College and Research Libraries


Review Articles 
North Texas Regional L-ibraries 

The North Texas.. Regional Libraries~· an In-
quiry into the Feasibili.ty and Desirability 
of Developing Them as a Cooperative En-
terprise. A. F. Kuhlman. George Peabody 
College Press, 1943. 85p. 

This is a refreshing book. It is clear, 
persuasive, sensible, and revolutionary. It 
deals with a situation interesting in itself, and 
which epitomizes larger and more diversified 
groups of libraries. The three pairs of 
"North Texas regional libraries" form a tri-
angle with sides no more than forty miles 
long. At the apex, in Denton, are two state-
supported colleges for women. At each of 
the other angles, in Dallas and Fort Worth, 
are an urban university library and a public 
library. Like all Western libraries, these 
started late, around 1900. They are com-
paratively small, ranging from 8o,ooo to 
16o,ooo volumes. They belong to diverse or-
ganizations. Two are municipal departments, 
two are state-supported college libraries, and 
two are parts of private institutions. They 
are near enough to each other to suggest 
cooperation but too far apart for consolida-
tion. 

The four college presidents asked Dr. Kuhl-
man to decide whether the libraries should be 
coordinated, and if so, how. To answer the 
first question, he surveyed in . detail the area 
they serve, the college curricula, and the con-
tents of the libraries. The facts upon which 
he based his analysis were prepared in tabular 
form by William Stanley Hoole and the other 
five librarians. Dr. Kuhlman supplemented 
their work by inspecting the libraries. Not 
very strange to say, he decided that they need 
coordination, for the good of upperclassmen, 
graduate students, professors, and business-
men. His arguments, while familiar, have 
seldom been presented with equal tact. 

The facts brought out in the first section 
of the survey raise the question of why these 
libraries did not long ago work out a system 
of cooperation. Institutional and urban 
rivalries probably delayed cooperation until 
now, since, in the West, local rivalries may 

be classed among the major sports. In re-
cent years the need for cooperation has grown 
more and more obvious, as the college }i:.. 
braries reached the awkward age at which 
they are larger than necessary for junior col-
lege instruction but not quite large enough 
for effective senior college and graduate study. 
Graduate enrolment reached respectable pro-
portions in the five years before Pearl Harbor. 
Around nine hundred, or about one third, of 
the graduate students of Texas attended these 
institutions in each of these years. The 
five-year total exceeds that of the University 
of Texas by 20 per cent. The public libraries 
may also have reached a turning point, if, as 
Dr. Kuhlman holds, they need scientific and 
technical publications to aid the industries cen-
tering in Dallas and Fort Worth. 

Having shown that the libraries should be 
coordinated, Dr. Kuhlman faces the question 
of how to do it. He recommends a union 
list of serials (now compiled) and a union 
catalog-devices which do not of themselves 
coordinate library resources and services. To 
plan the fitting together of resources, he 
recommends other measures which have been 
adopted or suggested elsewhere without 
marked success, viz., unified planning, espe-
cially in the acquisition of serials, by dividing 
responsibility for acquiring them, and joint 
employment of a field agent to gather North 
Texas historical materials. 

None of these recommendations would im-
pair the sovereignty of each institution or 
city over its library, hence, up to this point 
the plan fails to come to grips with the cen-
tral problem of library coordination in this 
country, which is the independence of libraries 
one from another and their dependence on 
larger organizations. Where the state con-
trols local libraries, as in Denmark, Germany, 
and Russia, they can be united in a national 
system without difficulty. In America local 
and state governments by-pass the obstacles 
which the federal system of government places 
between them by establishing an ad hoc or-
ganization, such as the Port of New York 

90 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES 



Authority. Dr. Kuhlman proposes this ex-
pedient for the North Texas group. 

He might have proposed consolidation of 
the graduate schools, but to do so would have 
been impolitic under the circumstances. In-
stead, he advocates uniting the libraries under 
a central administration for an experimental 
period of three years. He specifies only 
vaguely the powers and duties of his ad hoc 
library authority, which is to consist of a 
representative council (already formed) and 
a director of libraries. Outwardly, his plan 
resembles the Oregon and Georgia college li-
brary combinations, but he substitutes for a 
council of librarians one of deans, trustees, 
and presidents. They can, if they will, go 
much further than librarians. The director 
would supervise the cooperative devices of the 
program and advise the council on other meas-
ures. He would not govern the member li-
braries, but Dr. Kuhlman hints that he might 
in time replace their he-ad librarians. 

Dr. Kuhlman points out the direction, with-
out specifying the exact route and the rate 
of advance, leaving these tasks to the council 
and the director. Will the new vehicle move, 
without being fueled by a foundation grant? 
A great deal depends upon the leadership of 

the council and the tact of the director, if 
one is appointed. If not in North Texas, such 
a plan may be adopted elsewhere, perhaps 
in circumstances permitting the director to 
assume authority over the internal administra-
tion of the member libraries. In regions 
where library use has greater variety, the pro-
fessional, civic, and trade associations might 
be represented on the council, thereby giving 
the clientele of public and special libraries 
a voice in the planning of library resources. 
Central purchasing and cataloging of books 
might develop in some centers. 

Dr. Kuhlman has invented a mechanism 
with great possibilities, particularly in the 
West and South which need a workable plan 
for combining libraries. While not new in a 
single detail, his invention offers a novel and, 
let us hope, practicable answer to the dilemma 
of library needs versus library fealty. Its 
worst flaw on paper-a want of detail, of 
specifications-will probably become its 
greatest virtue in practice. The details will 
be filled in by people aware of local limita-
tions and potentialities. When a model has 
been set up and tried out, it will probably 
be widely copied.-] ohn Van Male, librarian, 
M adis·on College~ Harrisonburg~ Va. 

Manual for Trustees 
Manual for Trustees of Colleges and Uni-

verszttes. Raymond Hughes. Iowa State 
College Press, 1943. IX, 166p. 

To the librarian, as to the faculty at 
large, the college or university trustees are 
a group apart-certain gentlemen of promi-
nence who appear at convocation or other great 
occasions. They, according to tradition, are 
the ones who blue-pencil budget requests; 
again, and according to the same source, they 
do not approve of innovations, either aca-
demic or political. As a matter of fact, li-
brarians probably know as little about trustees 
as the latter know about librarians. 

Trustees become trustees from a variety of 
sources and are chosen for a variety of rea-
sons. They invariably come to their positions 
with a record of successful accomplishment 
in their own fields and with undoubted abili-
ties which should be turned to the lasting 
profit of the institution. Many of them, 
however, come with little knowledge of aca-
demic procedure save what they may recollect 

DECEMBER~ 1944 

from their undergraduate days. The duties 
and powers of a trustee grew in a process 
somewhat akin to the development of the , 
common law, restricted by tradition and ex-
tended by the initiative and interest of the 
individual trustee. Generally they have done 
their job well. There have been isolated 
cases in which boards of trustees might have 
been charged with neglect of duty if nothing 
more. 4t the other extreme might be placed 
the board of which it is said that it meets 
every Thursday as regularly as Rotary, 
stifling the college by too much government. 

Primarily the duty of the trustees is to 
operate the college, since they, as a body 
corporate, actually own the institution, or, 
in the case of a public institution, act, as 
it were, with a power of attorney from the 
ctttzens. General tradition and custom in-
dicate that this is best accomplished by the 
delegation of power to one or more officers, 
depending upon the size and complexity of the 
college. One would expect that the degree 

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