College and Research Libraries DAVID C. WEBER / '1 A Century of Cooperative Programs Among Academic Libraries .~ A REVIEW OF COOPERATIVE PROGRAMS among colleges and universities over the last century leads to the conclusion that a few very significant developments and changes have taken place during the past decade after ninety years of la- borious and diverse effort toward coop- erative programs dominated by the ef- fects of national policy and economic conditions. It is an interesting history, one made difficult by the plethora of data. The present paper uses a histori- cal perspective in order to assess b~er the present and the immediate future. The first part chronologically prese~ts selected examples of cooperative pro- grams. The latter section includes de- tails on a few programs of current spe- cial significance, comments on some strengths and weaknesses, and reaches 111 . a few conclusions. EARLY HISTORICAL REVIEW Before reviewing the past century, it ...., may be worthwhile taking a brief look at circumstances in academic libraries >1 two hundred years ago. At that time academic libraries in America were in- deed insignificant by today's perspective. Dartmouth had 305 volumes. Brown University owned 312 volumes including 't fifty-two received in 1772 which were "by far the greatest donation our little ~ library has yet had." Princeton had more than 1,200 volumes, all to be con- sumed by fire in 1801. The University of Pennsy~vania' s chief distinction in 1776 was that during the Revolution it had received a gift of scientific books from Louis XVI. Columbia stor~d its volumes during the war in the city hall or elsewhere; British soldiers took them to barter for grog, and only six or seven hundred volumes were found-thirty years later-in St. Paul's Chapel. By the time of the Revolution, Yale had col- lected over 4,000 volumes in its library. The College of William and Mary had a very few thousand volumes. Harvard had lost all but 404 volumes of its li- brary by fire in 1764, yet by the Revo- lutionary War it had been rebuilt prob- ably to nearly 10,000 volumes. By 1876 the circumstances were mark- edly different. Great libraries had come upon the American scene. Some remark- able librarians had created most of the essential concepts and policies for li- brary administrative methods. Collec- tions began to grow rapidly, with a great deal of attention necessarily given to cataloging and classification. The year 1876 was momentous in that the Ameri- can Library Association was formed. 1 The American Library ] ournal was founded with four of its twenty-one as- sociate editors "leading the profession" from university libraries. The Library Bureau was established as a supply house providing a major force toward I 205 206 1 College & Research Libraries • May 1976 standardization. It also was the year in which the classic -volume, Public Li- braries in the United States of America; Their History, Condition and Manage- ment, was published by the United States Bureau of Education. One looks in vain, however, in that major volume of 1,187 pages for any statement re- garding cooperation among academic li- braries. Cooperative cataloging was one of the very first interests of the new library as- sociation. A committee was formed to devise a plan for continuation of Poole's "Index to Periodical Literature," and another committee tackled the mat- ter of standardization of cataloging. Several articles in the Library I ournal discussed plans for cooperation in in- dexing and cataloging. Yet it was a Committe·e on Cooperation in Indexing and Cataloguing College Libraries, which was appointed August 1876, that is significant with respect to academic cooperation. It was formed by the li- brarians of the University of Rochester, Cornell University, Vassar College, Syra- cuse University, and the New York State Library. This committee presented to the University Convocation of the State of New York in July 1877 a substantial report which called upon college li- braries to speak out on any special adaptation of the cooperative catalog- ing movement which was required for their special wants: At present the work is chiefly in the hands of the public libraries. . . . In making this report your committee do not wish to be understood as endorsing fully all the methods proposed by the committees of the Library Association. It is very doubtful whether as good cataloging can be done, in the manner proposed, by a considerable number of libraries, even under very explicit rules, as might be expected of one or two experts, who should work for pay under the general direction and criti- cism of the committee. Cooperation can be secured quite as effectively by a combination of capital as by a com- bination of labor. In.such an enterprise the first most important thing to be aimed at is perfection of work. . . . Other points might be mentioned but a review of the methods proposed is not the object of this report. We be- lieve that it will be far better for us to work with the Library Association, though we may differ in opinion as to some details, than to undertake any separate work in this state.2 The decade of the 1890s witnessed the beginnings of major national pro- grams of academic library cooperation. It did not come unannounced onto the scene. There had indeed been discus- sions over several previous decades, at least since 1851, and no doubt there may have been a large number of local ar- rangements of such cooperation. In 1898 the librarian of the University of California announced willingness to lend to other libraries that would lend to the University of California. In January 1898 the American Li- brary Association began publishing analytic cards as a shared indexing/ cata- loging program. The copy for these cards was prepared by five major li- braries for articles in some 250 serials. The H. W. Wilson Company took over this analytic activity in June 1919 for incorporation into the International In- dex of Periodicals. INTO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY In another consideration, the librari- an of Princeton University, Ernest C. Richardson, proposed in the spring of 1899 "a lending library for libraries" and suggested that this might be the Li- brary of Congress or an independent organization. The Library of Congress issued a pol- icy governing interlibrary loans in 1907 and lent to such an extent that by 1909 it loaned. 1,023 volumes to 119 libraries -including forty-nine academic li- braries which accounted for half of these loans. An ALA interlibrary loan • + • A Century of Cooperative Programs I 207 code was first published in 1916. If a union catalog of holdings is per- mitted within the definition of coopera- tion, there were then major develop- ments, notably so in the first decade of this century. The first regional union catalog was created in 1901 at the Cali- fornia State Library. After first being limited to periodicals, it was soon en- larged to cover all nonfiction. The Na- tional Union Catalog was established in 1900. In November 1901 the Library of Congress began selling copies of its printed catalog cards as well as galley proofs of these cards. During the win- ter of 1901-02 it began the donation of complete "depository" sets of cards to certain libraries. Some libraries receiv- ,.; ing these began immediately to file them t 1 into their public card catalogs, thus con- stituting union catalogs. The University of Chicago Library from 1913 and the Harvard College Library from 1911 published printed cards, the scope de- signed to supplement LC and comple- ment each other. Chicago distributed its cards from 1913 until1917. (When Chi- cago