College and Research Libraries


To the Editor: 
The title of Joseph Kohut's paper ( CRL, 

May 1974), "Allocating the Book Budget: 
A Model," is misleading. Mr. Kohut does 
not offer "a mechanism for equitable dis-
tribution of book budget funds" (p.l99). 
Instead, he has offered a model for main-
taining a given proportion, or ''balance," be-
tween books and periodicals during years 
of inflation. 

The model does not explain how one 
originally divides the total budget among 
funding units nor how each ''library re-
source unit" is subsequently divided into 
monograph and serial units. If these alloca-
tions are arbitrary to begin with, no subse-
quent correction for inflation will establish 
"equitable distribution" of funds. The mod-
el assumes that the monograph-serial re-
source unit ratios should remain constant 
from year to year. What is the rationale 
for this? For maximum possible equity, or 
effectiveness, such allocations and ratios 
should be empirically based on scientifical-
ly controlled surveys of library use and user 
interest. 

Mr. Kohut ambitiously states that he 
"formulated basic goals and assumptions 
for setting budgetary policies," and that he 
defined "the underlying principles which 
should guide these [budgetary] decisions." 
Nowhere in his paper has he spelled out 
any such goals, assumptions, or principles. 
His "major contribution," as he puts it, is 
much less ambitious-to show how a bud-
get can be divided between periodicals and 
books for each funding unit, and how the 
division can be corrected for inflation. And 
that is useful. 

William E. McGrath 
Director of Libraries 
University of Southwestern Louisiana 
Lafayette, Louisiana 

To the Editor: 
In retrospect, the title of my paper, "Al-

locating the Book Budget: A Model," does 

370 I 

Letters 
indeed appear to me to be misleading. If 
Mr. McGrath had, therefore, limited his 
objection to this point, then this letter 
would be unnecessary. 

In his letter, however, Mr. McGrath states 
that: "The model assumes that the mono-
graph-serial resource unit ratios should re-
main constant from year to year." Not true. 
For simplicity the example assumed this, but 
the methodology is applicable whether it 
remains constant or not. Adjustments can 
be made as long as one continues to mea-
sure the collection in terms of resource 
units, not dollars. Further, Mr. McGrath 
recommends allocations and ratios ''based 
on scientifically controlled surveys of library 
use and user interest." Good point. Unfor-
tunately, these are virtually nonexistent for 
many fields. Where research along these 
lines has been relatively active, for example, 
in the sciences (e.g., bibliometric studies) 
certain relationships (e.g., Bradfordian and 
Zip£ distributions, etc. ) indicate a constancy 
in overall literature use patterns. 

Mr. McGrath also states that the model 
maintains the monograph serial balance 
"during years of inflation." Inflationary con-
siderations were, of course, the primary rea-
son for this paper, but it should be pointed 
out that the model also applies to deflation-
ary circumstances and increases or decreases 
in the actual book budget. 

Mr. McGrath is correct in that the "model 
does not explain how one originally di-
vides the total budget among funding units. 
... " As I stated " ... criteria are not set 
here for identifying an optimum propor-
tional distribution of library resources among 
funding units .... "However, whether opti-
mal or not, by expressing their related dis-
tribution in forms of resource units rather 
than dollars, a clearer impression of col-
lection development will result. In fact, the 
general tenore of my paper was not to seek 
for ideal solutions, but to provide a mecha-
nism for more clearly describing current 

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budgetary allocations as they do in fact 
exist in university libraries. 

To the Editor: 

]. ]. Kohut 
Science Librarian 
Portland State University 
Portland, Oregon 

The May issue of CRL has published a 
paper by L. Peep and K. Sinkevicius, titled 
the "Financing System of USSR University 
Libraries." It appears that the authors have 
not accurately presented certain historic 
facts. While listing the oldest universities 
of the area which is presently controlled 
by the Soviet Union, they mention Vilnius 
(1579), Moscow (1756), Tartu (1802), 
and Kharkov ( 1805). 

Some readers of CRL might be sur-
prised that Tartu appears in the third place 
and that the university's birth year is given 
as "1802." Historic facts seem to point to 
a much older date. Namely, in 1632, in 
Tartu, in Estonia, during the rule of Gus-
tavus Adolphus of Sweden, the Academia 
Gustaviana was opened as an institution 

Letters I 371 

of higher education. In 1690 it was renamed 
to become Academia Gustavo-Carolina. 

During the ensuing war years and the 
plague the work of the Academia was dis-
rupted. In 1710 Estonia came under the 
rule of czar Peter the Great who, within 
the terms of the peace treaty, had promised 
to maintain "the existing Lutheran uni-
versity." Only years later, in 1802, the uni-
versity was reopened as Universitas Dorpa-
tensis. It was a German-oriented university, 
consistent with the wishes of the local 
nobility. Later, in 1896, the university be-
came completely russi:fied, and its name 
was changed to Universitas Jurjevensis. 

It is hard to believe that the authors did 
not know the complete history of the vener-
able Universitas Tartuensis, as it was known 
during the independence of Estonia, 1919-
1940. Therefore, it is very difficult to under-
stand why the authors ignore the Swedish 
beginnings and prefer the Baltic-German 
continuation of this university. 

Walter E. Niilus 
Assistant to the 

Library Director 
School of Theology 
Claremont, California