College and Research Libraries Socio-Psychological Research On College Environments BY D A N I E L P. B E R G E N THE ALA Standards for College Li-braries, adopted in 1959, are shot through with the reminder that the level of an institution's library services should always be determined with reference to its unique character. T h e third para- graph of the Standards reads: " T h e standards laid down in this document must always be interpreted in the light of the aims and the needs of the institu- tion of which the library is a part." 1 Yet, what do we, as college librarians, really know about the aims and needs of the institutions which we serve? T o be sure, in the colleges of highest academic qual- ity there undoubtedly exists a reasonable student-faculty-administration consensus on institutional aims, but even in such colleges there is less likely to be any thorough understanding of institutional needs. As one moves to the colleges at the rear of what is euphemistically called the "academic procession," what agree- ment prevails on aims and needs, cata- log statements notwithstanding, must certainly take on a more nebulous qual- ity. In the vast majority of colleges, therefore, there is probably little sense of what W . H. Cowley has called the "historical continuum" of an institution. T h e components of this continuum—sets of value, attitudes, beliefs, ideals, and in- stitutional intellectual levels—give each college, studied over time, an identity of its own.2 College librarians, it seems 1 ALA Standards for College Libraries: Adopted by ACRL, A Division of the American Library Association ( C h i c a g o : T h e Association of College and Research L i b r a r i e s , 1 9 5 9 ) , p. 1. 2 W . H . Cowley, " A n Appraisal of A m e r i c a n Higher E d u c a t i o n " ( A n Unpublished Manuscript, S t a n f o r d Uni- versity Department of Education, 1 9 5 6 ) as discussed by E . D . Duryea, " I n s t i t u t i o n a l P e r s o n a l i t y : Some Re- flections Upon I t s Implications for A d m i n i s t r a t o r s , " Educational Record, X L I I (October, 1 9 6 1 ) , 330-31. N O V E M B E R 1 9 6 2 Mr. Bergen has been Associate Librarian of the Abbey Library, St. Benedict's College, Atchison, Kansas, since January 1962. to me, have a positive obligation to seek means for more accurately describing the ecology of the library, that is, the wider collegiate setting of which the college library represents only a part. T h e ways of assessing institutional character or environment are now mani- fold. All of them are more scientific and "refined" than those used by J. D. Sal- i n g e r i n Franny and Zooey a n d Catcher in the Rye. Since the mid-1950's, some of the more progressive members of the College Entrance Examination Board have been sending to secondary school counselors statements of their freshman class characteristics. These statements, while ordinarily including mean scores on the verbal, mathematical, and achieve- ment test portions of the College Board examinations, seldom contain informa- tion which could not readily be obtained from the American Council on Educa- tion's monumental American Universi- ties and Colleges (1960). They do not usually provide, furthermore, any indi- cators of what Philip E. Jacob termed the "institutional thrust," i.e. its per- sonality in terms of the values commonly held by its students, faculty, and admin- istration.3 For the beginnings of systematic at- tempts to describe institutional charac- ter, one must refer to a study by William 3 Philip E . J a c o b , Changing Values in College: An Exploratory Study of the Impact of College Teaching ( N e w Y o r k : H a r p e r , 1 9 5 7 ) , p. 114. 473 S. Learned and Ben D. Wood of secon- dary and higher education in Pennsyl- vania during the late 1920's and early 1930's. T h e i r work was directed to "fix- ing attention primarily on the nature, the apparent needs, and the actual achievements of the individual student in his successive contacts witli existing institutional forms. . . . " 4 Subsequent studies have sought to define the college culture by centering upon institutional productivity, or the proportion of a col- lege's graduates that eventually goes on to earn the Ph.D. T h e interpretation of a college's productivity has necessarily involved a further assessment of insti- tutional characteristics as conditioned by the intelligence level of the student body, the personal values and perceptions of the students, faculty, and administration, as well as those elements in the ecology of the college itself which have decisive impact upon the institution. In 1953, Robert H. Knapp and Joseph J. Greenbaum, sociologists at Wesleyan University, defined the productivity of any undergraduate college as the per- centage (per one thousand graduates over the period 1946-1951) which ultimately obtained the Ph.D. By their reckoning, the ten institutions with the highest over-all productivity in the natural sci- ences, social sciences, and humanities were, in order: Swarthmore, Reed, the College of the University of Chicago, Oberlin, Haverford, the California In- stitute of Technology, Carleton, Prince- ton, Antioch, and Harvard College.5 A somewhat less sophisticated but nonethe- less useful attempt to measure college productivity was subsequently made by the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences. T h i s study, reported in a 1958 publication, Doctorate Production in United States 4 W i l l i a m S . Learned and B e n D . Wood, The Stu- dent and His Knowledge: A Report to the Carnegie Foundation on the Results of the High School and College Examinations of 1928, 1930, and 1932 ( N e w Y o r k : T h e Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of T e a c h i n g , 1 9 3 8 ) , p. x v i . 