began distributing its cards May 2, 1913, those titles also owned by Har- vard, about 30 percent, appeared with the symbol "UCL-HCL.") The Univer- sity of California issued them from 1915 to 1917. In July 1918 the Universi- ty of Chicago began publishing analytic cards for certain European serials. The University of Michigan published for some time after 1924; the University of Illinois started in 1926. Wesleyan Uni- versity published cards sold to thirty- two research libraries from 1934 until World War II. The Library of Con- gress established its Cooperative Cata- loging Division in 1932.3 Another cooperative endeavor is that of joint acquisition programs. Perhaps the earliest example is the 1913-14 South American buying trip to eleven countries by Walter Lichtenstein, the Librarian of Northwestern University. He acquired 9,000 volumes plus news- papers and a few manuscripts on be- half of Harvard University, Brown University, Northwestern University, the John Crerar Library, and the Ameri- can Antiquarian Society. One or two features of this joint effort are of note: In Venezuela and Bolivia and partly also in Brazil the purchases consisted of collections which had to be divided among the cooperating institutions, and naturally included a fair amount of material which, either because the cooperating institutions already had it or because the class of material in question is not collected by the institu- tions which I represented, can be sold to other libraries in this country. The purchase of collections on joint ac- count in this manner was a new ex- periment. It did not seem to me to be wholly satisfactory. The chief difficulty was that the material could not be readily divided until my own return to this country, with the result that no one knew until I did return how much each institution was liable, and hence I was considerably hampered in mak- ing further purchases. As it finally turned out, one institution acted to a large extent as banker for the other in- stitutions, which evidently is pleasant enough for the latter, but is not quite fair to that institution which has the misfortune to be the banker .... When the collections came to be divided it was soon felt that the only possible way to divide the cost among the in- stitutions interested was to devise a system of points. A pamphlet was counted as one point, an unbound vol- ume as four, and a bound volume as eight.4 It seems quite certain that the in- crease in publishing in the 1850s and the economics surrounding the Civil War brought an end to the common practice of publishing library catalogs periodically in book . form. It also there- . by hastened the adoption of unitary catalog cards which during the last quarter of the nineteenth century be- came the prevalent mode for listing 208 I College & Research Libraries • May 1976 holdings and facilitated sharing of bib- liographic data. If the more affluent times of the 1880s and 1890s resulted in phenomenal growth of collections, it may have been predictable there would be an upsurge in cooperative proposals and the beginning of national coopera- tive programs. Despite the 1927 publication of the great Union List of Serials in Libraries of the United States and Canada, it would seem that the decade of the 1920s was not a period of new concepts in academic library cooperation. With the crash of 1929 and conditions of the Great Depression, however, there was impetus for cooperation which led to new programs of which a few among academic libraries may be cited. Dozens of new union card catalogs were begun in the 1930s, stimulated by the vast federal relief program. One re- sult was the 1940-41 survey under the sponsorship of the ALA Board of Re- sources of American Libraries which recommended their future coordination to assure thorough coverage, minimum overlap, and sound fiscal support. As a predecessor to cataloging-in-pub- lication and the National Program for Acquisitions and Cataloging (NPAC), the Cooperative Cataloging Program be- gan in 1932. Within ten years nearly 400 U.S. and Canadian libraries contributed data for 60,000 scholarly titles for LC editing and publication. An informal arrangement among sev- eral institutions constituted the Coop- erating Libraries of Upper New York, CLUNY. Formed in 1931, it included Buffalo University, Colgate University, the Grosvenor Library, Hamilton Col- lege, Syracuse University, Cornell Uni- versity, and Union College. This group functioned until 1939 as a clearing- house for mutual problems and coop- erated on a union list of periodicals and the joint purchase of microfilm of early English publications. An example of a formal agreement is the Duke University and the Univer- sity of North Carolina interlibrary proj- ect. In 1931 these two institutions agreed to ~pedal book collecting areas, and the libraries exchanged author cards for their catalogs. Four years later a mes- senger service commenced. Two other ;North Carolina institutions joined in 1955, and full borrowing privileges were extended to all members of each institution. An example of contractual arrange- ments among several libraries is the Joint University Libraries founded in 1936 by Vanderbilt University, George Peabody College, and Scarritt College for Christian Workers. Operating un- der a joint board of trustees, the facili- ty is an independent entity, jointly owned and financed by the partici- pants. 5 Ano.ther example is The Clare- mont Colleges library system which be- gan in 1931 when a contractual arrange- ment among the Claremont Graduate School, Pomona College, and Scripps College established a joint order and catalog department to serve the three li- braries. A 1933 example of an arrangement for reciprocal borrowing privileges is the Atlanta University Center Corpora- tion in Atlanta, Georgia. With an initi- ating grant from the General Educa- tion Board it included Atlanta Univer- sity, Morehouse College, Spelman Col- lege, Morris Brown College, Clark University, and in 1957 the Interdenom- inational Theological Center. · Another variation of interinstitution- al cooperation is the unification of aca- demic libraries under state control. This was pioneered in 1932 by the Oregon State Board ·of Higher Education which appointed one director of libraries for the entire state system and established the principle of free circulation among all state institutions. It also set up a central order diVision which now takes the form of a combined author list of all books and periodicals in the state .. ,. + A Century of Cooperative Programs f 209 system maintained in the Order Depart- ment of the Oregon State University Li- brary "to eliminate unnecessary duplica- tion of materials."6 MORE RECENT EVENTS A highly selective list of other coop- erative programs of the past forty years would include the following: 1942-0pening of the New England Deposit Library ( NEDL) as a cooperative storage facility of Boston College, Boston Uni- versity, Harvard University, M.I.T., Radcliffe College, Sim- mons College, Tufts Univer- sity, and four nonacademic li- braries. 1944-The Cooperative Committee on Library Building Plans ini- tiated by President Dodds of Princeton to concern itself with common problems in the planning for and design of academic library buildings. 1946-The Cooperative Acquisitions Project for Wartime Publica- tions conducted by the Library of Congress which, over three years, shipped nearly a mil- lion volumes from Europe to 113 participating American li- braries. 