College and Research Libraries


literature dealing with phonorecord libraries, 
however, this book is probably a valid in-
vestment. It is unfortunate that such. .a 
mass of material is currently nonexistent. 
For academic libraries, especially those out-
side Great Britain, its value as a guide to 
future record libraries and librarians may be 
justly contested.-Christopher Barnes, Cor-
nell University. 

The Uses of the University. By Clark Kerr. 
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University 
Press, 1963. 140p. $2.95. (63-20770). 

In the 1963 Godkin lectures at Harvard, 
President Kerr of the University of Cali-
fornia described the many changes that 
have occurred in universities of the United 
States during the past twenty years or so. 
All of us have known that universities have 
grown larger. We have known that great 
sums of money have poured in to support 
research and teaching projects of all sorts, 
large and small. Many of us have not fully 
realized, however, that the changes have 
been so extensive as to produce almost a 
new institution whose activities are so varied 
that new names are required for it. Kerr 
uses "federal grant university" as one term, 
but his most distinctive name is "the multi-
versity." This complex and sprawling or-
ganization, he says, has no· single animating 
purpose and is often . serving divergent or 
even conflicting aims, but it has developed 
out of historical necessity. "It is an impera-
tive rather than a reasoned choice among 
elegant alternatives." 

The demand that has called forth the 
multiversity is, Kerr says, the increasingly 
crucial need for knowledge in our society. 
Academic institutions as the keystone of 
the "knowledge industry" have been re-
quired and will be required to respond to 
society's urgent demands for information 
and for expert capabilities. 

Kerr's book is interesting, informative, 
and provocative. Every reader will see in it 
the implications that most affect him. This 
reviewer was particularly concerned by 
Kerr's tendency to acquiesce and even to 
see merit in col}fusion and lack of plan. He 
mistrusts :Grand Designs. He prefers con-
fusion ~ 'for _ the sake of the preservation of 
the whole uneasy balance" of an academic 
institution. He de~crjpes the university pres-

ident as a mediator playing off power groups 
against each other, not as a leader wielding 
power to accomplish his own objectives. He 
thinks federal grants are more wisely award-
ed on the basis of "intuitive imbalance" 
than on the basic of "bureaucratic balance." 
Although he expresses some of his opinions 
in a bantering way and none without ex-
plicit or implied reservation, he seems to 
underestimate both the capacity of a uni-
versity to control its own destiny and the 
dangers of failing to do so. 

No element of the university is more di-
rectly or adversely affected by failures in 
institutional planning and direction than the 
library. In Germany, as Danton has recently 
reminded us, the professors, provided with 
ample funds under their sole control, cre-
ated institute libraries that largely duplicate 
and supersede the university libraries. The 
government and foundation grants of recent 
years raise the possibility, for the first time 
on a large scale in the United States, that 
professors, having funds at their disposal 
outside the customary institutional channels, 
may now set up similar rivals to the univer-
sity libraries. Academic librarians must be 
prepared to act and react wisely, creating 
new services where they are justified and 
resisting forcefully and persuasively where 
they are not. One of the significant develop-
ments of the next few years will be the in-
tensification of the trend toward new li-
brary facilities arranged, not on a tradi-
tional subject basis but on a project basis, 
whether that be a geographical area of the 
world, an uncommon language, or a new 
scientific application. In order to plan and 
to act wisely, librarians will need to be well 
informed about recent and future trends. 
Kerr's book is ~n excellent beginning step. 

No one with any concern for higher edu-
cation can afford to miss this book; anyone 
who reads it will profit.-W. L. Williamson, 
Columbia University. 

Protecting the Library and Its Resources. 
ALA Library Technology Project. (L TP 
Publications, No. 7.) Chicago: ALA, 
1963. XV, 322p. $6. (63-19683). 

This excellent report of . a study under-
taken by the Library Technology Project 
has been well publicized, widely distributed, 
and so generously reviewed elsewhere that 

232 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES