College and Research Libraries By WILLIAM B. READY The Rutgers Seminar for Library Administrators T HE RuTGERS ADVANCED SEMINAR for Library Administrators was a bold experiment in library education. Ger- minal, its offshoots and continuations will have increasingly valuable bearing upon the practice of librarianship. Orig- inal, it labored under all the difficulties that attend a pioneer effort. Disadvan- tages and difficulties, ever present and real, were considerably outweighed by solid benefits that accrued to the partici- pants and, even more, because of their recognition, they can be either avoided or overcome in the future. The Seminar- ians and staff worked so hard and so doggedly during the long six weeks that perhaps they did not realize all they had accomplished. The announcement of the Seminar stated: "Essentially, this is an opportu- nity for librarians who have administra- tive responsibilities to step aside from their jobs for six weeks to look at them from the outside, to study and plan un- der top-level direction, and to sharpen and test their thinking in a highly se- lected group." The hope was expressed that out of the Seminar would come ad- ditional leadership for the profession, and it was decided to limit membership to thirty persons selected by the Sem- inar staff from among the applicants. It was here that the first difficulty arose: There were not sufficient appli- cants of high calibre to enable the Sem- inar staff to work with a group of thirty. Mr. Ready is director of the Mar- quette University Library. JULY 1957 A preliminary list of registrants con- tained twenty-seven names, but later withdrawals reduced the list to twenty. The reasons for the small enrollment were several. The period of the Seminar was neither here nor there; it was nei- ther an academic term, nor was it the usual length of a professional assembly. In the future, it would be well to pre- sent either a series of week-long semi- nars, each developing from the preced- ing one, yet each existing sui generis 7 or to present a full academic semester de- voted to the Seminar. These suggestions are not alternatives. There is need for them both. When the Seminar assembled for ses- sions at the Graduate School of Library- Service, Rutgers, April 9-May 18, 1956, the registrants were: Jean P. Black, li- brarian, Portland State College; Earl C. Borgeson, librarian, Harvard Law School; Mark Crum, librarian, Kanawha County Library, Charleston, W. Va.; Theodore Epstein, librarian, Rider Col- lege; Lorena A. Garlock, librarian, Uni- versity of Pittsburgh; Theodore C. Hines, chief, extension division, Public Library of the District of Columbia; Bernard Kreissman, assistant director for humanities, University of Nebraska; William R. Lansberg, director of acquisi- tions and preparations, Dartmouth Col- lege Library; Viola Maihl, director, Lin- den Public Library, Linden, N.J.; Alfred Rawlinson, librarian, University of South Carolina; William B. Ready, as- sistant director for acquisition, Stanford University Libraries; Donald 0. Rod, 281 head librarian and head, Department of Library Science, Iowa State Teachers College; Roscoe Rouse, librarian, Baylor University; Richard H. Shoemaker, li- brarian, Newark Colleges, Rutgers Uni- versity; Eleanor S. Stephens, librarian, Oregon State Library; Robert L. Tal- madge, associate director, University of Kansas Libraries; Helene S. Taylor, di- rector, Free Public Library, Bloomfield, N.J.; S. Lyman Tyler, director of librar- ies, Brigham Young University; Ar- thur J. Vennix, assistant director of li- braries for social studies and administra- tion, University of Nebraska; David C. Weber, assistant to the librarian, Har- vard University; Herbert Zafren, He- brew Union College, Cincinnati. Keyes Metcalf, director; Dean Lowell Martin, Professor Ralph Shaw, and Da- vid Weber, executive assistant, com- prised the resident staff of the Seminar. This resident staff was greatly augment- ed by visitors. They included Verner Clapp, John B. Kaiser, R. C. Swank, Rog- er McDonough, Andrew Osborn, Francis St. John, Ralph Ulveling, and, a con- stant visitor who became increasingly understanding and welcome, Maurice Tauber. In addition to the resident staff and to visitors, a third means of instruction was by field trips to the university libraries at Princeton, Columbia, and the Univer- sity of Pennsylvania, and to the Phila- delphia Free Library, the New York Pub- lic Library, and the Brooklyn Public Li- brary. Many other trips were made by groups of the Seminar. The thorough manner of subject pres- entation at the Seminar can be illus- trated by an example: "Administrative decisions that should be made before building of collections begins." Under this topic the following items were des- ignated for discussion: "How do you determine subject fields to be covered?" "What should be the policy in regard to gifts of books?" "What can be done about weeding and discarding books no longer in demand?" "When a volume wears out or disinte- grates because of poor paper, what should be done?" "Policies in regard to the acquisition of non-printed and non- monographic materials, such as maps, manuscripts, sheet music, newspapers, serials of all kinds, public documents, phonograph records, and microrepro- ductions." "Should the emphasis be on new or old material?" "How much at- tention should be paid to the language in which the books are printed?" "What should be done about 'bloc' purchases?" "When is duplication necessary, per- missible?" "Is a fairly definite policy for the collection of rarities desirable, and, if so, what should it be?" "What is the place of interlibrary cooperation in building collections?" In order to provide a common back- ground know ledge in all the Seminar- ians, preliminary reading was assigned. This reading consisted of appropriate chapters and articles in a variety of pub- lications: "A Pessimist Looks at the Pub- lic Library" and "The University Li- brary" in Wilhelm Munthe's American Librarianship From a Eu.ropean Angle (ALA, 1939); "The Problem of the Col- lege Library" in B. Harvie Branscomb's Teaching W ith Books (ALA, 1940); "Inquiry Assumptions, the Library Faith, and Library Objectives" in Robert D. Leigh's The Public Library in the United States (Columbia, 1950); "Finan- cial Problems of University Libraries" by Keyes D. Metcalf, in HarvaYd Library Bulletin~ VIII (1954); "The Growth of American Research Libraries" in Fre- mont Rider's Th e Scholar and the Fu- ture of the Research Library (Hadham, 1954); ·"The Library in the University" and "Problems of Policy and Adminis- tration" in Planning the University Li- brary Building (Princeton, 1949), edited by John E. Burchard and others; "The Development of Library Resources at Harvard: Problems and Potentialities" by Andrew D. Osborn in R .epo.rt on the 282 COLLEGE AND· RESEARCH LIBRARIES Harvard University Library (Harvard, 1955) by Keyes D. Metcalf; "The Crisis in Cataloging" by Andrew D . Osborn in Library Quarterly} XI (1941); "Patriot- ism Is Not Enough" in Elton Mayo's The Social Problems of an Industrial Civilization (Harvard, 1945); and "De- cision Making," "Administrative Or- ganization," and "Some Problems of Ad- ministrative Theory" in Herbert A. Si- mon's Administrative Behavior (Mac- millan, 194 7) . During the six weeks, all the neces- sary library literature was readily avail- able. For other reading, the crowded university library was open, and the ca- caphony from the new building arising across the way from the classroom brought home clamorously an object lesson in library planning. Donald Cam- eron and his staff were always on hand to answer questions about the new building. The educational means, then, were profuse, practical, and imaginative. There was a' tendency, which became more evident as the weeks went by, to feel that only those participants con- cerned with administration of learned li- braries were getting the full advantage of the Seminar. There is a difference be- tween popular and learned libraries, a difference of such an extent that one Seminar, one professional body, cannot really handle them both. This fault again stems from the pioneer nature of the Seminar and can be remedied. Acquisition, processing, public serv- ice, cooperation, building, staff, money, administrative organization, long-term planning were among topics exhaustive- } y examined and discussed, all from the standpoint of a library administrator. . The Seminar broke up into several groups of like people whenever possible, and carried the discussions deeper and further within their own interests. Each Seminarian prepared a paper based on his own needs and experience and was assigned a staff counsellor. The Semi- JULY 1957 narians were expected to be ready at all times to participate in classroom work. It is in the workload of the Seminar- ians that the Seminar is most in need of revision; it was far too heavy. Granting that the people involved did not make up as homogeneous a group as had been anticipated, there was still too much expected from the student. It is difficult for an academic staff to realize that ad- ministrators have been away from school for so long, that they think differently from students, that a new approach is needed to enthrall them in a Seminar. The long hours of the Seminar, gener- ally more than six classroom hours a day, and several week-end assignments, left little time for the reflection and preparation required for mature partici- pation. This, I think, is a difficulty that needs to be overcome. The director of any future Seminar must learn from the experience of Keyes Metcalf. Another feature of the Seminar to be avoided in the future is too much pro- pinquity. It is all very well for a group who are together but for a week or so to meet constantly at all meals, to talk shop on all occasions. But when the meeting lasts for six weeks, a genuine malaise sets in. It can be seen, then, that the noisy, crowded classroom, the lodging, the tim- ing, and the enrollment are minor diffi- culties that will more or less resolve themselves after more time and study. The more serious difficulty, that of de- veloping a teaching method that will enthrall administrators, remains to be solved. A Seminar benefits in proportion as it reflects the needs and aspirations of its members; the Rutgers Seminar fol- lowed this shining and clouded pattern. It is a beginning of a new form of li- brary education that will change greatly as it develops; it will recognize differ- ences, enunciate principles. The library profession has been served well before by the Rutgers Library School, but never so well as by this beginning. 283