College and Research Libraries 68 I College & Research Libraries • January, 1965 inexpensive technique for measuring atti- tude. The survey methodology is good and well applied. The students' insensitivity must have been bitterly received by the staff of the Purdue libraries. The library gets neither the credit nor the blame from frequent or infrequent, voluntary or forced use by good or poor students, _ which does not say much for the teaching function of the library or the librarian. It is hard to believe, however, that there is no meaning- ful variety in the attitude of students when faced with the problems of negotiating their way through four years of the academic enterprise, including the library. Apparently it will take a measuring instrument of high- er powers of resolution than the Remmers- Kelly scale to define the variety. In spite of the long delay prior to publi- cation the survey is worth knowing about. At least, as the director of the Purdue li- braries has pointed out, we know some of the independent variables which are not as important determinants of attitudes as we might expect. We might next check the correlation between students' attitude to- ward the library and the institutions of bureaucracy, regimentation, and source of student income. Indeed, librarians might extract much more meaning from a study of the compleat student and why he b ehaves as he does than from a study of his attitude towards a particular institutional agency. Purdue is on the right track: concenb·ation on student at#tude will provide better long range guidance for the development of aca- demic libraries than does attention to local opinion.-Russell Shank, Columbia Univer- sity. Student Use of Libraries: An Inquiry into the Needs of Students, Libraries, and the Educational Process; Papers of the Conference Within a Conference, July 16-18, 1963, Chicago, Illinois. Chicago: ALA, 1964. 224p. $3. (64-1792). At the 1933 conference in Chicago an ALA subcommittee reported that 43 per cent of the library school graduates on its registration list were unemployed. Shortly before the 1933 conference an academic li- brarian, in an article typical of the profes- sional literature of the period, wrote of his none-too-successful efforts to entice students into the college library. A few months later two public librarians came out in opposition to the recent movement for "a library in every school in the country" and argued that school libraries should be abolished and their functions assumed by public li- braries. The wheel turns. By 1963 there were too few libraries of all kinds, too many students of all ages pressing upon inadequate re- sources, and four thousand overemployed librarians gathered in the famous Confer- ence Within a Conference to inquire into the resulting "dilemma." Student Use of Libraries presents the results of this most massive brainstorming session in library his- tory. Readers will be familiar with the de- velopment of the ewe, and many will have attended, or read the background papers which were widely distributed beforehand. Therefore no detailed assessment of the speeches, papers, and comments printed here will be attempted. Over-all, one has the impression of a rather strange buffet table, with lush bowls of caviar (Mason Gross' opening and Samuel Gould's closing speeches) at each end, ~nd with five plates of meat and potatoes (the background pa- pers and comments) in between. The significance of the CWC, it seems to this reviewer, does not lie in this pub- blished record, as welcome as it is. There are no bright new ideas about how to solve the student-use problem, except for the suggestion of a school superintendent that "the entire library operation be made a part of the public school system," which was ignored. (In justice, it should be noted that President Bryan's list of conference objec- tives did not specify a search for such ideas.) Except for the contribution by the Library Services Division staff, there is little hard information or data "as to the extent of the problem of student need and student use," which Mr. Bryan did call for. The primary purpose of the ewe, how- ever, was not to offer readymade solutions but to break through the barriers between . public, academic, and school librarians and focus their attention on a common interest, to obtain appropriate publicity, and-pre- sumably most important-to set a climate of concern and establish a momentum which would result in some substantive improve- ments. As for the first of these, this reviewer is frankly skeptical. Mter seven hours of low- level communication in one of the 123 discussion groups, he voted vehemently against all recommendations requiring fur- ther communication among librarians or be- tween them and others. Perhaps his was an atypical group, or perhaps he is a mis- anthrope; other participants reported more fruitful experiences. As for the publicity objective, it is possible that the ewe con- tributed something to the national library legislative victories which followed within six months. Its success, however, will rest ultimately upon substantive results directly related to the student use problem. The ten major recommendations coming out of the conference have been referred into the ALA structure, and President Wagman re- ported recently that "many are well on the way to implementation." So far the most tangible result is anoth~r conference, sched- uled for March 1965, with representatives of other national organizations.-Clifton Brock, University of North Carolina. • • PROFESSIONAL DUTIES (Continued from page 39) or Clerical?" Library I ournal, LXXXVI (September 1, 1961), 2758-59. Used one hundred professional and clerical duties selected from ALA List to check actual practices in twenty-one public libraries. Houlridge, D. L. "Division of Staff: A Ca- nadian Example," Assistant Librarian, LVII (October 1958), 201-203. List of duties drawn from Toronto public library practices. Library Association. Professional and Non- professional Duties in Libraries. London: The Association, 1962. 77p. Descriptive list, arranged under twelve major head- ings, each divided by professional and nonprofessional classification. Lochhead, D. G. "I Am a University Librar- ian," Canadian Library Association Bul- letin, XIII (December 1956) , 100-105. Description of a "typical" day in the life of a university librarian, showing how his time is spent. London. Northwestern Polytechnic School of Librarianship. Professional Work for Professional Librarians. London: The Book Reviews I 69 School, August 1958. lOp. (Occasional Paper, No. 12). Discussion by two Brit- ish librarians, one of duties in govern- ment, the other in public libraries. McAnally, Arthur. "Privileges and Obliga- tions of Academic Status," CRL, XXIV (March 1963), 102-108. Discusses com- position of staff. MeN eal, Archie L. "Ratio of Professional to Clerical Staff," CRL, XVII (May 1956)' 219-23. Skilling, B. C. "Restrictive Practices," As- sistant Librarian, L (December 1957), 222-23. Author urges that professional librarians restrict themselves to profes- sional tasks. Smith, Eleanor T. "What's in a Name?