College and Research Libraries


By M I L D R E D H A W K S W O R T H L O W E L L 

The Centralized Libraries of the 
Oregon State System of 
Higher Education1 
Mrs. Mildred Hawksworth Lowell is li-

brarian and assistant professor, Eastern 

Oregon College of Education at La 

Grande. 

CO L L E G E A N D U N I V E R S I T Y L I B R A R I A N S are becoming increasingly conscious 
of the possibilities of cooperation. T h e y 
are realizing that concerted effort must be 
made if the book resources of the nation 
are to serve scholarly and research needs 
effectively. Types of cooperation include 
interlibrary loans, union catalogs, union 
lists, cooperative bibliographical projects, 
limiting fields of purchase and emphasiz-
ing certain areas of specialization, coopera-
tive bookbuying, agreements regarding the 
collection of documents and reproduction 
of books and manuscripts on film, surveys 
of book resources in a given area, and 
consolidations which include legal con-
tractual arrangements and mergers. 

Examples of cooperation a n d / o r con-
solidations a r e : T h e University Center in 
Atlanta, the University of N o r t h Caro-
lina-Duke University cooperation, Clare-
mont Colleges, Fisk University and 
M e h a r r y Medical College, Joint Univer-
sity Libraries at Nashville, Atlanta 
University Library, W e s t e r n Reserve 

1 P a r t of unpublished M a s t e r ' s thesis, "College 
and university library consolidations," G r a d u a t e 
L i b r a r y School, U n i v e r s i t y of Chicago, 1939. 

University Library, Dillard University, 
the merger between H o w a r d Memo-
rial Library-Tulane University-Newcomb 
College, developments in the Atlanta-
Athens region, and the centralized li-
braries of the Oregon State System of 
Higher Education. 

A brief review of what has been ac-
complished in Oregon may give some con-
ception of the problems involved and of 
the possibilities and opportunities for book 
resources and library service which may 
be realized through consolidation. 

T h e centralized libraries include the 
libraries of Oregon's six state supported 
institutions of higher education. T h e i r 
consolidation in 1932 was part of the 
State Board of Higher Education's general 
reorganization of the institutions, and 
their administrative plan follows, in gen-
eral, the plan set up for the system as a 
whole. Four of these institutions are lo-
cated in the Willamette Valley: the Uni-
versity of Oregon at Eugene and the 
Oregon State College at Corvallis are 
forty miles apart, the Oregon College of 
Education at M o n m o u t h is only eighteen 
miles from the latter, and the Medical 
School in Portland is eighty-four miles 
from Corvallis. T h e two remaining state 
supported institutions have been estab-
lished recently in the southern and eastern 

136 ' COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES 



sections of the state: the Southern Oregon 
College of Education in Ashland is 241 
miles from Corvallis and the Eastern Ore-
gon College of Education in La Grande 
is 373 miles from Corvallis. 

Lower division courses in liberal arts 
and sciences are offered on a parallel basis 
on the campuses at Eugene, Corvallis, 
Ashland, and La Grande. Professional 
and technical curricula are allocated to the 
various campuses as follows: social sci-
ences, arts and letters—university at 
Eugene; physical and biological sciences 
—state college at Corvallis; medicine 
and nursing—medical school at Port-
land ; elementary teacher training—Ash-
land, La Grande, and M o n m o u t h ; 
graduate study and research—Eugene and 
Corvallis. 

T h e age of the libraries ranges from 
eleven to fifty-eight years with a median 
of thirty-five. T h e i r individual library 
collections range from 16,000 to more 
than 300,000 volumes and their combined 
collections total more than half a million 
volumes. W h e n compared with the other 
libraries of the state, one finds that they 
constitute about one-fourth the total book 
resources of the state; have twice as many 
volumes as the combined total holdings of 
all special and private higher educational 
libraries in the state; and are exceeded in 
size by the public libraries. 

Outside the state of Oregon, the near-
est book concentrations2 are found to the 
north in Seattle about two hundred miles 
from the northern boundary of the state, 
and to the south in Sacramento and in 
San Francisco which are about four and 
five hundred miles from the southern 
boundary. 

Prior to 1929, the six institutions and 
2 Wilson, Louis R. Geography of reading. Amer-

ican L i b r a r y Association and the University of 
Chicago P r e s s , pp. 119, 121. 

their libraries were operated independ-
ently. Over a period of seventy-five years 
the institutions had been established one at 
a time. For each of them the legislature 
passed a special law providing for support 
by means of an ear-marked millage tax 
levy. Each had a separate governing 
board. T h e resulting rivalry and compe-
tition between them was comparable to 
that which other states with several sep-
arate institutions have experienced. 

