College and Research Libraries By JOSIAH T. NEWCOMB Emergency College Library Facilities Mr. Newcomb is librarian Associated Colleges of Upper New York. T HE FOLLOWING is an account of the library program of The Associated Colleges of Upper New York through the first two years of its existence. Since these colleges have been and are by intent emer- gency and temporary, a general statement of what library facilities have been provided, how, and why, may be of some interest. First a word about the institution itself. Three separate campuses have been operated since the fall of I 946 by the corporate entity, the Associated Colleges of Upper New York, hereafter called A CUNY. Champlain College is located in the former military barracks at Plattsburg, N.Y. and has had a peak enrolment of I8oo students. Mohawk College, closed in June I948, occupied the former Rhodes General Hospital at Utica, N.Y. and has enroled 2200 students. Sampson College occupies a portion of the Sampson Naval Base near Geneva, N.Y. It has had a maximum enrolment of 4500 students. 1 ACUNY was incorporated in I 946 to provide emer- gency educational facilities at the college level for those qualified students who could not gain admission to existing colleges and universities because of lack of room. It was and is a private institution though its creation was urged by the New York state government and it has always been closely t A fourth school, the Middletown Collegiate Center at Middletown, N.Y., has also been a p_art of A CUNY since 1947. It is essentially a commum~y college op~r­ ating within the facilities of the local htgh school wt.th a comparatively small enrolment. Its nature and 1ts problems have been quite different from t~e otbe~ thn;e and for that reason it has not been constdered m thts article. allied with the New York State Depart- ment of Education. Its board of directors consists of 2 I college and university presi- dents and other key figures in the educa- tional pattern of the state. It has offered the first two years of college work only, with students transfer- ring to other institutions to complete their work and receive their degrees. Curricula are offered in liberal arts, business adminis- tration, and pre-engineering. Course of- ferings are the same on each campus and over-all department heads have been re- sponsible to assure uniformity. The plan of uniformity between the three campuses has simplified the problem of the librarian in that three similar libraries have been re- quired. The writer was appointed librarian Sept. I, I946. In a brief iilterview with Presi- dent Asa S. Knowles, he was instructed "to set up three college libraries." He wa somewhat taken aback by the generality of these words but soon came to recognize in them a fountainhead of answers to problems. At this time also he learned that Champlain would open September I 9, and Sampson and Mohawk in the following month. None of the camp libraries remained, except that · at Sampson there was enough library furniture for all three libraries. Objectives The first thing was to decide what the library program hoped to do. Obviously our first obligation was to the classroom, which meant providing the library materials necessary to support the instructional pro- gram. 440 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES More education goes on in a college than was ever dreamed of in a classroom, and some of it goes on in the library. Our second objective, therefore, was to provide a core collection of books covering all fields of knowledge with which college freshmen and sophomores might reasonably be ex- pected to be familiar, e.g. the classics and pseudo-classics, authoritative and standard works, basic reference tools, etc. All our students would eventually com- plete their work in other institutions. Without some exposure to "standard" library organization and practice they would be at an added disadvantage. Therefore we decided to organize the libraries along traditional lines to the end that students skilled in the use of any ACUNY library would be able to use the library of the institution to which they transferred. Each college would represent an addi- tional two thousand or more persons to the community in which it was located. It would be unfair and inadequate to expect the libraries of these communities to pro- vide all the recreational reading required by our students and faculty. We _ therefore agreed to furnish recrea tiona! reading material for the college community. Since many of our faculty were recently discharged from the armed services and some were inexperienced in college teaching, our fifth objective was to provide those materials necessary for the faculty to keep informed and to refresh themselves in their fields of interest. . Such were the initial objectives. Prob- ably no one would seriously quarrel with them and probably no two librarians would interpret · them alike. In any event they were sufficient guides and we have not since had reason to change them materially. Organization and Staff Next to command attention was organi- zation and staff. A number of factors OCTOBER~ 1949 recommended a central cataloging and ac- quisitions office, and such was established at Champlain. Its personnel has included a head of cataloging and acquisitions, an as- sistant cataloger and an assistant acquisi- tions librarian,· together with supporting clerical and student help. It has been the job of this office to order and catalog ma- terial for the three colleges. The books themselves, however, have been sent directly from the vendor to the individual libraries and there have been made immediately available for use by going into an unclassi- fied section of the open stacks. Each library · has had a "technical proc- esses section" headed by a clerical worker with clerical and student assistants. This section has been responsible for receiving