1948-Formation of the Universal Serial and Book Exchange, Inc. (previously named the U.S. Book Exchange). Of the ini- tial members, 106 ( 76 percent) were college or university li- braries; they continue to de- posit about 70 percent of the material exchanged, and they receive about the same percent- age of 'the total distributed. 1948-Start of servic.e under the Farmington Plan to about sixty research libraries of a coordi- nated foreign acquisition pro- gram for current mateJCials of research value-a cooperative program born of disconcerting experiences with European ac- quisitions during and immedi- ately following World War II. This major cooperative pro- gram was one of the most ef- fective and • significant over many years. With 1965 as an example, fifty-two libraries ac- quired 22,419 volumes, consti- tuting the total research publi- cations from fourteen coun- tries, in addition to area assign- ment receipts from the less- developed countries. 1951-0pening of the Midwest Inter- Library Center, later to be known as the Center for Re- search Libraries, by ten mid- western university libraries as a cooperative akin to the NEDL but with a program for joint buying and different cate- gories of deposit or center ownership. 1956-Initiation of the Foreign News- paper Microfilm Project a_s a cooperatively filmed, shared- positive-copy program managed by the Association of Research Libraries, the offspring of Har- vard's duplicate sale program begun in 1938. 1959-The Latin American Coop- erative Acquisitions Program (LA CAP), begun as a com- mercial endeavor for about forty academic libraries. 7 1961-Congress authorized · expendi- tures under Public Law 480 of blocked currencies for acquisi- tion and cataloging of multi- ple copies of publications from eight countries. Managed by the Library of Congress, this PL 480 program benefited over 300 academic libraries, with materials from Ceylon, India, Indonesia, Israel; Nepal, Pakistan, United Arab Repub- 210 I College & Research Libraries • May 1976 lie, and Yugoslavia. 1965-The Medical Library Assist- ance Act, creating, among oth- er programs, the eleven Re- gional Medical Libraries pro- viding interlibrary loan and reference and consultation ser- vices to a broad region. Seven are located in universities: Harvard, University of Wash- ington, Wayne State, UCLA, Emory, Texas, and Nebraska. 1966-The National Program for Acquisitions and Cataloging (NPAC), managed by the Li- brary of Congress and initiated by the Association of Research Libraries. 1966-The New York State Refer- ence and Research Library Re- sources Program ( 3Rs Pro- gram) established to .facilitate use of research library materi- als. 1967 -Incorporation of the Ohio Col- lege Library Center ( OCLC) as a cooperative cataloging ser- vice for Ohio colleges and uni- versities. 1968-The Center for Chinese Re- search Materials, formed by the Association of Research Li- braries for acquiring, reprint- ing, and distributing selected valuable but inaccessible Chi- nese scholarly materials. 1973-The Research Libraries Group, formed of Harvard Universi- ty, Yale University, Columbia University, and the New York Public Library, to undertake a program of coordinated collec- tion building, reciprocal access privileges, delivery service, and a common computer storage of catalog records for their col- lections so as to enhance coor- dinated acquisitions and re- source sharing. The composition of prograins for four cooperatives begun in the late 1960s may be cited as typical. The Five Associated University Libraries (FAUL) in New York (Buffalo, Rochester, Syra- cuse, Cornell, and Binghamton) cur- rently includes assigned subject special- ization for acquisitions, delivery service, photocopying, reciprocal borrowing, ex- panded interlibrary loan service, and joint research projects. ·The Librarians of the Council of Independent Ken- tucky Colleges and Universities encom- passes twenty-one colleges active in joint purchase, assigned subject specialization, reciprocal borrowing privileges, expand- ed interlibrary loan service, and produc- tion of union lists and directories. The Middle Atlantic Research Libraries In- formation Network (MARLIN) of sev- en universities includes delivery ser- vices, photocopying, mutual notification of purchase, production of union lists and directories, expanded interlibrary loan, and special communication ser- vices. The North Dakota Network for Knowledge of seventeen college and university libraries plus thirteen public and special libraries includes all of MARLIN's program except purchase notification and also provides mutual reference services, reciprocal borrow- ing, and operation of a special biblio- graphic center. One or two cooperative liaisons were ·formed every year or so from 1930 until 1960 when there was a sharp increase. The Delanoy-Cuadra directory lists the births: four in 1964;· seven in 1965; eleven in 1966; sixteen in 1967; twenty- four in 1968; twenty-four in 1969; and at least nineteen in 1970.8 If one had a comparable mortality list, one might speculate that some of these would fal- ter. Yet a spot check found none of those listed as formed during the 1960s were deceased by 1975. SHORT-LIVED EFFORTS ALSO PROVIDE LESSONS Yet it must also be recorded that some • • + A Century of Cooperative Programs I 211 major attempts at cooperation among academic libraries petered out or failed, though much may have been learned. An evaluative history of library cooper- ation is faced with problems. Joe W. Kraus has written: Several difficulties present themselves at the outset. The literature of library · cooperation is very large and most of the articles are uncritical. Although most of the cooperative enterprises of libraries are announced and described in some detail in library periodicals, there are few evaluative reports that give a clear account of the success of a venture and the factors leading to success or failure. Unsuccessful ones, in fact, simply seem to fade away. Costs of a cooperative effort are par- ticularly hard to ascertain, in part be- cause many expenses are absorbed in the participating libraries, and in part because standard reporting procedures have generally not yet been devel- oped.9 One may here cite the Columbia-Har- vard-Yale medical library computer- based cooperative c·ataloging program that was terminated after operating from 1963 to 1966. As stated in the re- search proposal issued in December 1962 from the Yale Medical Library, the objective of the project was to test the feasibility of using a computerized catalog to provide rapid and improved information services in medical li- braries. An on-line system was projected; the significant achievements were the re- cording of 23,000 titles and the auto- mated production of catalog cards. (It was the precursor of OCLC.) An array of technical problems concerned input procedures. A change in data format standards was needed. Authority files were lacking. The subject treatment caused great problems, as did error-de- tection procedures. There were prob- lems of staff cooperation. and communi- cation.10 Operational methods among the three participants varie<l widely, and detailed documentation of procedures and decisions was lacking. Furthermore, "it had become apparent that a latent conflict of purpose had begun to form between the interests of the inter-insti- tutional Project comprising divisional, i.e., medical libraries, and the interests of the individual university library sys- tems where the medical library is but one of the integral units."11 Another which did not last long was the Colorado Academic Libraries Book Processing Center, which also operated for only three years. This Colorado project began in 1965 with nine academ- ic libraries. The test phase, operated for fourteen institutions, lasted from early 