THE SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES WERE SELECTED FOR INCLUSION All of the more than 1,000 cumulative indexes included in the collection are to serials which have been cited either in one or more recognized selection guides for li­ braries (including Farber’s PERIODICALS FOR THE COLLEGE LIBRARY), or by one or both of the co-chairmen of the project’s editorial board. The co-chairmen are: for the HUMANITIES GROUP. Pulit­ zer Prize-winning historian William Goetz- mann, Chairman of the Department of His­ tory at the University of Texas, Austin; and, for the SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY GROUP, Joseph Shipman, director of the Linda Hall Library of Science and Tech­ nology, Kansas City, Missouri. According to Mr. Shipman, "This collec­ tion offers a fast and inexpensive new ap­ proach to expanding the retrieval capacities of growing reference libraries, especially those that cannot immediately afford to build up long backfile runs of the basic scientific and technical journals.” The CUMULATIVE INDEXES TO SELECTED SERIALS which appear in our catalog are also listed in the August 1969 issue of ANNOUNCED REPRINTS and the 1969 editions of PUB­ LISHERS’ TRADE LIST ANNU­ AL and BOOKS IN PRINT. CUMULATIVE T h e 7 0 0 v o l u m e “As independent study becomes increas­ ingly important in undergraduate education, and students seek a growing variety of mate­ rials through indexes and bibliographies, ef­ fective access to serial backfiles assumes a new and higher priority in college and junior college libraries. Librarians, however, faced with limitations of space and funds, find it impractical, if not impossible, to build up complete runs of the serials which students want and need. The availability of more and more periodicals in microform alleviates this difficulty somewhat, but one drawback to them is that students and other researchers are often discouraged by the necessity of looking through indexes on microform. “Therefore, one of the easiest and most effective ways to enhance the accessibility of microform serial holdings (and thus increase their use) is to acquire full-size reprints of cumulative indexes which can be used along­ side roll microfilm, fiche, or micro-opaque. All 700 volumes are offered SEND TODAY FOR OUR FREE 4 0 PAGE Carrollton Press, talks about serial backfiles and how to increase their accessibility with INDEXES TO SELECTED SERIALS facsimile reprint collection from Carrollton Press “Libraries which can’t manage to have full runs of all the backfile serials they need, either in full size originals, reprints, or mi­ croforms, can utilize cumulative indexes for locating references as the basis for inter- library loan requests. This identification pro­ cess will become increasingly significant in the future as long distance inter-library fac­ simile transmission becomes more widely used. “While the standard periodical indexes partially meet this need, large numbers of serials— even some of the most important— are not covered by them. There are also those that have only been covered recently because they were not recognized as signifi­ cant in their earlier years. Moreover, many standard indexes did not include author en­ tries, and only in a few cases do they index the contents as completely or in as great depth as do many of the journals’ own cumulative indexes. “The Carrollton Press reprint collection should prove particularly valuable in build­ ing up a library’s serial reference capabilities at comparatively moderate cost, especially inasmuch as it is made up of cumulative in­ dexes to those serial titles which have been selected by one or more authorities for inclu­ sion in particular types of collections. ” singly or in 46 modular subject sets for 1969 and 1970 deliveries. UBJECT CATALOG OF CUMULATIVE INDEXES (N O W W ITH A COMPLETE TITLE IN D EX) Incorporated 1647 Wisconsin Avenue Washington, D.C. 20007 S 334 service to non-university borrowers, for inter- library loans, and for participation in certain national bibliographic and resource develop­ ment enterprises. Although the funding outlook for next year may appear to make it an aca­ demic exercise, the committee, Mr. Vosper said, would appreciate advice in writing, quite soon, of other desirable modifications. He pointed out that ARL testified before the House Sub­ committee on Appropriations for Labor, Health, Education, and Welfare on behalf of Title II funds in general. In particular, ARL emphasized the impor­ tance of the National Program for Acquisitions and Cataloging (Title II–C ), stressing that its advantages clearly extend to smaller libraries as well as to large libraries, “because the ef­ fectiveness of the national interlibrary lending network depends