5 Robert H . Knapp and Joseph J . Greenbaum, The Younger American Scholar: His Collegiate Origins ( C h i c a g o : U n i v e r s i t y of Chicago P r . , 1 9 5 3 ) , p. 16. Universities: 1936-1956: With Baccalau- reate Origins of Doctorates in the Sci- ences, Arts, and Humanities, c o n t a i n e d a raw, unweighted ranking of under- graduate colleges, based on the total numbers of their graduates which took the Ph.D. during the period under con- sideration. T h i s survey did not, unfor- tunately, take into account the relative size of the colleges' respective graduating classes. A mean measure of the size of the institutions' graduating classes for the period, 1936-1956, would have ren- dered the N R C calculations much more meaningful. T h e ten leading undergrad- uate colleges in that study were, in order: California (Berkeley); the City College of New York (CCNY); Illinois; Chicago; Wisconsin; Harvard; Minnesota; Colum- bia; Michigan; and New York Univer- sity (NYU).6 Even more recent studies of that kind are William Manuel's The Baccalaureate Origins of Medical Stu- dents which, because it deals with a pro- fessional degree, is beyond the scope of our present considerations,7 and the val- uable survey of the Association of Ameri- can Colleges entitled, A Report on the Baccalaureate Origins of College Facul- ties. T h a t report, based on work done during the academic year, 1955-1956, took into consideration the relative size of the surveyed institutions' undergraduate enrollments for that base year.8 T h e top ten, determined by a calculus of college teachers produced per one thousand full- time undergraduate enrollment in 1955, were, in order: Woodstock (a Jesuit col- lege and seminary in Maryland whose graduates staff Catholic institutions); the College of the University of Chicago; George Peabody College for Teachers; Oberlin College; Reed College; Wesleyan University; Greenville College (Illinois); Swarthmore College; Bowdoin College; 6 Doctorate Production in United States Universi- ties: 1936-1956: With Baccalaureate Origins of Doctor- ates in the Sciences, Arts, and Humanities ( W a s h i n g - ton,: National Academy of S c i e n c e s — N a t i o n a l Research Council, 1 9 5 8 ) , pp. 62-63. 7 W i l l i a m Manuel, The Baccalaureate Origins of Medical Students ( W a s h i n g t o n : Gov. P r i n t . Off., 1 9 6 1 ) . 8 Allan O. Pfinster, A Report on the Baccalaureate Origins of College Faculities ( W a s h i n g t o n : T h e Associ- ation of American Colleges, 1 9 6 1 ) , p. 3. 474 C O L L E G E A N D R E S E A R C H L I B R A R I E S and Southwestern University (Texas).9 A third study, which purported to use the Knapp and Greenbaum indices, data on graduate fellowships and undergrad- uate scholarships, N R C statistics, distri- bution patterns for National Merit Schol- ars, and interviews, was Chesly Manly's somewhat random and unscientific at- tempt to rate the nation's best univer- sities, coeducational colleges, men's col- leges, and women's colleges. His five best in each category were, in rank-order: (1) Universities (Harvard, Yale, Cali- fornia, Chicago, and Columbia); (2) Co- educational colleges (Oberlin, Swarth- more, Carleton, Reed, and Pomona); (3) Men's colleges (Haverford, Amherst, Kenyon, Wesleyan, and Hamilton); and (4) Women's colleges (Bryn Mawr, Rad- cliffe, Barnard, Vassar, and Mount Hol- yoke).10 T h e Manly study has been widely criticized, though few knowledge- able educators have been at great odds with his invidious (at least for alumni) ratings. Perhaps the most incisive criti- cism of his study was simply that it did not employ the best available rating pro- cedures.11 Of the disciplines outside professional education, psychology and sociology have been most actively concerned with the problems of assessing college environ- ments. Part of the psychologists' concern may be traced to their conviction that "the complexity of relationship between person and environment is inevitably obscured by the simplified and often in- appropriate symbolism of correlation be- tween scholastic aptitude test and grade- point average. . . . " 1 2 Efforts to find a more appropriate symbolism have re- sulted in at least two devices, one of which is the College Characteristics In- dex (CCI). T h e CCI, a three hundred 9 Ibid., pp. 30-31. 10 See The Chicago Tribune (April 21, 1 9 5 7 ) . F o r Manly's views on the 20 best liberal arts colleges in the Midwest, see The Chicago Tribune (February 11, 1961). 11 Dewey B . Stuit, "Evaluations of Institutions and P r o g r a m s , " Review of Educational Research, X X X (October, 1 9 6 0 ) , 375. 