Higher Education Reorganized 

Legislative action in 19293 created a 
single State Board of Higher Education 
and the people of Oregon undertook a 
complete reorganization of higher educa-
tion as a departmentalized function of the 
state government. T h e old boards were 
abolished and the new board of nine mem-
bers serving for terms of nine years were 
given control of all property, activities, 
income and disbursements, accounts and 
records, curricula, advertising and public-
ity, and all negotiations between the state 
legislature and the institutions. 

Plans for a single library system were 
worked out by the board in advance of 
their reorganization of the system as a 
whole. T h e y felt that any coordination 
among the institutions should necessarily 
be preceded by a unifying of all book re-
sources. I t was their belief that library 
facilities in the institutions should not be 
duplicated and that the entire resources of 
all of them should be made available to all 
faculty members and students in the sys-
tem. 

As early as M a y 29, 1931 (which was 
a month after their receipt of the survey 

3 Oregon State System of Higher Education. Ad-
ministrative code. State Board of Higher Educa-
tion, 1938, pp. 80-85. 

Oregon, General laws . . . 1929. State P r i n t i n g 
D e p a r t m e n t , 1929, pp. 256-60. 

MARC hi, 1941 137 



report4 and more than a month before 
they officially took over the control of the 
institutions), they directed the presidents 
of the various institutions to formulate 
procedures which would avoid duplicating 
library facilities with a view to creating 
a single library system. In July, 1932, 
the board's completed plan for library re-
organization was announced. It provided 
for a single library system under the con-
trol of a director of libraries with a li-
brarian in charge on each campus, free 
circulation among the six institutions of 
all book stock, a common book f u n d allo-
cated by the director according to cur-
ricular needs, a central order department, 
and instruction in the use of the library 
provided for on each campus. Miss Lucy 
M . Lewis, librarian of Oregon State Col-
lege, was appointed director of libraries 
effective July 1, 1932. 

Efficient Organization Evolved 

Although the general plan of the li-
brary consolidation was dictated by the 
board in the above quoted rulings, the 
implementation of their wishes was in 
Miss Lewis's hands. It is due to her far-
sighted vision and administrative ability 
that a harmonious, closely integrated, effi-
ciently and economically operating organi-
zation has evolved. 

It should be pointed out that the con-
solidation was achieved without any help 
from foundations or without any special 
appropriations or endowments. 

T h e task of reorganization would have 
been difficult in itself under normal condi-
tions, or even with additional staff and 
money. T h e r e were no precedents to fol-
low and because of the shrinkage in tax 

4 Klein, A r t h u r J., Kelly, F. J., and W o r k s , 
George A. Survey of public higher education in 
Oregon. S u r v e y Commission, U n i t e d States Office 
of Education, Bulletin 1931, no. 10. 

returns, all income for higher education 
was drastically reduced at this time. T h e 
director of libraries was faced with the 
gigantic problem of effecting reorganiza-
tion and at the same time of reducing 
staffs and budgets. 

T h e first reorganization problem was to 
set up a central agency for carrying out 
the board's decisions regarding "central 
ordering," and a "common catalog." 
Room was made available in the Oregon 
State College Library for the Central Li-
brary Office. 

Union Author Catalog5 

In the summer of 1932, when this Cen-
tral Library Office was being organized, 
it was realized that centralized ordering 
was impossible without a catalog of the 
holdings of all six institutions. Obviously, 
the board's objective of economy in library 
administration could not be met unless all 
orders were checked for duplication before 
they were placed; nor could their objec-
tive of "a great common supply of books" 
be met without some record of the holdings 
of all the libraries. 

T h e problem was to find a way to dupli-
cate 200,000 cards quickly, accurately, and 
cheaply. Miss Lewis investigated all pos-
sible methods and found the cheapest and 
most satisfactory was to utilize the state-
college equipment and photographic serv-
ice. Special equipment was built by the 
physics department and the cards were 
photostated at a cost of $.0203 per card. 
All cards were copied within two weeks 
and the originals returned to the individual 
libraries. All detail work of establishing 
the central author catalog was handled by 

5 Lewis, Lucy M. " A d a p t i n g E q u i p m e n t to the 
Making of an Official L i b r a r y O r d e r Catalog." 
Library Journal, 58:302-05, Apr. 1, 1933. 

Ritchie, Elizabeth P . " U n i o n A u t h o r Catalog of 
the Oregon State System of H i g h e r E d u c a t i o n . " 
Pacific Northwest Library Association Quarterly, 
2:29-30, Oct. 1937. 

138 ' COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES 



the library staff, except the collection and 

f o r w a r d i n g of the cards by the other li-

braries. T h e original cost of the catalog 

was $4,946.42 and the total cost f r o m 

1932-1939 was $9,634.07. It is kept up 

to date by order cards which record pur-

chases and by cards furnished by the indi-

vidual libraries for additions by g i f t and 

exchange. 