on the capacity of research libraries quickly to acquire and catalog foreign books.” Testimony was also presented on be­ half of the bill (H.R. 11223) to extend the Medical Library Assistance Act for another three years. Chairman Vosper warned of the “potentially damaging impact on library programs of some of the “Tentative Decisions” of the House Ways and Means Committee in regard to foun­ dations. These “Tentative Decisions” were is­ sued officially on May 27 as a Committee Print. “While intending to correct some patent and even gross abuses of the tax exemption privileges granted private foundations,” some of the proposed limitations would “severely crip­ ple the responsible foundations upon whom ed­ ucation and libraries have so rightly depended for support over many decades,” Mr. Vosper said. “One need only mention the Carnegie Corporation, the Council on Library Resources, and the American Council of Learned Societies to realize that the best friends of libraries are in potentially serious trouble, and further to realize that as beneficiaries we should be pre­ pared to speak in their behalf.” Also, proposed changes in the definition of a “private founda­ tion” seem to indicate that ARL itself, and similar groups, could, in effect, become founda­ tions, Mr. Vosper pointed out, or at least be subject to the same limitations, including taxa­ tion. There is “an even more clouded question concerning tentative changes in the tax treat­ ment of charitable contributions, including ‘all gifts of works of art, collections of papers, and other forms of tangible personal property,’ ” Mr. Vosper noted, and he moved that the board be authorized to explore the matter fully, seek legal counsel, and take such steps as may seem appropriate and responsible. This was approved by unanimous vote of the membership. John Lorenz (L C ), chairman of the Foreign Newspaper Microfilm Committee, reported that CLR had made a grant of $13,000 to ARL to enable the committee to make a study de­ signed to develop a national program for the acquisition of foreign newspapers on microfilm. Norman Shaffer of LC is carrying out the study, which is in the fact-finding stage. Robert Downs (Illinois), chairman of the Joint ACRL–ARL Committee on University Li­ brary Standards, commented on the prelimi­ nary draft which reported summaries of data collected by his committee and which was dis­ tributed to the membership before the meet­ ing. He sought advice on the desirability of presenting data (1 ) in terms of individual li­ braries and (2 ) on other professional libraries in addition to law and medicine. He also asked whether the data collected on the status of library staff members and on the relation­ ship of the library to the central administration would be useful and should be published. One member of his committee, he said, felt th at it was impossible to develop standards for uni­ versity libraries; others suggested that the re­ sults should be called “averages” rather than “criteria,” or that median figures rather than the mean figures should be used, since they would avoid the distortion caused by extreme numbers at each end of the scale. Discussion emphasized th at all the data collected are valu­ able and should be published b ut that care should be exercised in presenting this material. Many felt that the words “standards” and “criteria” were inappropriate and misleading. Several suggested that the published material should include the first and third quartiles as well as the medians. If this were done, indi­ vidual libraries could evaluate or rate them­ selves. I t was pointed out, however, that the missions and objectives of institutions vary and that these variations could influence the use of the information. Clearly there was a desire to have access to the information collected, yet the consensus was that it must be so handled as to guard against misuse and misinterpreta­ tion. Mr. Downs stated that he would report ARL’s reaction to his committee, which would then decide on w hat would be recommended to ARL and ACRL. Gustave Harrer (Florida) announced the re­ cent organization of the Association of Carib­ bean University and Research Libraries. This group hopes to develop cooperation among member libraries as one of the first steps in interinstitutional cooperation. Several other committee reports, as well as the report of the Librarian of Congress sum­ marizing major developments at LC in the first half of the calendar year 1969 were filed with­ out summary or discussion.– Elizabeth E. Elamer, Library of Congress. A limited number of reprints of this report, Appendix I to the Library of Congress Informa­ tion Bulletin, August 7, 1969, are available from the Information Office, Library of Con­ gress. ■ ■