and reporting materials to the central office, for immediately processing materials for use as unclassified, for subsequently reprocessing when classification and cards came from Champlain, and for filing catalog and shelf- list cards. It was originally intended that this sec- tion would function with but general supervision by the resident head librarian. It has been found necessary, ·however, at each college to put a professional assistant in detailed charge of the section and this work has occupied from one-half to two- thirds of her time. This modification was made necessary by turnover of student and clerical personnel and by a greater number of books unique to each campus than was originally foreseen. Another factor was the initial underestimate of the number of catalogers needed in the central office. This made it impossible for the head cataloger to visit each campus as frequently as would have been necessary were the technical processes section to have func- tioned without detailed supervision from a local professional. The operation of each library has been under the direction of a resident head 441 librarian assisted by two or three profes- sional assistants, depending upon the cam- pus, together with sufficient clerical and student help to relieve the staff of routine tasks. Traditional professional functional designations such as reference, circulation and reserve were not initially established, though there has been a tendency on each campus for the staff to divide work responsi- bility along these lines and at Sampson the position of reference librarian was estab- lished in I 94 7. In all there have been r 4 professional positiOns. Most staff members were con- tacted through the placement services of the A.L.A. and the Special Libraries Associa- tion. A complete staff was not assembled at any one time until the summer of I947, although each library had at least its resi- dent head and one assistant by the time school began. Book Collections Having an idea of what we proposed to do and how we proposed to do it, the next thing was the acquisition of materials. What and how many? Purely for administrative purposes it was estimated that 8ooo volumes each at Cham- plain and Mohawk and Io,ooo at Sampson would be needed to carry through the first year program which was to be primarily at the freshman level. There was no particular science or logic in this estimate. It seemed attainable and it seemed to be enough to provide at least minimum essen- tial service. No estimate was made of the amount of additional materials required in the second year when both the freshman and sophomore programs would be in oper- ation. Actually by the end of the second year Mohawk had approximately I 3,000 volumes, Champlain I5,000 and Sampson I6,ooo. In determining what we should get, it has been the policy to rely primarily on the recommendations of department heads and members of the library staff and only incidently to use standard lists and bibli- ographies. We could justify the purchase of only those materials for which there was an immediate or discernible need. The de- partment heads could tell us what they planned to assign and what they would probably need to support the areas covered by their courses. The library staff from its daily contact with students and faculty and from its own experience could anticipate many needs and would quickly discover the more pressing weaknesses of the collections. Of course both groups used standard lists and bibliographies in making their recom- mendations. The bulk of the collections has been purchased, but two other sources of material should be mentioned. These are the Travel- ing Libraries Section of the New York State Library at Albany and the duplicate collections of a number of colleges and uni- versities in the state. These two sources were of particular importance in the early months of our existence since material from them could be secured quickly and with a minimum of paper work. The State Library very generously offered to waive its normal lending pro- cedures to permit us to make unlimited selection from their Traveling Libraries Section and to keep the books for an in- definite period. Various members of the library staff each spent a day or more in the stacks of the Traveling Libraries Sec- tion picking out titles which in their judg- ment would be useful. Also a few lists were checked by the state lib~ary staff. Whenever possible three copies of a title were taken, one copy being sent to each of the three colleges. In all, some 6ooo books were borrowed from this source and a great many of these subsequently appeared as recommendations from ' department heads. In October I946, President Knowles 442 COLL~GE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES wrote the college presidents pn his board of directors requesting that we be given access to their library duplicates with a view to making selections of needed materials. In the course of the next month or so most of these colleges and universities were visited. As with the state library, selection was made on the basis of the librarian's judg- ment and recollection and the great value of the material was its immediate avail- ability with a minimum of paper work. Most of this material was given outright, though a nominal price was paid in some instances. Approximately 4000 volumes were acquired from this source. Subscriptions were placed for 2 I 8 peri- odicals and newspapers for each campus. Back files of approximately 50 periodicals from I936 to date were collected for each library. The purpose in acquiring the back files of periodicals was to afford at least minimal resources through the use of which students could acquire the skills necessary for elementary term-paper level research. These periodicals proved to be one of our most difficult acquisitions and in this area the state library and the duplicate collec- tions proved of inestimable value. It was our initial intent that the three libraries would duplicate each other. It soon became apparent, however, that this was totally impractical with state library books and "gift" books and even with purchased materials. To have adhered to the initial plan would have made it neces- sary to refuse desirable additions simply because the same title could not be procured for one or both of the other colleges. About two-thirds of the way through the most intensive phase of the acquisitions program, a study was made to determine the extent of uniformity among the three book collections. At that time there was a 47 per cent chance that any title found in one would be found in the other two collections, and a 57 per cent chance that a title in one OCTOBERI 1949 would be in one of the other two. Of purchased material, which is perhaps of greater significance since it represents ac- quisition to fill a definite need, there was a 7 4 per cent chance that a title found in one would be in all three collections and an 89 per cent chance that it would be found in one of the other collections. An appre- ciable amount of purchased material was out-of-print or out-of-stock and had to be acquired through second-hand book chan- nels. Use Use of the libraries has been gratifying from the beginning. At Sampson, for instance, the librarian arrived about a day before the students were supposed to begin reporting. Possibly 8oo books had arrived from publishers and dealers but they were still i~ cartons. After starting the wheels going to get such things as shelves, tables, chairs and help, the librarian began un- packing some of the books. It was not long before he found he had a number of volun- teers who were unpacking cartons ahead of him and rummaging behind him. It seemed undesirable and totally futile to attempt to stop these volunteers, and so the librarian took his stand near the door, stamp pad in hand, and as each volunteer left with his "find" it was duly stamped with ownership and a temporary record made of the charge. In such fashion approximately half the total book stock was circulated the first day. By March I 94 7 the libraries had become sufficiently important in the History De· partment's work to warrant a request from its head that all incoming students be given instruction in use of the library. Although the request came about two months before the librarian felt the library facilities would be sufficiently well organized to warrant it, a program was begun and has been con- tinued to date. 443 Total circulation for the first academic year with a maximum book stock of 30,000 volumes was approximately 84,000, of which 38,000 was nonreserve. Maximum enrolment for any length of time during this period was 4500. Figures for the second year are perhaps more significant in that they represent one phase of the productivity of a fairly well or- ganized though still rapidly expanding col- lection. Also the second year reflects the full curricula offerings to both freshmen and sophomores. For this period total circu- lation was approximately 300,000, of which 82,000 was n0nreserve (two-week period) and 2 1 8,000 was reserve (one hour and overnight) . During the second year the maximum book stock was approximately 44,000 and the top enrolment 8 500. It is perhaps significant that the rela.tively small book collections, I3,DOO-I6,ooo vol- umes per campus, did sustain the gross use reflected in the foregoing. These figures compare favorably with institutions having many times the book stock available to our students. This experience would seem to confirm to some extent the belief held by many librarians that great numbers of books are not required to fulfill the needs of any present undergraduate academic program. Indeed, the writer feels that the relatively small but highly select book collections available to ACUNY students facilitated their use. What of the Future? The writer is frequently asked about the future disposition of these libraries. At this time he does not know. When Mo- hawk was closed, its library was consoli- dated with the Champlain and Sampson collections. Sampson closed in June and plans are now under way to consolidate its collection with the Champlain library. At this time it appears altogether possible that some sort of educational institution will remain permanently at Champlain. Presumably the present library will be inherited by whatever agency directs the permanent establishment. Champlain is scheduled for operation again next year under its present organiza- tion. For at least that far ahead its main library problem will be the intelligent use of the considerable number of duplicate titles it will have. Interlibrary Loans from the College Viewpoint (Continued from page 439) will be surprised to find out how many important scholarly titles they hold among themselves and that they can stand on their own feet instead of being beggars. This will encourage interlibrary loans on a much larger scale. I hope all of us will eventu- ally rival with Sarah Lawrence's 950 books lent and borrowed per year. Another Farmington Plan Beyond the closer cooperation in inter- library loans, I foresee in the more distant future some kind of a Farmington plan for college libraries. That is, college libraries of a given area will agree which subjects they wish to develop more strongly, leaving the special care of others to their neighbors. By the system of free interchange they will be just as able to have these books available to their own clientele, when needed, as if they had acquired them themselves. This will bring about a much more reasonable and effective use of our book budgets. I hope I will still live to see the day when the last trace of institutional isolationism disappears from our college libraries. 444 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES