College and Research Libraries Library Service to Undergraduates: A Symposium T h e f o l l o w i n g f o u r statements, w i t h an introduction by A r t h u r M . M c A n a l l y , director of l i b r a r i e s , U n i v e r s i t y of O k l a h o m a , w e r e presented at the meeting of the U n i v e r s i t y L i b r a r i e s Section, A C R L , in N e w Y o r k , J u l y I , 1 9 5 2 . L a c k of space prevents the inclusion of s e v e r a l pertinent comments by participants and members of the audience. E s s e n t i a l l y , these comments w e r e concerned w i t h the need of f a c u l t y members and l i b r a r i a n s to w o r k closely together, the distractions which compete w i t h reading and l i b r a r y use, and, in some cases, the actual inability of students to read. By A R T H U R M . M c A N A L L Y Introductory Remarks I N ORDER TO PROVIDE b a c k g r o u n d f o r t h e problem of l i b r a r y service to u n d e r g r a d u a t e s , it is necessary to go back in history to the time when most university libraries w e r e small and w e r e either i n f o r m a l or else w e r e organized f o r service on the alcove principle. Collections w e r e not l a r g e , the proportion of g r a d u a t e students w a s small and their number negligible by modern standards, and the li- b r a r y served both the g r a d u a t e and under- g r a d u a t e more or less equally. T h e duration of this era v a r i e d among institutions. Beginning in the I87O'S, h o w e v e r , when H a r v a r d U n i v e r s i t y introduced the tiered bookstack, the l a r g e r university libraries en- tered upon a long e r a in which p r i m a r y em- phasis w a s placed upon the development of g r e a t research collections and upon specialized service to the users of these collections. T h e u n d e r g r a d u a t e students' l i b r a r y needs tended to be overlooked and his access to the collec- tions g r a d u a l l y reduced, not through de- liberate choice but by the trend of events. B y the 1 9 3 0 ' s , many university l i b r a r i a n s began to realize that in the development of their g r e a t collections the u n d e r g r a d u a t e had been neglected, that he w a s the l a r g e r clientele of the t w o groups of users, and that service to him should be improved. B o o k s w e r e not v e r y accessible to the u n d e r g r a d u a t e and reserve room service, which w a s about all most of them got f r e e l y , w a s not v e r y s a t i s f a c t o r y edu- cationally. O f course the enterprising under- g r a d u a t e could surmount the obstacles of huge card catalogs, impersonal circulation desks, etc., but he w a s discouraged at every hand. Some university libraries t h e r e f o r e de- veloped b r o w s i n g rooms, d o r m i t o r y collections and the like. T h e s e w e r e admirable in their w a y but no real a n s w e r to a real problem. T h e search f o r a method of providing satis- f a c t o r y l i b r a r y service to u n d e r g r a d u a t e s has led many universities to establish l i b r a r i e s specifically f o r u n d e r g r a d u a t e s . T h e same ob- jective also has been a f a c t o r in the adoption of the subject-divisional plan of organization in medium-sized and small universities. Sepa- rate u n d e r g r a d u a t e l i b r a r i e s have existed f o r many y e a r s , but have been commonly ac- cepted only since 1 9 4 5 . A t least f o u r new ones w e r e established during the school y e a r 1951-52. T h e statements below discuss this relatively new development f r o m several d i f f e r e n t ap- p r o a c h e s : first, f r o m the viewpoint of the U n i - v e r s i t y of Chicago, which has had long ex- perience w i t h such a l i b r a r y unit in different locations on the c a m p u s ; second, f r o m the point of v i e w of a well-planned u n d e r g r a d u a t e l i b r a r y in a separate building planned f o r it ( T h e L a m o n t L i b r a r y at H a r v a r d ) ; third, as seen by a l i b r a r i a n w h o s e l i b r a r y is p a r t l y subject-divisional and p a r t l y open or inter- spersed ( T h e F o n d r e n L i b r a r y of R i c e I n - stitute) ; and finally, as viewed by a university l i b r a r i a n f r e s h f r o m a college l i b r a r y which provided excellent teaching service to students but now in the U n i v e r s i t y of Cincinnati which has not provided so w e l l f o r u n d e r g r a d u a t e students. 266 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES B y S T A N L E Y E . G W Y N N The College Library at the University of Chicago Mr. Gwynn is assistant director for read- ers' services, University of Chicago Library. T H E COLLEGE L I B R A R Y at the University of Chicago existed for a period of eighteen years —from 1931 to 1949. Although it was always a small operation, I believe that brief ac- count of its history and of the actual use made of it will throw light on what I, at least, con- ceive to be the real problem of the undergrad- uate library. T h e first college library at the University of Chicago was established in 1931, at the time the Chicago Plan for undergraduate edu- cation was introduced. The library had two main purposes. The first was that of making easily available a large number of required books, for many of which every student would be held responsible in the comprehensive ex- aminations. Yet, the college library Was not merely a reserve collection, for its second purpose was the provision of a large, carefully- selected collection of optional reading, de- signed to enrich the curriculum by filling gaps in the indispensable readings, or between courses, and by affording opportunity for the individualization of a highly-prescribed course of study through independent reading. The collection numbered about 12,000 volumes initially, but grew to about 20,000 volumes in the course of a few years. Exten- sive duplication was necessary, and the original 12,000 volumes included only 2000 different titles. Of these titles, only one in ten was indispensable or required reading, and this ratio between the required and the recommended readings persisted throughout the first phase of the college library. Actual use by the college students averaged 70 to 80 volumes per student per year. This was a relatively high rate, but not much beyond the upper range of student with- drawals in other colleges as reported by Branscomb in Teaching With Books. More important is the kind of materials with- drawn by the students. A special study, made in 1937-38, indicated that, although the 1239 students in one Humanities general course and in two Social Sciences general courses withdrew 29,000 books in one quarter, only 635 of these titles were in the carefully-se- lected and highly-recommended optional read- ing category. This is a rate of about one and one-half volumes of non-required reading per year per student. Since we know that typi- cally a few students read a relatively large number of titles, we also know that many of these Chicago students read no optional ma- terials at all. In general, therefore, the stu- dents under the Chicago Plan, like college students everywhere, borrowed from their library only the books they were required to read. In 1942, the college library as described above was abolished, partly because of war- induced pressure for space, but more impor- tantly, because a shift in the college program and teaching methods had greatly diminished demands upon the library. However, in September, 1943, a new col- lege library, which was also intended to be a source of free reading for the entire univer- sity, was created. The core of this library consisted of the 2000 titles of recommended readings in the current college syllabi. T o these were added another 2000 titles of ma- terial of general current interest, including standard and good recent fiction. The as- sumption was that a collection of this kind could satisfactorily serve both the college stu- dents and the other members of the university. Although the capable librarian worked closely with the college faculty and students, a read- ing study made throughout the first year showed that college students accounted for only 36% of the use of this library and, more- over, that 7 1 % of the students in the college borrowed not even one book. The carefully- selected recommended readings circulated hardly at all. As a consequence of her observations over a period of more than a year, the librarian concluded that neither the college faculty nor the library staff really knew what kind of library was needed for the college, and what any college library should properly do in the educational program beyond the provision of required readings. She suggested that a ca- pable research man with faculty rank be ap- pointed full time to study the problem. This JULY, 1953 267 was not done, but for the next few years it was arranged that the college libarian should also be a teaching member of the col- lege faculty and should devote the major portion of his time to thinking through the problem of what kind of library our kind of college should have. T w o men held this post in succession. I was the second, serving in the year 1946-47. Both of us failed to ac- complish our assignment, largely because each of us served only a year, and because too much of our time was taken up by teaching or by other university library problems. College use of the library continued at an even lower level, and in 1949, when space problems again arose, the dean of the college consented to the disestablishment of the col- lege library, stating that while desirable, it was not necessary to the work of the college at Chicago. Although I failed to produce an answer to the problem assigned me, I did come to several conclusions regarding the problem of the undergraduate library in general. It seems to me that the problem of the undergraduate library is not the simple prob- lem of physical arrangement with which we have been occupying ourselves lately. It is quite possibly desirable, in a large university at least, to provide a separate, selected, easily- accessible collection of books that will appeal to the undergraduate and to the general reader in the university regardless of his status. Whether this is a browsing room or a divisional reading room or a Lamont L i - brary is not really important, just so those who really want to read can find good and interesting books when they want them. Nor is the problem that of conjuring up devices (some of them misguided) designed to lure undergraduates into the library. The problem is that academic librarians generally have not defined and faced the real problem. They have adopted the goal of more books and more readers without ever ques- tioning the applicability of this goal to the undergraduate library. In doing so, I am sure that they have puzzled a good many faculty members, who in general display a f a r more rational view of the library's func- tion than do librarians. I think there is a problem of the under- graduate library, and I hope that the com- mittee of this section appointed to study that problem will isolate it and will outline steps toward its solution. If they do this, they will probably find themselves considering matters of the following kind: 1. Should we not accept the fact, made clear by numerous reading studies, that only a relatively few undergraduates read beyond the course requirements? 2. Should we not consider that perhaps these are the only students who should do such reading? 3. Should we not acknowledge a fact we already know but refuse to accept, that in adult life only a relatively few people read and utilize the knowledge gained from read- ing, and that these people are the intellectual leaders of our society, wielding an influence greatly disproportionate to their numbers? Should we not ask whether reading or not readings is associated with the basic tempera- ment and personality and mental equipment of the person and is therefore a characteristic incapable of alteration by librarians or any- one else? 4. Finally, should we not put these ideas together and assume—tentatively, until the matter is demonstrated or disproved—that, once good books have been made available, the limited staff and the limited budget of the undergraduate library should be used for one primary purpose: T o make certain that we and the faculty together find all the true readers or potential readers in the under- graduate population, and that we see that they get the books they want and whatever special treatment may be desirable—the op- portunity to discuss these books, and broaden their reading, and grow intellectually to the limit of their natural endowment? If this is the thing to do and we do it, we will be doing what the college faculty and the college curriculum already do: provide the same basic intellectual menu for everyone, but make available for those who want them and are capable of utilizing them, those special nutrients above and beyond the standard diet that develop the exceptional student and the exceptional man. If it turns out that this is what we should do, we will not do it merely by providing a separate undergraduate library, useful though that may be. The questions of what we should do in the areas outlined above, and how we can translate into action what we learn, are difficult ones. Their isolation, their investigation, and their solution, con- stitute the immediate problem of the under- graduate library. 268 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES By P H I L I P J . M c N I F F Lamont Library, Mr. McNiff is librarian, Lamont Library. T H E R E IS N O ONE SOLUTION to the problem of undergraduate library service in a uni- versity. Institutions differ in their organiza- tion, finances, building facilities and curricula. With these, among other factors influencing the type of library service which can be given, each university has to determine its own method of library service to undergraduates. Harvard decided to build a separate library for its undergraduates. The idea of such a library was not new. The college records of 1765 contain the first reference to the need of separate library facili- ties for the undergraduates. In the Harvard Library Bulletin a series of articles on the history and development of library services in Harvard College, traces the growth of the collections, the lengthening of hours of service, the extension of borrowing privileges, and the rise of reserved book, classroom and labora- tory collections. With the dedication of the Widener Li- brary in 1915, it was hoped that the library problem at Harvard had been solved for a great many years to come, but this proved not to be the case. The report of the director for 1927-1928 cited the need for more space. The new building had many drawbacks to undergraduate library service. It was too large and impersonal; the college students had direct access only to reserved reading books and a small browsing collection. The large reading room on the second floor proved to be unsatisfactory as a reserved book center and collections serving the survey courses were established in two other buildings. The in- creased demands of faculty members, graduate students and visiting scholars pushed the undergraduates further and further into the background. The result was that Harvard students were not receiving the quality of li- brary service enjoyed by students in the better four year liberal arts colleges. By !937 the space problem was acute and M r . Metcalf after a careful survey recom- mended a four point program: 1. The New England Deposit Library for the storage of little used material Harvard College 2. The Houghton Library for rare books and manuscripts 3. Undergraduate library 4. Underground stacks in the college yard for the expansion of the Widener collection The idea of an undergraduate library was approved in 1940 by the Library Council and the Administrative Board of the College. The planning of the library was accelerated with the announcement of M r . Lamont's gift in 1945. Faculty and student committees were formed to consult with the library staff committee on matters of lighting, smoking and furniture. So much for the background. The building itself has eight levels. The two lowest levels are underground stacks. One level is con- nected by tunnel to Widener and the other to Houghton. This supplies the expansion noted on point four above. The undergraduate library occupies three main floors and two mezzanines. The remaining level is a roof house which contains six classrooms and a fan room for some of the air conditioning equipment. Stacks are placed in the center area of the building on five levels; on the ncJrth side of the building on the main levels are