College and Research Libraries


loging, of principles of accurate bibliographical 
transcription, and more. Certainly it will 
enrich today's librarians to learn of some of the 
steps through which professional notions and 
practices evolved. 

Again, on the profit side, the reader will 
find in these two works much quotation of 
source materials which give depth to history 
and suggest possible lines for new research. 
The Utley work, because it was edited and 
enlarged posthumously, is open to charges of 
"padding." For instance, Jewett's presidential 
address to the conference ( p. 40-4.5) and the 
Reverend Samuel Osgood's speech on popular 
libraries (p. 50-53) both appear twice in the 
volume-once as quoted by Utley in his own 
text, and once as they appear in the proceed-
ings of the convention which the publisher 
(ALA) decided to reprint in full as an ap-
pendix (p. 131-76) .-Sidney DitzionJ College 
of the City of N ew York Library. 

Montana Survey 
Report of a Survey of the Library of M on-

tana State University for Montana State 
UniversityJ 1 anuary-M ayJ I9S I. By 
Maurice F. Tauber and Eugene H. Wil-
son. Chicago, American Library Associa-
tion, 1951. 174 p. $2.00. 
This survey,. following more or less stand-

ardized and well proven methods, is an ex-
cellent addition to a growing body of survey 
literature that has, in the past two decades, 
played an important part in strengthening . 
and improving the college and university li-
braries of America. The libraries, large and 
small, endowed and state supported, which 
have, in this way, sat for their portrait and 
undergone expert analysis and diagnosis have 
themselves been improved and bettered, in 
varying degree, but it is safe to say that the 
considerable number of surveys of recent 
years · have had influence and value far be-
yond the libraries surveyed. Through these 
studies libraries in similar categories have 
been able to see elements and factors of their 
own situation, and to profit, both from the 
comparative statistics included and the vari-
ous recommendations made. 

The Survey here under review is par-
ticularly welcome since it is the first to deal 
with the library of a smaller state university. 
It reflects, as is to be expected, both the 
peculiar problems and the dilemma of the 

libraries of these institutions. The dilemma, 
at least in the opinion of this reviewer, arises 
fr~m the fact that the average smaller state 
university spreads a relatively limited budget 
over a wide range of undergraduate and 
graduate offerings and also over professional 
schools as numerous or almost as numerous 
as in the larger and better budgeted institu-
tions. Thus Montana State University, with 
a total budget of $1,638,550 in 1950, main-
tains a · College of Arts and Sciences, and 
Schools of Pharmacy, Business, Education, 
Forestry, Journalism, Law, and Music and 
offers graduate work, at the Master's level, 
in at least twenty-four different departments. 
Obviously the library implications of this ex-
tensive program approach those of larger 
universities. 

The data gathered by the surveyors empha-
size the financial problems of the smaller 
university libraries. Over a period of twenty-
eight years the money that Montana State 
University has devoted to support of its Li-
brary has ranged from a high of 6.6 per cent 
of its tot_al funds to a low of 4.0 per cent, 
with a median of 5·3 per cent. These per-
centages are considerably above the percent-
age library expenditures in colleges and uni-
versities generally, as published in earlier 
surveys and elsewhere. The larger university 
libraries have been able -to develop strong 
library programs with lower budget percent-
ages than this. Yet the surveyors find, and 
rightly, that the Montana percentages have 
not, over the years, been sufficient to support 
the Library adequately. What this actually 
means, this reviewer believes, is that the 
standards and norms of library support, such 
as budget percentages,. and expenditures per 
student and faculty member need to be higher 
for the smaller universities than they do for 
the larger ones. Corollary to this the smaller 
institutions could be stronger and better and 
their library needs would be less burdensome 
if they would restrict themselves to fewer 
professional schools. This the western states, 
for the most part sparsely settled, have now 
recognized through the Western Governor's 
Regional Compact, cited by the Surveyors, 
for the cooperative maintenance of education 
for several of the professions. 

This reviewer has been particularly im-
pressed by- the careful and detailed analysis of 
the resources of the Library made by the sur-
veyors and their recommendations for im-

180 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES 



provement. The study of readers' services, 
extent of use of the library, and efficiency of 
the services are also strong parts of the survey 
which can and undoubtedly will yield immedi-
ate dividends to the University. The analysis 
of the inadequacies of the present library build-
ing is also direct and practical and suggests 
several alternatives through which improve-
ments · can be made. 

Another strong feature of the survey is the 
analysis and study of the place of the Library 
in its state, its relationship with the libraries 
of other state higher educational institutions 
and the part it takes in regional and national 
library affairs. Analyses of this kind, increas-
ingly used and stressed in library surveys, re-
flect the growing realization of librarians that 
no library is a complete and sharply separate 
entity and that all are a part of the warp 
and woof of the national library fabric. 

The nub of every survey lies in the analysis 
of financial support since, other things being 
equal, the excellence or lack of excellence of 
a library rests on the financial support it 
receives. As in earlier surveys many of the 
recommendations made by the surveyors will 
require additional funds if they are to be car-
ried out. This being so this reviewer believes 
that the Chapter dealing with financial re-
quirements of the Library could have been 
more explicit and detailed than it is. Data 
regarding the financial status of the five de-
partmental libraries are not tabulated in a 
single place and it is not entirely clear, from 
the survey, exactly how much the university 
is now spending, from all sources, for the 
maintenance of its libraries. The financial 
implications of having in these departmental 
libraries (with the exception of Law, and pos-
sibly Music), only materials duplicated in the 
Main Library, as the surveyors recommend in 
the chapter on Organization would have had 
more weight had the costs of centralization 
versus departmentation, to the extent it now 
exists, been projected in terms of dollars. 

This survey will make worth while reading 
for library administrators generally. It is 
to be hoped that it will be read and pondered 
carefully by the administrators and librarians 
of all the smaller western universities and 
colleges. A few of these institutions have 
never recovered from pre-war depression 
levels of operation and are lagging woefully 
far behind Montana State University in the 
upbuilding and support of their libraries. For 

APR!Lj 1952 

these institutions this survey, if they will but 
use it, will be of as great or greater value 
than it will be to Montana State University. 
-William H. Carlsonj directo'r of librariesj 
Oregon State System of Higher Education. 

Technical Libraries; Their Or--
ganization and Management 
Technical Librariesj· Their Organization and 

Management. Science-Technology Division, 
Special Libraries Association, Lucille Jack-
son, editor. New York, Special Libraries 
Association, c1951. 202 p. $6.oo. 

This manual of practice for science-tech-
nology librarians is intended also to be used 
to acquaint executives of organizations with 
the nature and requirements of special library 
service and to serve as a text for library 
school students interested in special librarian-
ship in these fields. About half of the text is 
a brief, comprehensive overview of library 
operations, including discussions of the na-
ture of technical libraries, requirements for 
and qualifications of the staff, budget planning, 
physical layout a'nd equipment, and the selec-
tion, acquisition and organization for use of 
library materials. Additional chapters deal 
with indexing and filing of special types of 
material such as patents, microcopies, slides, 
etc., methods of abstracting and publicizing 
current materials, reference procedures and 
literature searching in scientific literature, 
and ways and means of interpreting library 
service to users. 

While most of the book summarizes in 
capsule form the fundamentals of library 
management discussed more fully in standard 
works like those of Drury, Mann, Lyle, Akers 
and others, references at the end of most 
chapters call attention to significant addi-
tional material in both library and non-
library literature. An appendix (p. 155-95) 
lists basic reference publications for the tech-
nical library and representative reference 
sources, bibliographies and important periodi-
cals in eighteen theoretical and applied science 
fields. While disagreement over the items 
included or excluded from these lists is to be 
expected, their value as guides seems lowered 
to this reviewer by their uneven quality and 
variable coverage. For example, theoretical 
physics is omitted, and there appears to be 
little coverage of electrical engineering, man-

181