In addition to the union catalog at C o r -

vallis, an author catalog of the holdings 

of the state college library w a s prepared 

for the university library at Eugene. 

T h i s is being kept up to date by supplying 

cards for additions and w i t h d r a w a l s . 

C a r d s are also furnished the medical 

school library for certain classes. 

Central Order Department 

T h e organization of this department 

took much thought and planning. It w a s 

established w i t h a staff less than the com-

bined former library order department 

staff of the university and state college. 

T h i s department is responsible for all 

of the order w o r k of the six institutions, 

and demonstrated during the first t w o 

years that it could be operated more 

economically if centralized. W i t h i n the 

t w o years 1932-1933 and 1933-1934 sal-

ary savings of $2,933.60° were thereby 

made in this one department. 

Instructions for each phase of the de-

partment's w o r k , rules of general policy, 

and sample forms have been c a r e f u l l y 

worked out and are revised frequently to 

meet changing conditions. T h e r e are five 

such codes which have been prepared. 

A l t h o u g h the order procedure differs 

somewhat in detail for the various li-

braries, it is, in general about as f o l l o w s : 

Each library does its o w n book selection 
6 Lewis, Lucy M. "Centralized L i b r a r y Control 

and Institutional L i b r a r y Autonomy, May 20, 1934," 
p. 25. (Mimeographed) 

and the order department orders only the 

publications which the libraries request. 

T h e r e is no censoring of orders and the 

institutional librarians alone are respon-

sible for the publications which they re-

quest. 

T h e university library and the medi-

cal school library search for their own 

requests and prepare the purchase orders 

which are sent to the C e n t r a l L i b r a r y 

Office for placement, accounting, and re-

cording. 

T h e other four libraries make their re-

quests on library requisition forms and 

note author, title, and as much biblio-

graphic detail as they care to add. T h e s e 

requisitions are sent to the central order 

department where the searching is done 

and the purchase orders are made out. 

W h e n e v e r a request can be met by trans-

f e r r i n g a duplicate copy from one of the 

other libraries, this is done instead of 

buying a new copy. 

L i b r a r y orders are handled much more 

quickly and efficiently through this cen-

tral order department than they were 

under the pre-centralization era w h e n the 

library orders w e n t through several gen-

eral business offices. 

Reorganization Program 

T h e initial reorganization program in-

cluded : ( I ) reorganization of the circu-

lation and reference departments at the 

state college and the university; ( 2 ) 

uniformity in certain records, forms, sta-

tistics, and methods of practice within the 

libraries to increase economy and effi-

ciency of service; ( 3 ) the adoption of 

uniform business forms to correlate w i t h 

the w o r k of the system's central business 

office; ( 4 ) the studying of the needs of 

the individual libraries in order to im-

prove and facilitate effective w o r k ; ( 5 ) 

MARC hi, 1941 139 



avoidance of duplication by purchase, 

through transfer of duplicate stock no 

longer needed at one institution because of 

curricular changes or reduced registration; 

( 6 ) interchange of reserve books; ( 7 ) the 

adoption of a more liberal policy of inter-

library l o a n ; and ( 8 ) the transfer of 

library material to correspond w i t h the 

transfer of m a j o r schools from one insti-

tution to the other. 

C e n t r a l i z a t i o n w a s further facilitated 

by having a bookkeeper in the C e n t r a l 

L i b r a r y Office w h o keeps the financial 

records for all the libraries and a secretary 

to the director w h o has w o r k e d out sta-

tistical forms for the system and compiles 

all statistics for the libraries. 

The Library Council and Its Interlibrary 

Committees 

Coordination has been effected in part 

through the w o r k of the library council 

and its committees. T h e council consists 

of the chancellor of the system, the di-

rector of libraries, and the six institutional 

librarians. M e e t i n g s are held at least 

once each quarter and traveling expenses 

of members are paid by the system. 

T h e r e is a friendly, cooperative spirit 

in the council which makes possible plan-

ning for all the libraries as a unit, formu-

l a t i n g constructive policies, and stimulat-

ing professional g r o w t h . T h e activities 

and accomplishments of the library coun-

cil include ( 1 ) systematizing the report-

ing and recording of faculty publications, 

( 2 ) eliminating postage records on loans 

within the system, ( 3 ) correlating 

material included on g i f t records, ( 4 ) 

u n i f y i n g charges for fines and rentals, ( 5 ) 

studying the use made of the libraries by 

faculty and students, ( 6 ) investigating 

possibilities for cooperation w i t h all the 

libraries in the Pacific N o r t h w e s t , and 

( 7 ) planning for f u t u r e development of 

the libraries through library surveys get-

ting up qualifications for budgets and 

staffs. 