located special rooms and on the south side are the three large reading areas. There are three wide aisles on each main floor lead- ing through the book stack areas to the read- ing areas. This means that students must pass through the book stack areas to the reading areas. The stack areas on the main levels are divided into 12 alcoves; on the mez- zanines there is a regular stack arrangement. Each of the three large reading areas has a row of stalls around the outside walls and a variety of tables and easy chairs. Smoking is allowed in the special rooms on the north side and in the rooms at the west end of the building. Each of the mezzanine smoking rooms has five typing cubicles with sound proofing on the walls and ceilings. The motivating ideas behind the planning of the library were well expressed by Henry R. Shepley, the architect, when he wrote, "The philosophy on which the functioning of the library was based required first, that it be JULY, 1953 269 conveniently located and inviting of access. It should be one of the main undergraduate traffic routes and there should be no flights of steps to climb to the entrance or monumental vestibules or foyers to traverse before coming to the books. Second, once within the library, the student should find the entire book collec- tion as accessible as possible." Let us see how well the library fulfills this philosophy. T h e building is situated in the south-east corner of the Harvard Y a r d and is directly across the street from the Union, the dining hall for freshmen. This means that all the resident freshmen who live in the yard dormitories must pass the front entrance of the library on their way to and from meals. Many of the more heavily used classrooms are located in the vicinity of the library, thus insuring use of the building between classes. T h e r e is but one step outside the library, and a ramp is available for students in wheel- chairs. Standing outside the glass doors of the main entrance the student sees a func- tional lobby, reserve desk and book stacks. All books, with the exception of those on a closed reserve section are readily available on open shelves, and may be taken to any area in the building. The theme of this A L A conference is "Books are Basic." Harvard, believing in this slogan, tries to eliminate all barriers be- tween the student and the book. T h e estab- lishment of reading habits which will follow the students into their post college years is one of the most important functions of an under- graduate library. Required reading, moti- vated by tests and reports, presents the li- brary with the problem of adequate supply and efficient distribution. T h e professional staff concentrates its efforts on the encourage- ment of general and recreational reading. T h e accessibility of a carefully selected col- lection of books is the first requisite. Add to this an efficient ventilating system, good light- ing, a building made quiet by the use of sound absorbing ceilings and floors and inviting color treatment of walls and stacks, a variety of reading accommodations and the stage is set for the alchemical reactions described in Lawrence Powell's talk on " T h e Alchemy of Books." Extra-curricular interests in books and reading are encouraged further by such fea- tures as book displays, exhibitions arranged by student groups, the record playing facili- ties of the Poetry Room, the home atmosphere of the Farnsworth Room—a browsing collec- tion, and the Printing Room. In three and one-half years of operation, 25,000 students (exclusive of class groups) have made use of the Poetry Room listening facilities. Surely they have achieved a deeper appreciation of poetry and it may even be hoped that the li- brary has contributed some small part to the development of poets of the future. The small group of undergraduates interested in printing as an avocation are instructed by the Library's Department of Printing and Graphic Arts. T h e Forum Room, which seats up to 175 people, is available to undergraduate organizations. This room is equipped with a dual turntable and loudspeaker, screen and projection booth and an F M radio has just been installed in order to make available to students some of the programs offered by Boston's new educational F M station. T h e broadcast of the Boston Symphony Orchestra's Friday afternoon concerts will replace the weekly music record hour offered by the li- brary. T h e Lamont Library uses simplified cat- aloging and a numerical classification scheme which has not more than one decimal place. This scheme is not a classification of knowl- edge but a means of making it easier for stu- dents to find the books for which they are looking. Copies of the scheme with its alpha- betical index—a subject guide to the collection —are scattered throughout the building for students to use at the shelves. T h e objectives of the library are: ( 1 ) to concentrate as f a r as practicable all under- graduate activities in one place; ( 2 ) to make books readily available to students; and ( 3 ) to encourage general and recreational reading as well as to supply required reading books. Staff experience and student response seem to indicate that Lamont fulfills these objectives. 270 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES By W I L L I A M S. D I X Undergraduate Libraries Dr. Dix, formerly librarian, Rice Institute, is now librarian, Princeton University. A T T H E RISK of seeming conservative and even obstructionist, I should like to propose that under certain conditions a quite old- fashioned method of handling the undergradu- ate library in the university might be more effective than some of the newer divisional arrangements and segregated collections. Now I am quite aware that the arrangement which I propose would not work in a library system the size of that of Harvard, but after all I regret to say that there is only one Widener Library. In the smaller libraries in the smaller universities I wonder whether any very special treatment of the undergraduate library is really necessary. This is, I take it, largely an experience meeting. People get tired of hearing "This is the way we do it," but a brief description of the Rice Institute Library will illustrate my point. M a y I say again that I am sure that our system would not work everywhere else. Rice, like most other universities, is a special place. We have a student body of about 1500, including some 200 graduate students, pursuing a rather limited curriculum with professional schools only in engineering and architecture. The Ph.D. is offered in math- matics, physics, chemistry, biology, English, and history, and there is somewhat more faculty and graduate research than one would expect in so small an institution. Our library of some 225,000 volumes is housed in a new, postwar building. M y point here is that in a library of this size I see no reason for making any special provision for the undergraduate. The total collection is housed in one building, with com- pletely open stacks. It is my feeling that with a little care and planning there is no rea- son for the undergraduate to become lost in working with a unified collection numbering not more than, say, a half million volumes. In principle we feel that the undergraduate should be constantly confronted by books a little beyond his grasp, that we are not con- cerned primarily with his finding specific books but with instructing him to learn to think, to use the library, and to grow intellectually. Thus when he goes to the shelves for a par- ticular elementary book he finds there also the major standard works on the same sub- ject. What if any of these are written in a language which he does not read or are ac- counts of original research which he cannot understand? He at least becomes aware of their existence and if he is of the material from which scholars are made, there is just a chance that he might be led gradually into deeper waters. Such an effect cannot be pro- duced if the undergraduate works entirely with a few basic books which have been placed on reserve and in which chapters have been assigned by his instructors, or if he works entirely with a small collection supposedly within his grasp. If the library is thought of as an enlarged textbook only, I do not see how it can be expected to produce a student who has anything but a textbook-memorizing kind of mind. Therefore in the Fondren Library at Rice we deliberately left out any provision for a reserve reading room. Our list of books on reserve at no time reaches more than two or three hundred. Of course, this concept of the use of the total library as a unit demands that the books on the shelves be arranged in such a fashion that the student may use them easily. T o effect this end we have again used an old- fashioned device. T h e entire collection is arranged strictly according to the Library of Congress classification scheme, with the single major exception of basic reference tools. Now no classification scheme is of course per- fect; the important thing in such an arrange- ment is to follow carefully whatever system is in use. In the Fondren Library all books on physics, for example, including all journals, are shelved in the same area. The student who wants material on nuclear physics finds both the books and the special journals to- gether. Current issues of physics journals are also shelved nearby. W e have no periodical room as much. M a j o r reference tools are given prominence by separate shelving, still in the same area. In other words we do have JULY, 1953 271 something like a divisional plan, but the divi- sional library includes not a selection of books and journals, but all materials on the subject and it is arranged so that it falls into its proper place between mathematics and chemistry in the L C system. Such a system presupposes a building which lends itself to the arrangement: open stacks, adequate reading and study space in each area, some provision for the shelving of current periodicals in such areas throughout the building. On the other hand, it saves a sub- stantial amount of effort in locating books. There is no cumbersome system of location symbols; one does not have to check the card catalog to find the location of a book, if he knows the general area where it is supposed to be. There is one place and one place only on the campus for a particular volume, and that is where the L C system puts it. Aside from this overall simplification, this arrangement provides several intangible bene- fits, as I have indicated. It is not only stimu- lating for an alert student to find books slightly beyond his grasp, but it is also per- haps good for him to see graduate students and faculty members working at the same table and in the same part of the building on problems like his except more advanced. With such an arrangement it is almost impos- sible for a student majoring in any field to graduate from college without becoming at least familiar with the backs of the major research tools in the field. Of course this system does presuppose faculty approval and interest. If the class- room instructor merely wishes his student to absorb a specified number of pre-digested pel- lets placed on reserve, he will resent the fact that his students have to handle ten books to get the one they want. If the instructor wants his students to see only the best book on a subject, he will not understand the librarian who thinks that students should also see some other books not quite so good and thus learn for himself that the printed word is not al- ways infallible. But if the instructor is inter- ested in teaching the student to think rather than memorize or to study the sources and arrive at his own conclusions rather than ac- cept blindly the opinions of the one "official" text, he will work enthusiastically with the librarian who administers such an arrange- ment. I insist again that the provision for the undergraduate library in the university which I am describing is not applicable to every university and is not something new. It seems to me merely a return to some of the princi- ples of those who first developed systems of library classification, an attempt to reduce all learning to some kind of order. I see no rea- son why we should abandon this simple orderly arrangement so long as it works. It does seem to be working with us. In the space of two years after we set up this sys- tem and abandoned a series of departmental libraries scattered over the campus, our cir- culation more than doubled, although the size of the student body remained the same and the new building provided vastly improved facili- ties for using books without charging them. For Harvard, the Lamont Library, or some- thing like it, was a necessity. For the li- brary of less than a half million volumes in the smaller institutions to adopt any system which permits students to use anything less than total collection seems just a bit foolish. The function of the university library is edu- cation, not facilitating access to the one "best" book on a subject. B y W Y M A N S. P A R K E R The Vital Core Mr. Parker is librarian, University of Cin- cinnati. M Y A S S I G N M E N T is to comment on the dif- ference between college and university li- braries, specifically contrasting a small liberal arts college having a strong library program with a large municipal university having no special undergraduate library policy. In rela- tion to our topic, that of considering a library from the undergraduate's viewpoint, this tends to become an investigation on ways to human- ize and make attractive our noble Gargantua, the university library. 272 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES College and university libraries do in fact have similar aims. Both are concerned with undergraduate study where the library re- duced to its most basic and unromantic terms is a laboratory for discovering facts or a de- pository of what has been said and thought throughout the ages. However there is al- ways implied the idea that the library is avail- able for the leisurely investigation by the individual of ideas and subjects that are es- pecially intriguing. In other words the li- brary should be a source of inspiration and enjoyment over and above the exact word as promulgated in the class room. Sir Antonio Panizzi in giving evidence before a Select Committee of the House of Commons in 1836 had this ideal well in mind as a func- tion of the British Museum when he said, " I want a poor student to have the same means of indulging his learned curiosity, of following his rational pursuits, of consulting the same authorities, of fathoming the most intricate enquiry, as the richest man in the kingdom so far as books go. . . . " 1 In the United States this is carried even further and, although awarding no door prizes as do our movie theaters and gas stations, libraries do try to intrigue the student with exhibits, satisfy him with modern reproductions, and entertain him with music and possibly movies. Most libraries encourage the individual to come and just plain sit in the hope that some of the ideas in nearby books may penetrate by a kind of osmosis. Of course we hope that the sitter will pick up a book, trusting the while that this library novice will not become too interested in it so that he walks out with it illegally. So few of the students ever do take a book out of the library that in moments of despair I sometimes wonder if the $37.00 average per student operating expenditure for university libraries would not be more im- mediately appreciated if it were spent yearly in books to be given to each student. The university library in addition must provide for graduate research. This means more comprehensive and extended coverage on diverse levels. The earlier conception of the university library as a self sufficient en- tity completely covering all fields of knowledge has gone, hastened on its way by such wise co- operative ventures as the Farmington Plan and the M I L C . There is however a real difference in the 1 Gt. Brit. Parliament. Sessional Papers. House of Commons. 1836, v. xo, p. 399. actual sizes of college and university libraries. This results primarily in a university library with a large and to the undergraduate be- wildering collection of books. Even more pertinent to this discussion is the complexity of the university library card catalog with its millions of entries subdivided in ways best known to catalogers. In fact the catalog of even a small college collection tends to be unintelligible to the average undergraduate. Perhaps we might take a hint from the public library catalog where simplicity is paramount. Another significant difference is the fact that a large collection is usually protected in closed stacks although encouraging signs of a hap- pier trend are seen in the open stack collec- tions at Princeton and Iowa City. Closed stacks make for less spontaneous browsing although the rewards may be greater in the larger collections once the barrier is passed. At Kenyon College we felt happy to have portfolios of the Catlin Indian scenes and Catherwood's . . . Ancient Monuments . . . on the open shelves. Unsupervised rarities are not usually found on the shelves of a uni- versity collection although one of our de- partmental libraries at Cincinnati does have early 16th century Aldines and the Pickering Diamond Classics in its open shelf collection. Such items are usually consigned to the Rare Book Room where the y university stu- dent can consult even more costly treasures like the Kingsborough Antiquities of Alexico or, in a few fortunate libraries, the Audubon elephant folio. These complexities of library detail result in the conclusion that it is a privilege for the undergraduate to work in a selected library. This was readily apparent before the turn of the century to Daniel Coit Gil- man once librarian of Yale. In his address at the opening of Cornell University Library in 1891, Gilman, then president of Johns Hopkins, said, "What then can keep the shelves from encumbrance? Only constant elimination, convenient storage, frequent re- arrangement. The books less wanted must be stacked away, . . . and the books most valued must be brought forward. Constant readjustments are essential to the healthy vitality of a library."2 Certainly this is even more logical these days when our every wak- ing moment entails selection. Why should we not enlist the aid of our professors and our 2 Gilman, Daniel Coit, University Problems in the United States (New York, 1898), 249-50. JULY, 1953 273 librarians in choosing a collection which will represent our basic knowledge which is our heritage? Henry Stevens of Vermont, rep- resenting American culture in London as a prominent nineteenth century bookseller, put this very nicely in his usual fresh way, " A nation's books are her vouchers. Her li- braries are her muniments. Her wealth of gold and silver, whether invested in com- merce, or bonds, or banks, is always working for her; but her stores of golden thoughts, inventions, discoveries, and intellectual treas- ures, invested mainly in print and manuscript, are too often stores somewhere in limbo, . . . where, though sleek and well preserved, they rather slumber than fructify." 3 Certainly our undergraduates should be privileged to see together those books which people of culture consider part of our com- mon knowledge. They should be chosen in generous numbers by each institution's own faculty. The "Great Books" chosen by the Chicago group will be here too but let us not tend toward regimentation especially in the liberal arts. Let us have lots of books and particularly let us not rely on the horrible idea that anything not analyzed to the 102 ideas in the Syntopicon need not be con- sidered. . O u r collection will not be rigid but will change as do our professors and our trends in literature. For example, we have seen in recent decades the revival of interest in Melville and James and an increasing pre- occupation with the metaphysical poets. Our reaction from the sentimentality of the nine- teenth century is certainly most apparent in the recent interest in the feverish, feckless, Fitzgerald era and in the currently popular unselective realism of our war novels such as The Naked and the Dead and From Here to Eternity. There is need and room for vari- eties of expression in our representative col- lection. There are various ways to attack this problem. The happiest solution seems to be the separate building housing the under- graduate library of which Lamont with its collection of about 80,000 volumes is the prototype. An earlier solution is the sepa- rate library within the main university build- ing such as that so successfully used at Columbia, known as the Columbia College Library, with its collection of about 35,000 volumes. Most recent of all is what might 3 Stevens, Henry, Photo-Bibliography (London, 1 8 7 8 ) , p . 1 -J. be termed a department-of-all-knowledge area known at Iowa as the Heritage Collection which will have a varying number of books, probably around 20,000 volumes. A com- parable scheme which we hope to put into effect at Cincinnati is to set up a separate collection of about 10,000 volumes physically tied in with our special collections. We plan to house this collection in rooms flanked by a popular browsing room and the rare book room, the whole complex of rooms to be open to undergraduates for study and lounging. Any undergraduate library, no matter where it is housed, would be expected to have its books shelved as an entity. In this fash- ion the undergraduate has the opportunity to see together those books that form our intellectual heritage. Thus the undergraduate has a touchstone, an ideal collection roughly comparable to the library of a truly culti- vated man. Of course this representative library would have its own simplified catalog, its own librarian, and its own reading area. A municipal university presents a special problem for the call of home is strong and students and faculty have a tendency to evaporate rapidly as the day progresses. Therefore it is apparently necessary to trap the undergraduate between classes or before the comforts of home become too appealing. Thus it is desirable to introduce a more inti- mate atmopshere than has hitherto been cus- tomary so that when the rest room stop has been accomplished the student may be led into other rooms of less necessity and more cul- ture. Once the individual enters the library portals it is possible to intrigue the inquiring mind by means of exhibits which in large cities can be tied up with civic projects and by calling upon both museums and business firms for illustrative and eye-catching ma- terial. A browsing room may be utilized as a come-on. Every store has its system of loss-leaders. Why cannot the library buy books of less than permanent nature to at- tract its, students? I think of such items as the books of cartoons, the lavish picture and photograph books, and those all too few books of humorous essays. Most important in any library is the at- mosphere of hospitality where there may be a cordial exchange of ideas and suggestions. There is a special difficulty of communication in a university where so much is occurring in myriad directions. A library wants the spe- cial knowledge and support of the faculty 274 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES and the administration in its programs. In a college the word gets about very quickly as to new attitudes and approaches within the library. It is truly a wonderful feeling to be the focal point of an institution which was briefly the case at Kenyon when we hung an Alexander Calder mobile in the library with an accompanying book display. According to all the books of theory the library is the center of the campus but we all know this as being unapproachably Utopian. We occasion- ally received intimations of such an ideal courtesy of a provocative exhibit which would be discussed in sundry classes. I remember a particularly successful one on the "Horrors of Book-Making" which could have been equally well entitled "Excesses of Taste." Any fresh presentation that stimulates the student to think in new paths is a forward step. In preparing areas for undergraduates there are fortunately numerous truisms which we find effective in this mid-century period. For example, in physical details such things as alcoves rather than large reading rooms are almost universally preferred by today's stu- dents. Modern library design has accepted the fact that movable bookcases make attrac- tive and utilitarian partitions to form alcoves within large areas. Of course, books are our best and richest decorations. (Parenthetically I might add that books are likewise the most satisfactory decorations of the mind.) Soft chairs, footstools, and adequate indirect light- ing are all eminently acceptable to the student generation of these days. Individual desks and carrels are very popular with the serious student with special work to get done. Semi- nar rooms containing a permanent collection in a special area, such as the Elliston Poetry Room at the University of Cincinnati or the Woodberry Poetry Room in the Lamont Li- brary have been found to provoke healthy and profitable discussion. If a faculty mem- ber is in the habit of dropping by to chat with the students that makes for even a better brew. Smoking appears to be the most essen- tial requirement of the undergraduate in this type of area. Rooms for the projection of films, such as those interesting ones re- leased by the Museum of Modern Art, and others for playing recordings are additional attractions for the undergraduate. At the University of Cincinnati we are even now refitting the Stephen Foster Exhibition Room so that students in a comfortable and attrac- tive atmosphere can hear recordings of poets reading their own works. Incidentally I be- lieve that few people can be completely equipped to comprehend the twentieth century unless they have heard T . S. Eliot's majestic rendition of The IVasteland as recorded in the Bollingen series of the Library of Con- gress. It is the privilege of our newest librarians to carry the word to the undergraduates of a library where books are most easily available and librarians more cordial with an interest in the undergraduate and his problems. M a k - ing important and interesting books easily available to students is half our battle. The rest is done at the appropriate time by the skilful suggestion of librarian and professor. People are naturally curious about books, a fortunate inheritance from the Renaissance when only the privileged could read. Fortu- nately for librarians, students are interested in books in spite of everything that has been done in the past to discourage them. I do not agree with the late Hon. James Walker who is reputed to have said that he never heard of a girl being seduced by a book. People can be seduced by books although I prefer to say they are stimulated by books. That is why a library should contain all viewpoints and why our Intellectual Freedom Committee is presently so active. I believe in the innate goodness of the human mind and that our students when given the facts will make the right and proper choices and thus continue to build toward a healthy na- tional future. Name Index Proposed Dr. Hennig Cohen has offered the South Carolina Historical Society for publication a 276- page name-index of the South Carolina Gazette, 1732-1738. Before accepting this offer, the Society, because of limited funds, must know how many persons and institutions would be interested in purchase of such a publication. Preliminary inquiries indicate that by photo offset, paper-covered copies might be produced at a cost of about three dollars each. Those who are interested in purchase will please address inquiries to The South Carolina Historical Society, Fireproof Building, Charleston 5, S.C. JULY, 1953 275