12 C. Robert Pace and George G. Stern, " A n Ap- proach to the Measurement of Psychological Character- istics of College Environments," Journal of Educational Psychology, X L I X (October, 1 9 5 8 ) , 276. N O V E M B E R 1 9 6 2 item "True-False" questionnaire organ- ized into thirty distinct ten-item "press" scales, has been administered to faculty and students at a large number of col- leges and universities. Underlying the construction of that instrument was the assumption that the "press" of a college environment is best reflected in the per- ceptions which students and faculty members have of it. "Press," for George Stern and C. Robert Pace, devisers of the CCI, is "reflected in the character- istic pressures, stresses, rewards, and conformity-demanding influences of the college culture." 1 3 In two diverse institu- tions where Stern and Pace applied the CCI in May 1957, there were the follow- ing outcomes: C O L L E G E A T h e m a j o r press . . . was toward orderli- ness a n d friendly helpfulness, with over- tones o f spirited social activity. . . . stu- dents have assigned seats in some classes, professors o f t e n take a t t e n d a n c e , papers and reports must be neat, buildings are clearly marked, students plan t h e i r pro- grams with an adviser a n d select their courses b e f o r e registration, courses pro- ceed systematically, it is easy to take clear notes, student activities are organized and p l a n n e d ahead. W i t h i n this orderliness, student life is spirited and a c e n t e r o f in- terest. F o r e x a m p l e , big college events draw lots o f enthusiasm, parties are color- ful and lively, there is lots to do besides going to class and studying, students spend a lot of time in snack bars and in o n e an- other's rooms, and when students r u n a p r o j e c t everyone knows a b o u t it. A t the same time, a m i d this student-oriented cul- ture, there is a stress on idealism and serv- ice. Students are e x p e c t e d to develop an awareness o f t h e i r role in social a n d polit- ical life, be effective citizens, understand the p r o b l e m s o f less privileged people, be interested in charities, etc. C O L L E G E B H e r e the d o m i n a n t press o f the environ- m e n t falls in the theoretical-intellectual category. . . . there are e x c e l l e n t library resources in n a t u r a l science and social science, a lecture by an o u t s t a n d i n g phi- 13 Ibid., p. 270. 475 losopher o r scientist would draw a ca- pacity audience, m a n y students a r e plan- n i n g graduate work o r careers in science o r social science, there are m a n y op- p o r t u n i t i e s f o r students to see a n d h e a r a n d criticize m o d e r n art a n d music, rea- soning a n d logic are valued highly in stu- d e n t reports a n d discussions, students who spend a lot o f t i m e in a science l a b o r a t o r y o r in trying to analyze o r classify art a n d music o r in seeking to develop a personal system of values are n o t regarded as odd, scholarship a n d i n t e l l e c t u a l skills are re- garded as m o r e i m p o r t a n t than social poise a n d a d j u s t m e n t , there is t i m e f o r private t h o u g h t a n d reflection, o n e n e e d n o t be afraid o f expressing e x t r e m e views, the faculty a n d a d m i n i s t r a t i o n are t o l e r a n t in i n t e r p r e t i n g regulations. . . . students . . . do n o t have assigned seats in class, pro- fessors do n o t take a t t e n d a n c e , students are likely to study over t h e weekend, big col- lege events draw n o great enthusiasm, a n d the place is n o t described as o n e where 'everyone has a lot of f u n . ' M o r e o v e r , stu- d e n t leaders have n o special privileges, family status is n o t i m p o r t a n t , students are n o t m u c h c o n c e r n e d a b o u t personal a p p e a r a n c e a n d g r o o m i n g , a n d an intel- lectual is n o t an 'egghead.' A n d finally, e x a m s are n o t based on f a c t u a l m a t e r i a l from a t e x t b o o k , classes are n o t character- ized by r e c i t a t i o n and drills, grade lists are n o t publicly posted, students are n o t p u b l i c l y r e p r i m a n d e d for mistakes, stu- d e n t organizations are n o t closely super- vised, students t e n d to stay u p late at night, work all the h a r d e r if they have received a low grade, a n d if c o n f r o n t e d with a r e g u l a t i o n they d o n o t like they will try to get it c h a n g e d . 1 4 T h e current norm group for the CCI consists of an extremely heterogeneous bunch of colleges and universities spread geographically from one end of the na- tion to the other, with idealogies as va- ried as their geography. T h e existence of this norm group permits researchers to apply the CCI to an ever-increasing number of institutions and to classify them under one of four major groupings: (1) an intellectual-humanistic-esthetic 14 Ibid., pp. 273-74. 