T h r o u g h the five interinstitutional com-

mittees composed of representatives of the 

six libraries many details of unified pro-

cedure and method have been worked out. 

T h e cooperative bibliography committee 

brings together information about all the 

indexing and bibliographical w o r k done in 

the six libraries and stimulates cooperation 

on projects whenever that is feasible. 

T h e committee on correlation of con-

tinuations and periodicals has undertaken 

t w o studies: ( 1 ) a comparison of proce-

dures and routines in handling continua-

tions and periodicals in use by each of the 

libraries, and ( 2 ) a study of incomplete 

holdings in the six libraries. 

T h e committee on coordination of cata-

loging practices and procedures is co-

ordinating cataloging rules and procedures 

of the different libraries as much as pos-

sible and is w o r k i n g toward the time 

w h e n all cataloging for the system w i l l be 

done in the C e n t r a l L i b r a r y Office. 

T h e reading interests committee has 

stimulated reading on the six campuses and 

has made a study of library use. 

Because of the centralized ordering, 

the committee on order procedure has had 

unusually heavy responsibilities. Detailed 

procedures for handling all orders have 

been w o r k e d out, a multiple order card 

was devised, uniform card forms and sup-

plies w e r e adopted, and experimental com-

bined supply orders were placed which 

resulted in significant savings. 

Gains Due to Centralization 

T h e f o l l o w i n g gains due to centraliza-

tion have been m a d e : ( 1 ) all libraries 

have a definite b u d g e t ; ( 2 ) photostatic 

140 ' COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES 



copies of many card indexes have been 

supplied all libraries; ( 3 ) savings have 

been made in circulation and order de-

partment salaries, combined orders for 

supplies, exchanges between libraries, 

larger discounts secured on foreign pe-

riodical subscriptions by pooling orders 

and placing them w i t h the same agent, 

better book discounts secured because of 

arrangements made w i t h dealers and pub-

lishers, all binding is done at cost in the 

system's t w o binderies, and duplication 

in periodical subscriptions reduced as much 

as possible; ( 4 ) the libraries are given 

advance notice of curricular changes; ( 5 ) 

library staff has been accorded faculty 

status according to their qualifications and 

experience on the same basis as the teach-

ing staffs, interchanges of staff are made 

w h e n feasible, in-service training of staff 

members is made possible by the system's 

liberal regulations permitting faculty 

members to take courses, and the aca-

demic qualifications of the professional 

staff have been improved since centraliza-

tion. 

Summary 

T h i s is an example of a regional con-

solidation w h i c h has achieved a high de-

gree of unity in spite of the fact that 

the libraries are spread out over a state. 

T h e original objectives of the State 

Board of H i g h e r Education as set forth 

in their rulings were to increase the li-

brary resources for the students and facul-

ties of the institutions, and to provide 

better library service at lower cost. E v i -

dence of the extent to which these ob-

jectives have been accomplished has been 

presented in the foregoing pages. I t is 

a pioneer experiment in a larger unit of 

library service. 

Due to limited funds, and the unlimited 

mass of detail involved in the coordination 
of our libraries, it has been necessary to 
spread the work of organization over a 
period of years. . . . Under these circum-
stances new projects could not be started 
until others were completed, and since the 
various projects were often interdependent, 
efficiency in operation has been impeded. 
In spite of these handicaps, however, defi-
nite progress has been made, through the 
cooperative efforts of the various libraries 
in the system.7 

In studying the reports, minutes of 

meetings, codes of procedures, and other 

data of these libraries, one is impressed 

w i t h the implied as w e l l as the expressed 

friendly, helpful, and constructive atti-

tudes of the staffs in achieving their goals. 

N o attempt has been made to make 

the libraries conform to a pattern of dull 

uniformity. T h e i r individuality has been 

maintained and no changes have been 

made that w o u l d hinder the effective w o r k 

of any of them. 

Centralization means that the money 

appropriated for libraries goes farther 

than it w o u l d under an individualistic 

regime; and it means that greater re-

sources are available to all students and 

faculties. T h e efficient reference depart-

ments of the larger libraries are generous 

of time and effort in meeting the needs 

of the smaller. T h r o u g h committee w o r k 

and meetings of various kinds, there has 

been much closer contact between the 

staffs which has resulted in greater pro-

fessional g r o w t h and stimulation. 

T h e carefully worked out plans for fu-

ture development indicate that much 

more w i l l be accomplished in the years 

ahead particularly if money can be se-

cured for additional staff and the purchase 

of necessary bibliographical equipment. 

7 Lewis, Lucy M. "Biennial Report of the Di-
rector of Libraries, 1936-1938." Oregon State Col-
lege, Corvallis, p. 3. Ms. 

MARCH, 1941 141