College and Research Libraries By R U T H E R F O R D D . R O G E R S Undergraduate Reference W o r k Mr. Rogers is acting librarianj Columbia College Library. \ TH E R E S E E M S T O B E an element; of un-certainty in the minds of prospective library school students as to what the ref- erence librarian in an undergraduate col- lege does. T h i s uncertainty is shared by two other groups, namely, students in the midst of professional training and grad- uates of library schools whose experience thus far has been limited to other de- partments or other types of libraries. Representatives of all three groups have frequently asked me what reference librar- ians do. Strange as it may seem, there is usually a gleam in the inquirer's eyes as if he strongly suspected us of spending our days doing nothing more constructive than straightening the shelves. T h e r e are two possible explanations for this attitude. First, the questioner may have come from a college where there was no well-defined reference service or if such service did exist, this individual may have met requirements without it. Second, the questioner may be one who has done that nebulous quantity of graduate study, after which some people come to the conclusion that all undergraduate work is insignifi- cant. It follows naturally that this second person is convinced that there is no such thing as undergraduate "research" even in the broadest sense of the term. It is likely that those considering library service as a vocation and those wishing to determine their aptitude for a certain branch of library science might profit by any description of college reference work which explains it, not in terms of theory but of experience. A t the same time, pro- fessional people unfamiliar with college reference work or doubtful of its value might inferentially gain some understand- ing of its functions. Reference questions asked by undergrad- uates might be divided into two groups, one headed term-paper or bibliographical questions; the other, curiosity or informa- tion questions. T h e latter type usually presents a specific problem, the explana- tion of which is necessary for a student's understanding of a written passage, a chance remark in class, or something less academic in the realm of his experience. T h e curiosity which engenders such ques- tions must be recognized as pedagogically significant, for as Samuel Johnson per- spicaciously remarked, "Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristicks of a vigorous mind."1 Furthermore, I find that although the time required to answer such questions may be relatively short, the problems themselves are of con- siderable interest. Information Questions Aldous Huxley's erudite vocabulary set one young man on a dictionary hunt in order that he might explain a passage from 1 The Rambler no. 103, March 12, 1751. 248 C O L L E G E , AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES Eyeless in Gaza. According to the con- text, the term ("seccotine") might have been medical. A s the word was not in Webster's New International Dictionary . . . , the next logical source seemed to be a good scientific dictionary. Both medical and chemical reference books failed to in- clude the word, but The Oxford English Dictionary, I X , 347, gave a very satisfac- tory definition, one, incidentally, which entirely changed the student's first inter- pretation. T w o students came in one day with ap- parently nothing in common but a great deal of noise and a difference of opinion. T h e y hurried to the encyclopedias and began a vigorous inspection of carefully chosen volumes. A f t e r a preliminary sur- vey the two seemed dissatisfied and ap- proached the desk. T h e y were interested, one of them said, in the attempted Lenin assassination of the fall of 1918. T h e y had discovered the date and some of the details but the most important fact—the name of the would-be assassin—was still unknown. Could I help them? W e turned to The New York Times Current History; the European War . . . X V I I (Oct.-Dec., 1 9 1 8 ) , 74. T h e person in question, we learned, was a woman, one Dora Kaplan. T h e nineteenth century inclination to personify, adequately illustrated in the writings of Carlyle, Arnold, and Ruskin, led one student astray. He was reading an essay by M a t t h e w Arnold in which there was a reference to the "Goddess Aselgeia." N o t being familiar with this addition to the realm of allusion, the student and I began to consult dictionaries of mythology. A complete lack of any citation made me suspicious, so we turned to Websters New International Dictionary . . . 2d ed., un- abridged, p. 161. T h e entry we found w a s : aselgeia. N . [ G r . ] Lascivious- ness. M. Arnold In a sense it is rewarding to answer questions like these because one can be al- most certain when he has the right answer and the piece of work is done. However, there are reference questions about which one cannot have such definite feelings. One may not be able to lock this other genre in the drawer at the end of the day and say it is finished. But these requests— comprising mainly bibliographical prob- lems—are the more important in the last analysis. Bibliographical Questions In several ways, I believe it is more difficult to handle this second classification of reference work with undergraduates than with scholars. Younger students have not had time to learn as many lan- guages nor to obtain a subject knowledge necessary for such exacting work. A s a first requisite, therefore, college reference librarians must provide sources principally in English, a task not always easy or pos- sible. A few students, it is true, are will- ing or able to attempt additional work in one of the two important modern lan- guages, French or German. Likewise, col- lege reference librarians must be constantly aware of the difficulty and number of their references. In the upper college, to be sure, students occasionally write papers of twenty-five thousand words which demand extensive work on quite a mature level. A f t e r one has pointed the way bibliograph- ically, these students proceed to evaluate sources and select the best ones for their purposes. But most papers, I find, are from two to five thousand words in length. JUNE j 1942 249 It is from the writers of this latter type that one gets requests for "a few of the best references" on subjects. Various suggestions may aid students in finding these "best references." First, is the author recognized as an authority? Critical bibliographies such as those