476 cluster or emphasis; (2) a cluster which suggests an emphasis on independence, change, and science; (3) an emphasis on personal and interpersonal status, cou- pled with a practical or vocational orien- tation; and (4) an emphasis upon group welfare, social responsibility, and well- mannered community.15 Despite its state of refinement, the CCI is not without its obvious limitations. David Riesman, Harvard's imaginative critic of society, sees these as its failure to measure any- thing but student and faculty "ideology" about a particular institution and its lack of sufficient flexibility for application to colleges where the outlook of students and faculty is overly heterogeneous.10 Still another psychological device is the Environmental Assessment Technique ( E A T ) developed at the National Merit Scholarship Corporation by J o h n L. Hol- land and his associates. Like the CCI, it operates on the assumption that a col- lege's culture or environmental force is transmitted through people. T o use Hol- land's reasoning: " I f , then, we know the character of the people in a group, we should know the climate that group cre- ates."17 Basically, the E A T is a weighted mixture of eight components: size of the undergraduate student body; intelligence level (as indicated by mean scores for the National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test or the Scholastic Aptitude portion of the College Board examinations); and six typologies of personal characteristics as they relate to the student's selected major (realistic, intellectual, social, con- ventional, enterprising, and artistic). T h e E A T is particularly adapted to measure what psychologists call the degree of congruence between the college and the individual student.18 T h e sociologists, particularly Allen 15 C. Robert P a c e , " M e t h o d s of Describing College C u l t u r e s , " Teachers College Record, L X I I I ( J a n u a r y , 1 9 6 2 ) , 269. 16 David R i e s m a n , " T h e ' J a c o b R e p o r t ' , " American Sociological Review, X X I I I (December, 1 9 5 8 ) , 733. i t Alexander W . Astin and John L . Holland, " T h e Environmental Assessment T e c h n i q u e : A W a y T o M e a s u r e College E n v i r o n m e n t s , " Jounal of Educa- tional Psychology, L I I (December, 1 9 6 1 ) , 308. 18 Ibid., p. 31$. C O L L E G E A N D R E S E A R C H L I B R A R I E S Barton and Martin Trow, like, on the other hand, to view the college as " a social system with emphasis upon peer groups, role behavior, communications networks, and other organizational char- acteristics."19 Barton's "College Organi- zation Variables" comprehend measures of a college's input (student, faculty, ad- ministration, financial, and physical), output (student knowledge, values, and interests, along with faculty research and publication); environmental variables (external to the college); social structure; attitudes; and activities.20 His instru- ment, as a design for measurement, has the very important virtue of being able to assess the affect of extracollegiate en- vironmental forces, a deficiency of here- tofore devised psychological techniques. In addition to the scientific measures of college environment, there are the more literary, but highly perceptive, styl- ings of David Boroff and David Ries- man. Boroff, whose colorful profiles of Harvard, Brooklyn College, Swarthmore, Birmingham-Southern, Wisconsin, and the Associated Colleges of Claremont (California) first appeared in Harpers magazine, is basically a social commenta- tor.21 It is to Riesman, the lawyer-turned- sociologist, that we owe the working con- cept of the "academic procession" and the prestige-ranking of colleges.22 He and Christopher Jencks, one of his graduate students and former associates at Har- vard, have recently produced a brilliant vignette on San Francisco State College described by the authors as an "ethnog- raphy." 2 3 T h e description is quite ap- propriate because of their heavy use of anthropological insight and analogy. T h e y describe the effect which student 19 C . R o b e r t P a c e , loc. cit., p. 2 7 6 . 20 Ibid., pp. 2 7 4 - 7 5 . 21 R e p r i n t e d in D a v i d B o r o f f , Campus USA ( N e w Y o r k : H a r p e r , 1 9 6 1 ) . F o r a r e c e n t s k e t c h , s e e " A l - b a n y S t a t e : A T e a c h e r s College in T r a n s i t i o n , " Satur- day Review, X L V ( 2 0 J a n u a r y 1 9 6 2 ) , 4 2 - 4 3 . 22 D a v i d R i e s m a n , Constraint and Variety in Ameri- can Education ( G a r d e n C i t y , N . Y . : D o u b l e d a y , 1 9 5 8 ) , pp. 3 5 - 6 5 . 23 D a v i d R i e s m a n and C h r i s t o p h e r J e n c k s , " A C a s e S t u d y in V i g n e t t e : S a n F r a n c i s c o S t a t e C o l l e g e , " Teach- ers College Record, L X I I I ( J a n u a r y , 1 9 6 2 ) , 2 3 4 . R e - p r i n t e d in N e v i t t S a n f o r d ( e d . ) , The American College ( N e w Y o r k : W i l e y , 1 9 6 2 ) . N O V E M B E R 1 9 6 2 rootlessness in a commuter college has upon the provision of institutional serv- ices.24 T h e y maintain, some external evi- dence to the contrary, that the majority of freshmen at SF State "come from homes in which neither books nor conversation (as opposed to talk) are available. . . . " 2 5 And they learned that the most severe threat to institutional intellectuality is not "collegiate" (i.e. fraternity-sorority) culture, but rather a culture created by students who regard any kind of in- tellectuality as a positive threat to their preformed values and self-images,26 One of the best conceptual tools yet developed for differentiating colleges on planes of intelligence and values is called the "level of expectancy."2 7 It has been found that the level of expectancy, "as the intellectual, cultural, and moral cli- mate of a college," takes on peculiarly atypical configurations in institutions like Bennington, Reed, Sarah Lawrence, Antioch, and the College of the Univer- sity of Chicago (where the liberal orien- tation is uniformly strong relative to other colleges), and Harvard, Wesleyan, and Haverford (where the respective ori- entations are toward personal autonomy, community, and leadership).28 In a letter to the author, Paul Heist, now associate research psychologist in the Center for the Study of Higher Education at the University of California (Berkeley), fur- ther differentiated Antioch and Reed in this manner: ". . . from the standpoint of student background and the number of subcultures represented, Antioch would be the most diverse. Reed is per- haps made up of the greatest number who are somewhat alike in their free- thinking, their unconventionality, their 24 Ibid., pp. 2 4 4 - 4 5 . 25 Ibid., p. 2 4 1 . 26 D a v i d R i e s m a n , " T h e I n f l u e n c e o f S t u d e n t C u l t u r e and F a c u l t y V a l u e s in the A m e r i c a n C o l l e g e , " Higher Education, Y e a r b o o k o f E d u c a t i o n , 1 9 5 9 , eds. George Z. F . B e r e d a y and J o s e p h A . L a u w e r y s ( Y o n k e r s - o n - H u d s o n , N . Y . : W o r l d B o o k , 1 9 5 9 ) , p. 3 9 9 . 27 E d w a r d D . E d d y , J r . , The College Influence on Student Character: An Exploratory Study in Selected Colleges and Universities Made for the Committee for the Study of Character Development in Education ( W a s h i n g t o n : A m e r i c a n Council on E d u c a t i o n , 1 9 5 9 ) , p. 13. 28 P h i l i p E . J a c o b , op. cit., pp. 1 0 0 - 1 0 6 . All devotion to liberal causes, and their 'need' to criticize the culture." 2 9 In all of the forementioned colleges, the level of expectancy probably exercises such a potent influence that it can induce, in the occasional unreconstructed student, a complete redirection of values. Beyond value to the realm of academics, Riesman has pointed out that in institutions like these faculty members seem most willing to introduce their most brilliant proteges to the higher forms of research and schol- arship.30 Adopting a little different course, an interdisciplinary team at Cornell Uni- versity improvised a strategy for deter- mining "what college students think" at institutions as disparate, yet influentially representative, as Cornell, California at Los Angeles (UCLA), Wesleyan, Texas, Harvard, Yale, North Carolina, Dart- mouth, Wayne State, Fisk, and Michi- gan. T h a t study revealed that the per- centage of students which strongly identi- fied itself with the respective colleges varied from a high of 77 per cent at Dart- mouth to a low of 38 per cent at Fisk.31 In their desire for a basic general educa- tion and a heightened appreciation of ideas, student affirmative replies varied from a 90 per cent peak at Wesleyan to a low of 59 per cent at Fisk.32 T h e question must now be raised: What is the import of this kind of so- cio-psychological research for the college librarian? T h e answer is not easy to pro- vide for, in my judgment, the implica- tions could be quite broad-ranging. For example, it is possible to hypothesize that the college library is often not an essen- 29 L e t t e r from P a u l H e i s t to the Author ( J a n u a r y 2 7 , 1 9 5 9 ) , p. 1. 30 David Riesman, " T h e ' J a c o b R e p o r t ' , " p. 738. 31 R o s e K . Goldsen, M o r r i s Rosenberg, Robbin M . W i l l i a m s , J r . , and E d w a r d A . Suchman, What College Students Think ( P r i n c e t o n , N. J . : V a n Nostrand, 1 9 6 0 ) , p. 206. Other percentages were 63 per cent at H a r v a r d and W e s l e y a n , 58 per cent at Y a l e , 57 per cent at North Carolina, 54 per cent among Cornell men, 52 per cent at Michigan, 45 per cent at W a y n e S t a t e , 44 per cent among Cornell women, 42 per cent at T e x a s , and 40 per cent at U C L A . 32 Ibid., p. 208. O t h e r percentages were 88 per cent at Y a l e , 85 per cent at H a r v a r d . 84 per cent for Cornell men, 74 per cent at North Carolina, 70 per cent at U C L A , 69 per cent at Michigan, 65 per cent at T e x a s , and 64 per cent at W a y n e S t a t e . 