1969 until 1973 and covered the full tange of acquisitions, cataloging, pro- cessing, and bookkeeping. Its problems were incompatibilities among library procedures; changes not made by all of the individual libraries; differences in size, traditions, and service philosophies; and failure to recognize that errors were inevitable. Turnaround time was below expectation and generally inferior to . that obtained when libraries ordered di- rect from publishers or jobbers. Com- munication breakdowns accounted for many problems. Geographical separa- tion of participants was partially to blame, and staff did not understand the center's role or how it would affect their jobs, future, and status. Furthermore, "centralization, cooperation, and com- puterization have created a library en- vironment that is completely alien to many librarians."12 Its final processes were phased out in 1973. The most successful acquisition and processing centers, both founded in 1969, are the Cooperative College Li- brary Center, Inc., in Atlanta, and the Massachusetts Central Library Process- ing Service in Amherst. From the latter, thirty-one institutions were provided ac- quisition support and cataloging; a mil- lion items have been processed by its batch computer process. Exceedingly low costs were achieved under con- 212 I College & Research Libraries • May 1976 straints which constitute mass produc- tion methods. The program was success- ful in bringing public higher education librarians together in an organized way, which was timely since the Common- wealth Legislature eliminated funding for fiscal year 1976. More often those cooperatives that were weak were merged into other pro- grams, reduced to a smaller practical element, or superseded by a newer, larger, and more effective program. An example of a program which served its time is the Farmington Plan of 1948 to 1972 which was obviated as strength was gained by the National Program for Ac- quisitions and Cataloging (Title II-C of the Higher Education Act signed in- to law November 8, 1965). The PL 480 program was also a factor. 13 DIVERSITY IN RECENT EFFORTS Academic library cooperation is clear- ly flourishing. After many experimen- tal starts, there seem to have been per- sistent efforts since the 1930s. Such pro- grams continued to grow in number and magnitude after World War II. It may indeed be asserted that the efforts since World War II have become more for- mal, more extensive, and far more ex- pensive than previous efforts. Develop- ments such as the New England Deposit Library and, particularly, the Center for Research Libraries demanded active participation and support by college presidents. A program such as the N a- tiona! Program for Acquisitions and Cataloging involved Congressional lob- bying with resultant major appropria- tions and sweeping impact. The forma- tion of the Ohio College Library Cen- ter demonstrated that cataloging opera- tions could be effectively supported daily through on-line access to a single computer system. Formation of the Re- search Libraries Group indicated that not only the libraries of OCLC but also the largest academic and research li- braries in the nation found the need and the means for a major e·ffort in- volving a legal instrument, highly ex- pert professional staff, fund-raising programs, and locally contributed effort. The more prevalent existing programs found among 125 consortia ( of which 60 percent were incorporated) may be tabulated as follows: 14 reciprocal borrowing privileges-97 expanded interlibrary loan service -80 union catalogs or lists-78 photocopying services-72 reference services-50 delivery service-44 mutual notification of purchase- 40 special communications service-35 publications programs-34 catalog card production-34 other cataloging support-33 joint purchasing of materials-30 assigned subject specialization of acquisitions-28 Quite clearly there are few complete- ly innovative programs. An effort like the Research Libraries Group contains elements from a number of programs of the past forty-five years. In his recent article, "An Historical Look at .Resource Sharing," Basil Stuart-Stubbs concluded: If the word network wasn't prominent in the vocabulary of our pioneers, the concept was there. In fact, although the centennial of Samuel Swett Green's proposal for interlibrary lending will be celebrated next year [i.e., 1976], and although the dimensions of coop- eration among libraries have increased enormously, there have been few intel- lectual innovations in the interim years. Wherever the spirits of our predecessors now abide, they must be waiting for the realization of their an- cient hopes.15 Just as there are few completely novel twists to academic library cooperation, so also one can find little novelty in the impetus for and obstacles to cooperative programs. Joseph Becker has cited the • A Century of Cooperative Programs I 213 motivating factors of service, econom- ics, and technology.16 John P. McDonald expanded these to include financial con- striction, cost sharing, availability of funds, pressure of numbers, resource improvement, service improvement, man- agement improvement, image enhance- ment, and technological development. To these nine forces urging coopera- tive enterprise, he has also cited a num- ber of obstacles. If there are incentives to cooperation, there are also many problems and dif- ficulties that limit or frustrate our best efforts at collective action. There is, for example, a persistent attitude that assigns cooperative activities low pri- ority and low or no budget. This view- point insists that cooperation be under- taken as a part-time extra duty and then only after more important work has been accomplished. There are other attitudes that have proved diffi- cult to overcome. It is asserted that co- operation causes delay and incon- venience resulting in a general deteri- oration in service. Other complaints are that cooperation is expensive, that it involves high effort for low return, that there are inequities in contribu- tions and benefits, and that coopera- tion is often ill defined or redun- dant.17 These problems may be endemic with any -cooperative program-less visible where cooperation between two depart- ments of a single library is concerned but exposed to view and psychologically much more difficult to resolve when co- operation between two institutions is undertaken. When one remembers that almost any two institutions are disparate in program, financial support, and a host of other variables, one may wonder whether any cooperation can be effective and lasting. 18 The challenges, the opportunities, and the problems do not seem to change fundamentally with the ,. passing of time. This may be true even for techno- logical development. In 1851, three years after Charles C. Jewett left Brown Uni- versity to become Librarian of the new- ly established Smithsonian Institution, he proposed the stereotype printing of cataloging data. 19 However, the spirit of cooperation was blunted by the difficul- ties of organizing the business and the unexpected warping of the plates. The Library of Congress card distribution plan of fifty years later pursued this same promise of a new technology which could solve problems of individ- ual libraries. HISTORICAL LESSONS The relative impact of these obsta- cles will change with respect to each co- operative endeavor. Furthermore, each endeavor is commonly a mix of several incentive factors and must cope with a variety of obstacles.20 What can be con- cluded from this review of cooperative programs over the last century? In 1945 an assessment was made by Robert B. Downs. His study revealed certain important principles which have influenced the success or failure of various kinds of library cooperation. First, distance is a handicap, and it is easier for libraries not too far removed from each other to work together. Sec- ond, regional library cooperation has its greatest opportunities in those areas with inadequate book resources. Third, libraries should not be asked to give up anything but rather to assume posi- tive responsibilities and receive direct benefits. Fourth, agreements must be flexible enough to provide for expan- sion and adjustment. Fifth, complete elimination of duplication between li- braries is not possible or desirable. Finally, only a comparatively limited number of libraries are at present equipped to make any substantial or effective contribution to a general pro- gram of cooperation on the research level.21 A university president provided an- other assessment. 214 I College & Research Libraries • May 1976 It is my personal judgment that those that work best are of two sorts: they are either between universities, or parts of universities, of equal status and quality or, at the other extreme, between universities, or parts of uni- versities, that differ widely in status or quality .... But where the grada- tions in quality are small in extent but noticeable, co-operation is exceedingly difficult .... the obstacles to co-opera- tion are not material. ... [They] are found in the mind and spirit of rna~. They are institutional pride and insti- tutional jealousy .... They are inertia and complacency. It is self-satisfac- tion, institutionwise, that makes the building of effective co-operation a difficult thing. And I would say, final- ly, that it is an irrational provincialism or an emotional particularism on the part of college faculties which makes co-operation difficult.22 To some extent there are cycles of popularity. Within a decade after the New England Deposit Library was opened, the Center for Research Li- braries and the Hampshire Inter-Library Center came along, soon followed by lo- cal storage facilities for Princeton Uni- versity, the University of Michigan, and the University of California at Berke- ley. At the moment, computer-related programs are clearly looked upon as holding great promise. They are the prime, but not the only, objective of consortia such as NELINET founded in 1966, SOLINET ( 1974), MIDLNET (1974), and CLASS (1976). For in- stance, MIDLNET, the Midwest Region Library Network, includes research li- braries and state networks in Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri; it aims to develop faster delivery of books to users; to co- ordinate library planning, development, and research in the Midwest; to attract federal funds available for regional li- brary network development; to provide a voice in the emerging national library network; and to develop a coordinated program of materia,ls preservation. Each of these programs rides some wave pat- tern of popularity and success. Each in- dividual library tries its ability to swim in the current, but none operates apart from circumstances in its own institu- tion. Library changes can be found to be closely derivative of their institution- al conditions and/ ot national circum- stances.23 The cause and effect can sometimes be clearly traced. For example, projects supported by the Library Services and Construction Act Title III (signed into law July 1966) for intertype coopera- tives obviously show derivation from that federal law. One can cite the 1972 Cooperative Information Network in California which was formed of 250 libraries, including the University of California campus at Santa Cruz, the Universities of Santa Clara, San Jose State, Golden Gate, and Stanford to- gether with over a dozen community colleges and the U.S. Naval Postgradu- ate School. Yet the New England De- posit Library was born of space prob- lems mounting during the depression years, although the concept was pro- posed by Harvard's President Eliot. In the fall of 1901, Eliot wrote that the increasing rate at which large col- lections of books grow suggests strong- ly that some new policy is needed con- cerning the storage of these immense masses of printed matter .... It may be doubted whether it be wise for a university to undertake to store books by the million, when only a small pro- portion of the material stored can be in active use. Now that travel and sending of books to all parts of the country has become cheap, it may well be that great accumulations of printed matter will be held accessible at only three or four points in the country. . . . The unused might be stored in a much more compact manner than they are now, even in the best-arranged stacks. 24 The concept is venerable, but it had to await implementation until the massive ) - A Century of Cooperative Programs I 215 Widener Library was full in the 1930s. Then the New England Deposit Library was justified and financed. Timing is often key, as with the NEDL. The Center for Research Li- braries was initiated under the name Midwest Inter-Library Center. But ten years before its foundation President Robert M. Hutchins of the University of Chicago asked Keyes D. Metcalf to conduct a study of such a cooperative facility for twelve Midwest universities stretching from Ohio to Minnesota and Michigan to Missouri. Eleven of the twelve university presidents approved the idea, and only one was opposed. However, eleven of the twelve librari- ans opposed the idea, and only one ap- proved of it. Metcalf suggested the mat- ter be put off until after the approach- ing war. When a new study was then made, it turned out that all but one of the librarians had changed and all but one of the presidents had retired. Elev- en out of twelve current incumbents of both groups then approved. Thus can ten years change attitudes toward inter- library cooperation. Recent cooperative examples face most if not all of the problems treated above, develop under similar motiva- tions, and seem to follow principles in- , fluencing their success which are the same as similar programs of past dec- ades. One significant difference seems to be the greater legal and administrative formality required. In this connection, it may be useful to review the purposes for creation of the Center for Research Libraries, the Ohio College Library Cen- ter, and the Research Libraries Group. These may be typical of the next sig- nificant wave of developments. E-XAMPLES OF INCREASED FoRMALITY The Center for Research Libraries was incorporated in 1949 by ten univer- sities as a nonprofit corporation with the primary purpose of increasing the li- brary research resources available to co- operating institutions in the Midwest. Four areas of activity were initially out- lined: The deposit into a common pool of the infrequently used library materials held by the participating institutions in order to reduce their local · space needs, and also to make more readily available when needed more complete collections than any one of the partici- pating libraries itself could reasonably maintain for its own exclusive use. The cooperative purchase and cen- tralized cataloguing and housing of in- frequently used library research ma- terials that were not already adequate- ly available to the participants. The centralized acquisition and cata- loging [sic] of the materials acquired by the participants for their own col- lections. The coordination of the acquisitions of the individual participating libraries to avoid unnecessary duplication.25 A building for the center was occupied in 1951. Within a dozen years the coop- erative acquisition program had been given increased emphasis. The most sig- nificant shift came in 1963 when the center invited Stephen A. McCarthy and Raynard C. Swank to survey the pro- gram and make recommendations deal- ing with concerns such as the gradual assumption of many characteristics of a ~national interlibrary center while its base of support was primarily r~gio-!