- the Reference Librarian." NCLA, Odds and Book Ends, No. 36 (Falll960) , 101. Analysis of work of reference librarian in a public library. U.S . Civil Service Commission, Personnel Classification Division Librarian Series GS-1410. Washington, D.C.: Govt. Print. Off. , 1957. 35p. Wight, E. A. "Separation of professional and nonprofessional work in public li- braries," California Librarian, XIV ( Sep- tember-December 1952), 29-32, 54, 107- 16. Discusses methods of differentiating between professi~nal and nonprofessional duties. Wilkinson, John. "A Division of Labor," Ontario Library Review, XLI (May 1957) , 87-88. General discussion of de- sirability of separating · clerical from pro- fessional functions on staff. Williams, Edwin E. "Who Does What: Un- professional Personnel Problems," CRL, VI (September 1945), 301-10. AFRICAN UNIVERSITY (Continued from page 51) ucational development should have been one of the subjects for discussion at this conference. 4. The development of educational pro- grams in Africa requires the establish- ment of a network of supporting re- gional, national, and international li- braries to provide the necessary in- formation services dealing with the problems of African education. • • 70 I College & Research Libraries • January, 1965 THE NEW DEPOSITORY PROGRAM AND COLLEGE LIBRARIES (Continued from page 18) lished in implementing the law. Too often, remedies which are available with- in these flexible provisions have not been used. At the same time, a consid- erable number of librarians have ex- pressed their disappointment that a great many more detailed rules and reg- ulations have not been promulgated cov- ering almost every conceivable aspect of depository operation under provisions of the law. During the current year, the Super- intendent of Documents expects to dis- tribute more than six million copies of publications to depository libraries. His staff is constantly refining breakdowns for selection, as far as possible, to pro- vide librarians with the means of select- ing specific material without the neces- sity of including also, other publications for which they do not have a need. This SEE PAGES 4-5 was formerly a much greater problem, particularly in the category of general publications. While emergency needs can still cause an agency to include di· verse and unexpected issuances in such a category, there is a definite trend to- ward their separation of similar or re- cur:dng issuances into particular series. As it becomes possible to identify, with the help of the issuing government agencies, their publications not printed by the Government Printing Office that also come within the depository program for the first time under the 1962 depos- itory law, and as the agencies are able to make available these publications in sufficient quantity, the Superintendent of Documents will begin including them among those offered to depository librar- ies for their selection. There have been many conflicting accounts of the efforts necessary to implement this far reaching and new provision of the depository dis- tribution program. The concern at the Government Printing Office has been whether it would be possible to carry out this provision of the law, since there is absolutely no control over the publi- cations involved. A tremendous problem of initial screening is necessary. Every- one admits that, of some $100,000,000 worth of printing done each year by United States government agencies out- side the Government Printing Office, only a relatively small percentage will be needed by the depositories. After that portion is identified, many govern- ment agencies will face the problems imposed by limitations of their resources which may affect their ability to pro- duce the additional copies that would be required for distribution, as well as to transport them to the Government Print- ing Office in quantity from production points located all over the world. We are attempting to make a modest be- ginning in the forthcoming fiscal year, The New Depository Program and College Libraries I 71 with the publications of two agencies, the Department of the Interior and Bu- reau of the Census. From the experience of this effort we hope to secure data which will help both our office and the issuing government agencies as this monumental task continues and expands in the years ahead. College libraries which are federal de- positories have a joint responsibility with the office of the Superintendent of Doc- uments for making available the essen- tial information provided by publica- tions of the United States government. The new depository law provides for an expanded number of collections to be used by those who need them; an im- proved administrative structure and op- portunity for better service, through the provision for regional depositories; and a future which offers interesting possi- bilities, despite the serious problems in- volved, for an extension of the type of government material that these libraries can offer to their students and other scholars who may need them. • • Committee on Library Surveys Conference The ACRL Committee on Li- brary Surveys and Columbia University will have a confer- ence on June 14-17 at Columbia. Tentative conference topics in- clude types and purposes of sur- veys, sources of information, and applications to types of libraries; and some practical problems. NOTE Address Change The editorial, advertising, and production offices of CHOICE: Books for College Libraries moved to larger quarters on De- cember 31. The new address is 42 Broad Street, Middletown, Conn. 06458. The new telephone number is ( 203) 347-6933. ACRL MEMBERSHIP December 31, 1964 Total ........ . ......... 8,874 Subject Specialists ....... 1,468 Junior College . . . . . . . . . . . 699 Teacher Education . . . . . . . 506 University .... . . . .... . .. 3,035 College ................ 2,345 Rare Books . . . . . . . . . . . . . 726 Institutional Memberships ......... 1,662 Please note that many members do not select membership in sec- tions although two section mem- berships are available without extra charge.