478 tial element in the education of college students,33 not only because of differing conceptions of the library's function held by faculty and librarians as Patricia B. Knapp has suggested,34 but rather be- cause of an almost total lack of congru- ence between the library and its services and its milieu—human values, intelli- gence levels, students and faculty atti- tudes and ideals, informal structures of influence, and networks of communica- tion, to mention only a few of the eco- logical factors involved. As a case in point, a better understanding of insti- tutional personality might have rendered library surveyors at Leeds University in England somewhat less struck by "the extent of private borrowing and of book buying" 3 5 in that university. At other colleges, where the implications of insti- tutional ethos are well understood by librarians, statistical surveys of library use may have small function but to cor- roborate what is already fairly accurately known. At all events, if a decision is made to use quantitative measures in such institutions, one may be reasonably certain that the correct questions will be asked. T o quote Archibald MacLeish: " W e know the answers, all the answers. It is the questions that we do not know." 3 6 A good knowledge of institutional character may lead us moreover to a more realistic evaluation of the library's specific contribution to the educational process. In 1959, Donald Thistlethwaite, presently on the staff of Vanderbilt Uni- versity, sought, on a generalized level, to make just such an evaluation. He equated the Ph.D. output in various colleges with their input, in terms of the intelligence level of the student supply, by adjusting 33 P a t r i c i a B . K n a p p , College Teaching and the Col- lege Library ( A C R L Monograph # 2 3 ) ( C h i c a g o : A L A , 1 9 5 9 ) , p. 1. See also L e s t e r Asheim, " A S u r v e y of Recen t R e s e a r c h , " Reading for Life: Developing the College Student's Lifetime Reading Interest, ed. J a c o b M . P r i c e ( A n n A r b o r : U n i v e r s i t y of Michigan P r . , 1 9 5 9 ) , p . , 1 3 . 34 P a t r i c i a B . Knapp, op. cit., pp. 93 and 95. 35 P . E . T u c k e r , " T h e Sources of Books for Under- g r a d u a t e s : A S u r v e y o f the Leeds U n i v e r s i t y L i b r a r y , " Journal of Documentation, X V I I ( J u n e , 1 9 6 1 ) , 9 5 . 36 Quoted in C. Robert P a c e , loc. cit., p. 2 7 1 . C O L L E G E A N D R E S E A R C H L I B R A R I E S each college's Ph.D. productivity rate in terms of intelligence input or the aca- demic ability of the student body. An important result of that study was the realization that there is a significant correlation between the number of vol- umes in an institution's library and the proportion of its graduates that eventu- ally take doctorates in the arts and hu- manities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Thistlethwaite's own interpre- tation of this finding was that colleges with large libraries are the ones most likely to be endowed with other kinds of institutional wealth37—gifted stu- dents, research funds, and highly quali- fied faculty are a few of the possibilities which come immediately to mind. T h e study clearly raises the further question of what specific quantitative and quali- tative aspects of a college library, beyond mere size, contribute to an institution's Ph.D. productivity. It is my guess that a substantial portion of the factors affect- ing what Maurice F. T a u b e r has defined as "the correlation between libraries and educational effectiveness"38 may in the long run be identified by a thorough ex- amination of library-institutional con- gruence. Adding to those already expressed, one might advance the further supposition that in the most productive colleges the degree of harmony between the function- ing library and the wider institutional environment is much greater than in those institutions which, by any measure, are academically middling or feeble. In the best colleges, one may surmise that staffs devote themselves more fully to functions which are uniquely those of the library, namely, the provision of ref- erence and bibliographical services39 as keys to quality collections. T h e evidence at Dartmouth and Knox colleges per- 37 Donald L . Thistlethwaite, " C o l l e g e E n v i r o n m e n t s and the Development of T a l e n t : Characteristics of Col- leges as Related to the P e r c e n t a g e of Graduates W h o A t t a i n the P h . D . , " Science, C X X X ( 1 0 J u l y 1 9 5 9 ) , 73. Reprinted in Nevitt S a n f o r d ( e d . ) , The American College ( N e w Y o r k : W i l e y , 1 9 6 2 ) . 38 M a u r i c e F . T a u b e r , " T h e L i b r a r y , " Journal of Higher Education, X X X I I I ( A p r i l , 1 9 6 2 ) , 227. 39 S e e P a t r i c i a B . Knapp, op. cit.. pp. 93-94. N O V E M B E R 1 9 6 2 haps somewhat to the contrary,40 it is, nevertheless, my instinctive belief that a congruence of expectation and perform- ance between the library, on one hand, and faculty, students, and administra- tion, on the other, is an absolutely criti- cal element in an institution's rate of productivity. It seems to me almost in- evitable that, where tutorials, seminars, colloquia, independent study, and simi- lar pedagogical devices are employed and where the average student's sophistica- tion in library use is relatively high, there too will the fruitful identification of the library with its institutional set- ting occur most naturally. Such institu- tions, in all likelihood, do not require a systematic plan for library-instructional integration such as that proposed by Dr. Knapp some six years ago.41 In superior colleges, the library is apparently con- ceived of as a laboratory for independent study42 by both students and faculty. As early as 1936, Douglas Waples used data gathered by the North Central Associa- tion of Colleges and Secondary Schools to show that the closest correlate of li- brary loans per student (of those options then considered) was per capita loans of books to faculty members.43 Unquestionably the most imaginative current attempt to artificially induce congruence between a library possessing unique organization and a somewhat re- calcitrant student-faculty clientele is that currently ongoing in Monteith College of Wayne State University under the di- rection of Mrs. Knapp. By way of brief background, Monteith College is the half-time environment of an undifferen- tiated (at least up to the present) group 40 S e e " W h a t is a L i b r a r y ? , " Dartmouth College Li- brary Bulletin, I ( A p r i l , 1 9 5 8 ) , 46, and P a t r i c i a B . Knapp, op. cit., pp. 92-93. 