}al; questions of whether the center's activi- ties were truly worth their cost to the members; how it could be of better ser- vice to all of the nation's research li- braries ( and potentially of Canada and Mexico as well); and how it might most effectively broaden its base of support. The most significant recommendation was that: The Center should formally cease to be a regional. agency and should be- come a national institution. 216 I College & Research Libraries • May 1976 All suitable methods of bringing about this change should be fully explored. In seeking the best means of becom- ing a national research library center, the possibility of a relationship with the Association of Research Libraries and contractual relationships with the Library of Congress and other federal agencies should be thoroughly investi- gated.26 Among many recommendations and changes in the acquisition program, this change to a national scope and altera- tions of its governance, funding, and operations have been especially signifi- cant, and have led to an increase in its membership from the original ten uni- versities to a present total of sixty. The Ohio College Library Center was incorporated in 1967 by nine public and private colleges and universities as a not- for-profit corporation. There were fifty- four members during 1967-68. The· OCLC Articles include the statement that: The purpose or purposes for which this corporation is formed are to estab- lish, maintain and operate a computer- ized, regional library center to 'serve the academic libraries of Ohio (both state and private) and designed so as to become a part of any national elec- tronic network for bibliographical communication; to develop, maintain and operate a shared cataloging pro- gram based upon a central computer store; to create, maintain and operate a computerized central catalog (inven- tory) of books and journals in the participating libraries; and to do such research and development related to the above as are necessary to accom- plish and to extend the concept.27 That same year the OCLC trustees ap- proved a general statement of two prin- cipal goals for the organization: These goals are, 1) increase of re- sources for education and research to faculty and students of its member in- · stitutions, and 2) the deceleration of per-student costs in its member col- leges and universities. Techniques for achieving these goals include library and the new library-like information servicing techniques, such as dial-up 'installations, audiovisual centers, and computer assisted instruction. Al- though "academic libraries" of the im- mediate future must be looked upon as including all of these activities, only the traditional library is presently common to all institutions which are OCLC members. Therefore, major em- phasis in planning and development will continue to be for activities asso- ciated with classical library operations. However, OCLC will stand ready to participate in newer information ser- vicing activities, and it may well be that furnishing powerful computation service will be among its earliest ac- tivities.28 In 1974-75, participating libraries cat- aloged 2,555,055 books; the data base contained over 5.3 million locations. Cataloging using existing records in the on-line catalog increased to 84.7 percent. Use of records for catalog production by libraries other than the one inputting the record rose to 41.8 percent. This in- dicates a major operational interlibrary endeavor. The Research Libraries Group was formed by Columbia, Harvard, and Yale Universities and the New York Public Library to develop a common bibliographic system, cooperative acqui- sitions, shared resources, and a program of book conservation. The presidents of the three universities gave their strong endorsement to the RLG concept, and the Trustees of NYPL demonstrat- ed their support by voting in October 1974 to allow materials from the re- search libraries to be sent to other RLG · ·members on interlibrary loan. The Re- search Libraries Group is governed py a board of directors with working com- mittees on policies and programs for preservation, collection development, se- rials, readers services, bibliographic pro- + I A Century of Cooperative Programs f 217 cesses and control, and systems and tech- nology applications. It has created a joint bibliographic center and appoint- ed a president and vice-president for systems. It was incorporated in Decem- ber 1975 as a not-for-profit corporation. The certificate of incorporation present- ly includes the statement: The nature of the activities to be con- ducted, or the purposes to be carried out by the corporation, are as follows: (a) to promote coordination in the de- velopment of library collections, and to develop cooperative programs in the conservation and preservation of li- brary materials; (b) to develop im- proved methods for identifying and lo- cating recorded information in libraries and for creating and · using biblio- graphic systems; (c) to develop, op- erate, support and coordinate coopera- tive programs to improve physical access to the collections of libraries; (d) to improve the efficiency and to promote economics in the operations of libraries; (e) generally, in any and all lawful ways to improve library ser- vices provided by the Members; and (f) to engage in any other lawful act or activities (consistent with the fore- going purposes). 29 In its first report to a supporting foundation, the RLG restated that rap- id development of a limited number of cost-effective programs is vi~wed as the basis for eventual solicitation of other members similar in nature to the found- ers and possibly selling services on a cost-recovery basis to other libraries. ASSESSMENTS OF USEFULNESS How useful are existing cooperative programs from the point of view of the college or university student or profes- sor? One finds little data that can help in the evaluation. It may be worth not- ing that there have been almost no pub- lished research studies comparing and analyzing two or more cooperative pro- grams of a similar nature. 30 A tabulation of cataloging copy con- tributed to the National Union Catalog indicates records which constitute inter- library loan potential for other institu- tions as well as potential shared catalog- ing. In 197 4-75, academic libraries con- tributing the largest number of cards were the following: University of Texas Harvard University University of Wisconsin Cornell University University of California, Berkeley Yale University Rutgers University Princeton University Columbia University Duke University Indiana University Ohio State University 124,209 113,830 105,386 97,494 83,213 78,230 76,277 74,353 68,751 67,795 66,548 66,060 Since universities use LC cataloging for from 35 percent to 89· percent of their material, the value of help via NUC, MARC, NPAC, and other Lc · Processing Department products is clear- ly in the tens of millions of dollars. Statistics of interlibrary lending and borrowing are evidence of the value of one universal cooperative program. Using a sample of academic libraries, the picture for 1974-75 is shown in Table 1. Of all recorded circulation, the inter- library traffic constitutes an almost in- finitesimal proportion-an aggregate av- erage of 1.79 percent for colleges and 1.33 percent for universities! It