which appear in the Dictionary of American Biography are extremely useful in deter- mining this. O f course, biographical dic- tionaries or book reviews, when available, are also pertinent. T h e recency of an ar- ticle or book, e.g. on television, may be significant. T h i s requires attention to dates on catalog cards, in bibliographies, or in indexes. Chronological or subject scope may often be determined by the book's full title, the contents on the catalog card, or the subject tracing on catalog cards. T h e author's point of view and style must usually be learned from handling a given book. A request for a bibliography on business conditions in Florence at the end of the Middle Ages illustrates how important a knowledge of foreign languages may be. Summerfield Baldwin in his Business in the Middle Ages, p. IOO, impressed the reader with the national bias of works in various foreign languages and stated that there was no representative Italian work on medieval economics in translation. T h e wealth of Italian citations in the Cambridge Medieval History, V I I I : 867- 68, seemed to support this contention. T h e r e was a standard French work which covered the period, F . Perrens' Histoire de Florence Depuis Ses Origines Jusqu'a la Domination des Medicis, Paris, 1883, and, fortunately, French was the one foreign language the student could read. James W e s t f a l l Thompson's Economic and So- cial History of Europe in the Later Mid- dle Ages (1300-1500) had some textual value and limited bibliographical apparatus but the same author's Reference Studies in Medieval History was quite useful. Henri See's Modern Capitalism; Its Origin and Evolution made significant contributions to our work as did also Roy C . Cave and Herbert H . Coulson's A Source Book for Medieval Economic His- tory. I have said nothing so far about the amount of help one should give to students and how much they should be expected to do for themselves. In the lower college, I believe, the reference librarian must pro- vide a great deal of aid supplemented by rather detailed instruction. He may sug- gest the types of material which have prob- ably been written on the student's subject. It is frequently necessary to explain why there are no books on a current topic whereas there may be excellent periodical or pamphlet material. Nature of Problem If the nature of the problem is such that one begins with an encyclopedia, it is pos- sible to emphasize that this is just the first step and to encourage the student to use the bibliography, if any, which accom- panies the article. T h i s may lead to a variety of succeeding steps including the use of periodical indexes, the card catalog, the Essay and General Literature Index, catalogs of public documents, etc. Throughout this process, the student has the opportunity of perfecting the tech- niques for using familiar tools and of learning about new ones. Ultimately, this will lead to more and more independent work. W i t h students of the upper college, one should continue the educative process but with more advanced sources such as sub- ject bibliographies. These students some- 250 C O L L E G E , AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES times have purely bibliographical problems. T h e y are not always asked to w r i t e papers as assignments but are frequently in- structed to compile a bibliography from which a paper might be written. If the reference librarian is not careful, he w i l l spoil the value of these projects. Even more than usual, he must restrict his help to that of a directional nature. T h i s brings us to the very important subject of cooperation w i t h the faculty. T h o s e professors w h o have a genuine in- terest and understanding in our problems may supply, upon request, a list of term paper subjects. O n e economics professor w a s particularly cooperative in providing this information. H i s w h o l e course dis- played careful organization. T o each member of his class he handed a mimeo- graphed list of topics w i t h general sugges- tions for proceeding. It was announced in class that students might obtain additional aid from the reference assistant in the college library. Before students actually began to ask for help, I had had sufficient time to prepare several additional refer- ences on each topic. T h e reader may w e l l ask, " H o w does one get this cooperation from disinterested faculty members?" T h e answer is, " G e t them interested in some w a y — e v e n if only generally—in the library." Several gov- ernment and history professors w e r e "in- vited," if one may use the term, to the library to v i e w exhibits of government publications and charts explaining catalogs and indexes of government documents. Several months later one of them very un- expectedly telephoned to ask if he might borrow one of the charts for a short time. U n d e r another occasion w e prepared an annotated bibliography of State Depart- ment publications quite independent of any faculty request. W h e n informed of it, one of the government professors was more than w i l l i n g to distribute the mimeo- graphed list to his classes. It is hoped that the time may come w h e n w e w i l l be asked to do just such work as this for the faculty. Instruct Students Space does not permit a lengthy discus- sion of another important function of the reference librarian. T h a t is the respon- sibility, partial or complete, to formally instruct freshmen or sophomores in the use of the library. Informal instruction has been suggested in all reference work. Last year the librarian and reference as- sistant of the Columbia College Library gave a series of t w o lectures, illustrated by lantern slides, to the sophomore class in cooperation w i t h the contemporary civil- ization faculty. Each group to w h i c h w e lectured comprised about twenty-five stu- dents. T h i s year w e are doing similar work but this time in connection w i t h one of the English courses. W e expect the results to be more productive because the instructors are giving the students definite assignments which w i l l require them to use the information presented in the lec- tures. It is hoped that those persons to w h o m this paper is addressed w i l l have acquired a general outline of some of the responsibil- ities and duties of a college reference librarian. N o one w h o has participated in the actual answering of questions or in any of the other activities described w i l l ever call this phase of library work any- thing but challenging. JUNE, 1942 251