41 S e e P a t r i c i a B . Knapp, " A Suggested Program of College Instruction in the U s e of the L i b r a r y , " Li- brary Quarterly, XXVI ( J u l y , 1 9 5 6 ) , 224-31. 42 Guy R . L y l e , The Administration of the College Library, 3d ed. ( N e w Y o r k : H . W . W i l s o n , 1 9 6 1 ) , p. 145. 43 Douglas W a p l e s and others, The Library, V o l . 4 of T h e Evaluation of H i g h e r Institutions, A S e r i e s of Monographs Based on the Investigation Conducted f o r the Committee on Review of Standards, Commission on H i g h e r Institutions of the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools ( C h i c a g o : U n i v e r s i t y of Chicago P r e s s , 1 9 3 6 ) , pp. 54-56. 479 of teachers and students. T h e enrollment at Monteith includes high, average, and low ability Wayne State registrants. T o this heterogeneous group, it offers a pro- gram consuming approximately one-half of the students' time, of general educa- tion with emphasis on the social sciences. As things now stand, the Monteith cur- riculum parallels the more vocationally- oriented curriculum of the university-at- large.44 As an experimental college, Monteith, through the provision of what Riesman calls "locales" 4 5 for faculty- student interaction, hopes to create an atmosphere uniquely its own. Through a process of "internal decentralization," those who guide Monteith's destiny have determined, to borrow again from Ries- man's description, "to create a splinter culture within a big state university, and then to make this culture at once attrac- tive to the untutored adolescent and to the scholarly professor, and then ulti- mately to breed alumni, who, if they do not become scholars, as some hopefully will, may at least be intellectuals."46 In the current embryonic atmosphere of the college, Dr. Knapp and her associates are attempting to persuade a somewhat hesi- tant faculty and student body that a li- brary is most properly "a system of bib- liographical organization."4 7 In a sense, the situation at Monteith represents the reverse of what has been described. Here the library, already reflecting the pro- jected elan vital of the college, is trying, through planning, to create consensus with a faculty and student body whose current perspective on the library is any- thing but congruent with that of the li- brarians themselves. These librarians, op- erating in an atmosphere which naturally resist change and innovation,48 deserve 4 4 Riesman and J e n c k s , op. cit., p. 2 5 6 . 45 Ibid., p. 246. 46 Ibid., p. 257. 47 P a t r i c i a B . Knapp, " T h e Monteith L i b r a r y P r o j e c t : An E x p e r i m e n t in Library-College R e l a t i o n s h i p , " Col- lege and Research Libraries, X X I I ( J u l y , 1 9 6 1 ) , 262-63. 48 F o r a straightforward description of faculty inertia, see Donald H . Morrison, "Achievement of the P o s s i b l e " in Beardsley Ruml and Donald H . Morrison, Memo to a College Trustee: A Report on Financial and Structural Problems of the Liberal College (New Y o r k : McGraw- H i l l . 1 9 5 9 ) , p. 61. 480 nothing but the highest admiration. I strongly suspect that their work will have profound implications for the college library world. I also suspect that once the "institutional thrust" has been firmly established at Monteith, and their efforts have reached fruition, then and only then will the great merits of their plan be apparent to the library world-at- large.49 Studies currently being conducted at the National Merit Scholarship Corpora- tion, which combine the perspectives of both sociology and psychology, promise to further delineate the role of the li- brary in the production of graduates ca- pable of doing top-drawer work in high- prestige graduate universities like Har- vard, California (Berkeley), Columbia, Yale, Michigan, Chicago, Princeton, and Wisconsin.50 T h e studies also aim to provide more reliable models for characterizing colleges. One attempt will involve the application of thirty-three different psychological and sociological measures of college characteristics to a large sample of institutions. Another project will weigh the actual Ph.D. out- put of a college's graduates against the output which statistically might be ex- pected from the intelligence level of its student input. Criteria such as financial resources, library size, faculty-student ratio, and college climate will be ex- plored in an effort to explain differences in institutional productivity.51 Perhaps the most singularly important implication for the college librarian in an understanding of his library's ecology is its possible effect upon the decision- making process, or the part played by the librarian in what J o h n J . Corson calls the "governance" of a college. Need- less to say, library decisions which affect 49 F o r the contrary view, based on a critique of the practicality of such a scheme, see Guy R . L y l e , op. cit., p. 153. 