is the most expensive form of resource shar- ing. (It may cost 5 cents to circulate a reserve book, 10 cents from the general stack collections, $1.00 from a locked stack, $2.00 from a campus auxiliary stack, but it costs from $4.00 to $9.00 by interlibrary loan.) Specific evidence is avail:;tble of an- other type of program directly benefit- ing patrons-commuting service for persons to another library. An instance is the intercampus bus service estab- 218 I College & Research Libraries • May 1976 TABLE I INTERLmRARY LENDING AND BoRROWING AND TOTAL REcoRDED CmCULATION, SELECTED CoLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES, 1974-75 Name of Items Institution Borrowed Colleges Amherst 1,826 Bowdoin 287 Colby 863 Denison 143 Goucher 23 Ithaca 559 Middlebury 1,430 Mills 22 Oberlin 1,408 Occidental 36 Reed 199 Stephens 16 Vassar 2,823 Weber State 379 Westmount 159 Wooster 459 Universities Delaware 3,301 Humboldt State 1,008 Illinois 4,427 Kansas 6,126 Long Beach, Cal. State 3,311 Michigan 5,910 Northwestern 1,311 Pennsylvania 2,612 Stanford 3,529 Texas 2,648 UCLA 4,006 Utah 4,549 Virginia 1,962 U. of Washington 3,349 lished in late 1961 by the University of California. Transporting scholars and books six days each week, it operates from Davis and Santa Cruz to Berkeley, and from Irvine, Riverside, San Diego, and Santa Barbara to UCLA. During 1972-73 there were over 16,000 pas- sengers plus 35,000 complete interlibrary or returned personal loans. A study in early 1974 revealed half of the com- muters used library services or collec- tions; the others used laboratories, at- tended classes, or were otherwise on uni- versity business. Before making the trip, 19 percent had conferred with a local librarian about the resources to be visit- · ed, and 58 percent went with some pre- knowledge of what they would find. A third of the commuters checked out a Items Total Recorded Lent Circulation 2,424 62,092 1,504 84,212 387 80,993 94 46,816 17 44,262 600 105,421 1,206 89,358 45 41,906 2,751 290,386 21 85,040 316 38,906 5 61,264 3,218 104,832 50 87,840 103 37,247 98 48,739 2,953 394,022 412 437,819 43,729 1,882,960 7,346 1,033,353 1,402 944,577 8,939 1,565,148 3,653 1,014,701 9,079 545,293 16,737 1,481,675 8,615 1,626,449 14,695 1,933,268 5,693 549,463 6,848 521,742 53,055 2,792,968 book, the return of which by a later bus constituted a third of the above annual quantity of loans while the other two- thirds were interlibrary loans including the 9 percent personally fetched and charged out by the bus driver. Here is another quantifiable example of practi- cal interinstitutional sharing of library resources. One looks in vain in published li- brary literature to find major compre- hensive cost-effectiveness studies of joint acquisitions programs or interlibrary borrowing. To the patron they are rela- tively marginal programs when viewed against the totality of library services in any one college or university. Insti- tutions have obviously recognized that the final 1 percent of service volume t A Century of Cooperative Programs j 219 justifies costs that are disproportionate. THE NATURE OF FuTURE PROSPECTS It is difficult to· discern trends. Inter- institutional cooperation seems to be universaily recognized as essential, al- though the extraordinary efforts re- quired and the hazards in the course are now understood-and continue to exist. In some sense a library is only effective if it has acquisition, processing, and ser- vice programs; physical facilities in which to house the collections and read- ers; and a specialized staff for these pro- grams. Many but not all aspects of this library program are subject to interin- stitutional cooperation. For those that are subject to a cooperative approach, nearly all types have been explored and are still being pursued. Where staff pres- sures increase, and as economic circum- stances shift and technology develops, buffeted by institutional and national economic conditions, the movement for academic library cooperation advances on different fronts at different times. It seems, however, like an army moving ahead-the cavalry unit or armored tank unit, followed by foot soldiers, supply, communication, and manage- ment units, with no one getting far ahead of the others and no unit of the force long ignored. r The economic motive may not always l be the eternal catalyst, yet it can be found in every one of the examples eited. 31 The financial resources used by libraries in their acquisition of materi- als and provision of service to users cre- ate economic environments. Whether they be in publicly or privately support- ed institutions, they respond to national changes in the economy and to local conditions. Programs have . prospered with good fiscal support or have re- mained static due to · inadequate eco- nomic studies or an insufficient financial base. American academic libraries have reached a watershed that is almost as significant as the change from block printing to printing with movable type. This conclusion is based on the pre- sumption that on-line computer-based operational programs constitute a radi- cal and permanent change in coopera- tive style. When one is freed from most of the constraints of the card catalog, of the U.S. mail, and of locally pre- pared cataloging data, this adoption of sophisticated on-line computer-based programs may well be by far the most significant change ever achieved in li- brary operations. It is a permanent change in the mode of library opera- tions which should be accomplished dur- ing the period 1965 to 199().32 It is not a sudden change, for it has its origins in the early 1950s; and, in- deed, library programs using tabulating machines date from the mid-1930s. Yet if one looks ahead ten years, the college student of 1986 may well find at least 10 percent of all bibliographic citations of the library collections in machine- readable form accessible through a computer terminal; in some instances it may reach 100 percent. It is certain to include all of the more heavily used materials. The student will also be able via the terminal to call upon collections in other libraries, locally and national- ly, and have instantaneous loan trans- actions, only constrained by copyright controls on photocopying and limited by telefacsimile or by the remaining need to send the text by air parcel post. Just as the development of national standards was important in 1876 and 1900, it again becomes of major impor- tance in the nation's ability to develop a national . computer-supported system of libraries. This shift to on-line computer-based systems nationally linked will ·face the same type of problems as have been seen in cooperative examples cited above. After reviewing current experi- ence with computerized library and aca- demic resource-sharing networks, Pro- 220 I College & Research Libraries • May 1976 fessor Lewis B. Mayhew concluded: It seems clear that the major problems to be overcome with respect to educa- tional or research use of networks are not technical. Technical problems ei- ther have been solved or the directions established to solve them. The real problems are political, organizational and economic. Governmental policy must be refined so as to produce health and balanced growth rather than uneven and unplanned partial growth. Universities, by tradition in:- dependent, must find ways of reorga- nizing their uses of computers so as to optimize effectiveness and institutional autonomy. They need to mature to a point where they will trust external agencies. And as has been indicated earlier, stable, long-range systems of financing must be found. 33 The economically forced and tech- nologically facilitated cooper~tion of the 1970s must surely be resulting in just as significant a change in the li- braries of the future as the political changes of 1776 created for the new American nation. The thirteen separate states operating independently then formed a federal government with care- ful orchestration of local authority, re- gional coordination, selected national standards, and some over-reaching fed- eral programs. At the time the Ameri- can Library Association was formed in 1876, the union of interests had recent- ly been reasserted. There would seem to be a close parallel with the state of li- brarianship in this decade as it applies to cooperative programs among academ- ic libraries. REFERENCES 1. An earlier move in this direction was the Librarians' Convention held in New York in 1853. "Proceedings," Norton's Literary Register, 1854, p.49--94. 2. "Co-operative College Cataloguing," Amer- ican Library Journal 1:435-36 (August 1877). 3. Of historical use are the "Symposium on Printed Catalog Cards," Library Journal 36:543-56 (Nov. 1911), and the volume by Robert B. Downs, Union Catalogs in the United States (Chicago: American Library Assn., 1942). 4. Walter Lichtenstein, "Report to the Presi- dent of Northwestern University on the Results of a Trip to South America," Northwestern University Bulletin 16:8-9 (Sept. 1915). 5. In this setting the Conference of Graduate Deans and Librarians resulted in The De- velopment of Library Resources and Grad- uate Work in the Cooperative University Centers of the South;.. Proceedings ... Held at the ]oint University Libraries ... , ed. Philip G. Davidson and A. F. Kuhlman (Nashville, Tenn.: Joint University Li- braries, 1944). 6. A useful work is by Mildred Hawksworth Lowell, College and University Library Consolidations (Eugene: Oregon State Sys- tem of Higher Education, 1942). 7. M. J. Savary, The Latin American Cooper- ative Acquisitions Program; An Imaginative Venture (New York: Hafner, 1968). 8. Diana Delanoy and Carlos A. Cuadra, Di- rectory of Academic Library Consortia (Santa Monica, Calif.: System Develop- ment Corp., 1971). A second edition by Donald V. Black and Carlos A. Cuadra appeared in spring 1976. 9. Joe W. Kraus, "Prologue to Library Coop- eration," Library Trends 24:171 (Oct. 1975). This issue is devoted to "Library Cooperation." 10. Paul J. Fasana, "The Collaborative Library Systems Development Project (CLSDP): A Mechanism for Inter-University Coopera- tion," in Collaborative Library Systems De- velopment (Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Pr., 1971)' p.22&-36. 11. Ritvars Bregzis, The Columbia-Harvard- ¥ ale Medical Libraries Computerized Prot- ect-a Review (Toronto: 1966), p.4; see also specific comments on eleven major problems areas on p.17-19. See also Fred- erick G. Kilgour, "Basic Systems Assump- tions of the Columbia-Harvard-Yale Medi- cal Libraries Computerization Project," In- formation Retrieval with Special Reference to the Biomedical Sciences; Papers Present- ed at the Second Institute on Information Retrieval, ed. Wesley Siminton and Char- lene Mason (Minneapolis: Univ. of Min- nesota, 1966), p.145-54. 12. Richard M. Dougherty and Joan M. Maier, Centralized Processing · for Academic Li- braries: The Final Report, Phase Ill, ]an. 1-]une 30, 1969, of the Colorado Academic A Century of Cooperative Programs I 221 Libraries Book Processing Center-the First Six Months of Operation (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow, 1971), p.119. See also Allen B. Veaner, "Colorado Academic Li- braries Book Processing Center-Consult- ing Report," June 1972. 13. A useful review is James E. Skipper, "Na- tional Planning for Resource Develop- ment," Library Trends 14:321--34 (Oct. 1966); see also Robert Vosper, The Farm- ·ington Plan Survey: A Summary of the Separate Studies of 1957-1961 ([Occa- sional Papers, no.77] Urbana: University of Illinois Graduate School of Library Sci- ence, 1965). 14. Carlos A. Cuadra and Ruth J. Patrick, "Survey of Academic Library Consortia in the U.S.," College & Research Libraries 33:271-83 (July 1972). 15. Basil Stuart Stubbs, "An Historical Look at Resource Sharing," Library Trends 23: 662 (April 1975). 16. Joseph Becker, "Information Network Pros- pects in the United States," Library Trends 17:311-12 (Jan. 1969). 17. John P. McDonald, "Interlibrary Coopera- tion in the United States," Issues in Library Administration, ed. Warren M. Tsuneishi, Thomas R. Buckman, and Yukihisa Suzuki (New York: Columbia Univ. Pr., 1974), p.131. 18. An extensive list of problems is presented by Merton W. Ertell, Interinstitutional Co- operation in Higher Education; A Study of Experiences with Reference to New York State (Albany: The University of the State of New York, 1957), p.98-100. 19. Charles Coffin Jewett, "A Plan for Stereo- typing Catalogues by Separate Titles, and for Forming a General Stereotyped Cata- logue of Public Libraries of the United States," Proceedings of the American Asso- ciation for the Advancement of Science 4:165-76 (Aug. 1850). . 20. A useful work is Ruth J. Patrick, Guidelines for the Development of Academic Library Consortia (Santa Monica, Calif.: System Development Corporation, 1971). 21. Robert B. Downs, "American Library Co- operation in Review," College & Research Libraries 6:407-15 (Sept. 1945, part II). 22. Ernest C. Colwell, "Inter-University Co- operation," Library Quarterly 22:2-3 (Jan. 1952). 23. In this connection, a useful work is Eileen Thornton, "Cooperation among Colleges," Library Trends 6:309-25 (Jan. 1958). 24. President's Report for 1900-01, p.30-31. See also Library ]ournal27:53-54 (1902). 25. Quotations from Stephen A. McCarthy and Raynard C. Swank, "The Report of a Sur- vey with an Outline of Programs arid Poli- cies" (Chicago: 1965), as reprinted in Michael M. Reynolds, ed., Reader in Li- brary Cooperation (Washington, D.C.: NCR Microcard Editions, 1972), p.199. 26. Ibid., p.200. 27. "Articles of Incorporation of the Ohio Col- lege Library Center," approved July 6, 1967, third section. 28. Annual Report 1967/68, p.2-3. 29. From internal draft document, November 1975. Personal communication from James E. Skipper. 30. An exception is the study by H. Joanne Harrar of the NEDL, CRL, and HILC, summarized as "Cooperative Storage Ware- houses," College & Research Libraries 25: 37-43 (Jan. 1964). 31. Note for example a product of the Associa- tion of Research Libraries: Problems and Prospects of the Research Library [papers and proceedings of the Monticello Confer- ence], ed. Edwin E. Williams (New Bruns- wick, N.J.: Scarecrow, 1955). 32. Four seminal works may be cited as omens: (1) Conference on Libraries and Automa- tion, Airlie Foundation, 1963, Libraries and Automation: Proceedings, ed. Barbara Evans Markuson (Washington, D.C.: Li- brary of Congress, 1964); (2) Summer Study on Information Networks, University of Colorado, 1966, Edunet: Report, authors and eds., George W. Brown, James G. Mil- ler, and Thomas A. Keenan (New York: Wiley, 1967); (3) Conference on Inter- library Communications and Information Networks, 1970, Proceedings, ed. Joseph Becker (Chicago: American Library Assn., 1971); and (4) U.S. National Commission on Libraries and Information Science, To- ward a National Program for Library and Information Services: Goals for Action (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1975). 33. Lewis B. Mayhew, Computerized Networks among Libraries and Universities: An Ad- ministrators Overview (ED 115220) ( Stan- ford, Calif.: ERIC Clearinghouse on In- formation Resources, 1975), p.61. David C. Weber is director of University Libraries, Stanford University, Stanford, California.