50 F o r a subjective comparison of graduate school prestige, see Hayward Keniston, Graduate Study and Research in the Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: U n i v e r s i t y of Pennsylvania P r . , 1 9 5 9 ) , p. 119. 51 Talent: Our Prime National Resource (National M e r i t Scholarship Corporation Annual R e j o r t for 1961) ( E v a n s t o n , 111.: T h e National M e r i t Scholarship Cor- poration, 1 9 6 1 ) , pp. 26-27. C O L L E G E A N D R E S E A R C H L I B R A R I E S an entire campus might be perfected through the information derived from a scientific understanding of college en- vironment. When library decisions are not thus informed, there is always a pos- sibility that the library, as an intracol- legiate institution, will alienate itself from the wider college culture.52 Recall- ing our undergraduate days, almost all of us, I am sure, can cite at least one imprudent action by an administration which had divorced itself from the pre- vailing climate on campus. In a place like Antioch, where the culture is at once liberal and communal, one wonders about the consequence of an overabund- ance of formal library rules too rigidly applied or of a denial to the student- faculty community of the kind of book accessibility it has come to expect. T h e feedback would most assuredly be un- pleasant. T h e character of the institu- tion, then, defines the area within which the librarian can expect to effectively exercise his decision-making power. Ad- ditionally, a knowledge of environment can often condition the means selected by a librarian for the implementation of decisions. A librarian in a commuter col- lege with little intellectual vitality and a low social metabolism would undoubt- edly use different tactics on the problem of library-instructional integration than his colleague on a highly homogenous, intellectually-oriented residential cam- pus. One might even venture that insti- tutional understanding could become a bench mark upon which predictions of campus reactions to library decisions might be regularly based. Given addi- tional funds for library materials, the librarian in a college with a strong artis- tic orientation, like Sarah Lawrence, might know that the best way to curry campus disfavor would be to skimp on the procurement of audio-visual materi- als, particularly reproductions of great art, films, tapes, and records. Such an understanding could conceivably influ- ence (in an era of less shortage) a head 52 Edward D . Eddy, J r . , op. cit., p. 133. librarian's hiring patterns. Even now, in a place like Reed College, a librarian with the political persuasion of a "Gold- water" conservative might become not only a curiosity, but rather ineffective as a librarian as well. Finally, a good esti- mate of institutional character could prove invaluable in the design of new physical facilities or in the internal ar- rangement of an existing library build- ing. If valid analogy may be drawn from a classroom experiment conducted by Lauren Wispe at Harvard in 1950, stu- dents in an examination-oriented college may prefer a high degree of efficiency in library services to warmth of surround- ings, while those in a permissive college, less concerned with economy of action, might have reverse preferences.53 With the progressive refinement of scientific measures of environmental as- sessment, it is entirely possible that the ALA Standards for College Libraries, instead of functioning as a set of goals, could evolve into sliding scales of quanti- tative and qualitative minima which can be applied differentially to each col- lege in the light of its peculiar institu- tional character. It seems that only in such form could library standards be meaning- fully applied as, for different reasons, Professor Ed Wight has recently urged.54 T h e argument herein that college li- brarians can profit is from an awareness and application of socio-psychological research on the college environment, in- deed that they ignore such inquiry to the possible detriment of their own libraries, T h e implications of such research for academic librarianship are only now be- ginning to manifest themselves. T h e r e seems little question, at any rate, that the college library, governed by those who are accurately informed of its ecol- ogy, cannot miss playing an increasingly vital role in the process of educating col- lege students. 53 Lauren G. W i s p e , " E v a l u a t i o n Section T e a c h i n g Methods in the Introductory C o u r s e , " Journal of Educational Research, X L V (November, 1 9 6 1 ) , 163- 64 and 169. 54 Edward A . W i g h t , " S t a n d a r d s and the S t a t u r e of L i b r a r i a n s h i p , " ALA Bulletin, L V (November, 1 9 6 1 ) , 873. N O V E M B E R 1 9 6 2 481