College and Research Libraries By MARGARET R. MEYER Self.·Survey at Russell Sage College Library This is the substance of a report prepared for the trustees of Russell Sage College by the librarian of the college. I NCREASING DEMAND for the type of serv-ice that only professionally trained li- brarians can give; drastic cuts in a budget for student help; and efforts to place a library staff on equivalent financial footing with teaching faculty of similar rank, train- ing, experience, and responsibility, have re- sulted recently in a prolonged scrutiny of the Russell Sage College Library, which has continued intermittently throughout one academic year. Coincidental with attempts to find. solu- tions for the threefold problem occurred a conversation with one of the administrators of the institution. This conference empha- sized a growing conviction that powerful obstacles to satisfactory faculty status were an incomplete understanding of the educa- tional aspects of a college library program and, more particularly, little knowledge of what each staff member contributes to that program. A report on job specifications was indicated, and, since through the Amer- ican Library Association classification and pay plans there was available a new method 1 of measuring libraries more carefully than had been possible hitherto, it seemed ex- pedient to make a self-survey at this time. In October 1943, with two other local 1 American Library Association. Board on Salaries, Staff, and Tenure. Classifi cation and Pay Plans for Libraries in Institutions of Higher Education. Chicago, A .L.A., 1943 . DECEMBER~ 1944 libraries, the staff was given a day's in- struction in the War Manpower Com- mission's Training-Within-Industry Job Methods program, so invitingly reported in an article by Mrs. Gates in 1943.2 There followed a series of staff me-etings at which each member read aloud an anal- ysis of a piece of library routine that was her particular responsibility. Next came questions and criticism from other staff members, often resulting in the elimination of unimportant activities and not infre- quently leading to the reworking of an en- tire process. Every routine function of the library was so challenged, with somewhat startling re- sults. Duplication of information was revealed as the heaviest offense against effi- ciency. Date .of purchase, price, and .source of books had for years been unquestioningly recorded in three places, for no known rea- son. Separate shelf-list cards for special gift collections had been exceedingly useful when gift exhibits were set up, but unbiased examination forced admission that much more time and money went into making those shelf-list cards than could possibly be bal- anced by time that might be consumed in searching gift records, should gifts be dis- played at irregular intervals. No one had ever thought of typing a "g" on a shelf-list card instead of the word "gift" nor of substituting "FLG" for the long words "Friends of Library gift." For 2 Gates, Frances C. "Job Methods Training in Li- braries." Wilson Library Bulletin 18:30-33, Septem- ber 1943. 17 at least three years there had been appeals for another truck, particularly for carrying heavy magazines to storage. Not until ap- plication of job methods training procedures was a truck realized to be standing prac- tically immobile behind one of the service desks. It was, of course, a simple matter to buy a set of low shelves resembling the truck and so release it for other work. Policies Examined Similar methods were used to examine library policies as well as routines. Given objective scrutiny, fine rules for pamphlets and periodicals were found to be entirely unreasonable and indefensible and were consequently revised. Inconsistencies in in- terlibrary loan policy 'with an affiliated hos- pital were corrected. An inevitable result of such careful and painstaking overhauling was a thoroughly · revised Staff ManualJ ready in time for the annual practice student from a near- by library school. Since Russell Sage College is a degree- conferring four-year institution, the second volu~e of Classification and Pay Plans for Libraries in Institutions of Higher Educa- tion3 was used as the measuring device. Directions for procedure as outlined in the plans4 were followed. The service load for the library was calculated by translat- ing the number of faculty and underclass and upperclass students into units of serv- ice. The I 943-44 registration figures were used. The library was found to carry I 386 service units and to belong to Class II, standards for which are listed so explicitly5 that it was relatively simple to measure staff organization, qualifications and salaries of staff members, annual expenditures, book stock, hours of service, and staff working conditions. a American Library Association.. Board on Sala- ries, Staff, and Tenure. Op. cit., v. 2. 4 Ibid., p. xix-xxxii. 6 Ibid., p. 3, 4· To familiarize the administration thoroughly with library participation in the educational program of the college, com- plete memoranda of job specifications seemed imperative. First there was made a job analysis of all professional and cler- ical positions, using for the purpose the checklist recommended. 6 The functional arrangement of form was exceedingly valu- able for a continued scrutiny of the Russell Sage library. A number of processes were obviously out of their proper departments, and several small jobs could be performed more efficiently if shifted. A staff of five professional and one and one-half clerical workers, exclusive of student help, cannot be highly departmentalized, nor can all work be divided on a strictly functional basis. One glaring example of overlapping still exists in bindery preparation, logically belonging to the heavily pressed catalogers but actually handled by the person in charge of circulation and reference, in an effort to equalize work loads. A job analysis for a one- or two-week period may take no account of important tasks performed only at intervals through- out the year. When such material was added to the checklists, complete pictures of each position emerged. The · data were · then used as a basis for classifying each position, and here again it is evident that a small library cannot completely conform to patterned organization. To illustrate, our assistant librarian, being in charge of work with the public, . is really a combina- tion of chief reference and chief circula- tion librarians, as specified for Class II libraries. 7 1 ob Specifications When all staff members were measured by the professional and personal qualifica- 6 Ibid., p. I 14·21. 7 Ibid., p. 36, s6. 18 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES tions 8 listed as essential to the posttwns they hold, there remained the difficult task of writing job specifications for each li- brary position. 'It will be remembered that one of the primary reasons for undertaking the whole program of self-survey was to explain to the ~ollege administration how the work of each person on the staff con- tributes to the educational program of the entire institution. To describe library po- sitions, keeping such a purpose in the fore- ground, doing it in nontechnical terms, and making the descriptions reasonably short and at the same time explicit, is no simple undertaking. The examples given in the A.L.A. plans9 were thought to be too gen- 8 Ibid., p. 15-III. 0 /bid ., p . 15·101. eral in character to be intelligible to a nonlibrarian. However, they were used as models for considerably more specific ac- counts of each job. Finally, the entire survey was described fully in the form of a report to the board of trustees. Conclusions emphasize the fact that an entirely new method of measuring the library shows results in complete ·agree- ment with other studies su.b~itted within the last five years. The inevitable recom- mendation is a considerably increased budget for books and salaries, without which fur- ther development of library service to the college will be limited to what . the staff can achieve on present resources of time and money. The Training of Divisional Reading Room Librarians (Continued from page 7) mmtstrative realities, as anyone very closely associated with universities can testify. If it is to be assumed that the divisional librarian is to have some definite instruc- tional function, then obviously he or she must be able to teach. To be a professor one must profess. This may take _several forms: first, straight classroom teaching in a -subject; second, teaching the bibliographic apparatus techniques for a special field; third, a semitutorial arrangement worked out to fit in with the needs of the faculty DECEMBERJ 1944 in a department. Common to all, though, is the fact that the librarian must know a good deal about at least one subject area, regardless of what else he knows. Summary The essence of this discussion is that the pattern of divisional library service is not yet set. Library schools have a great op- portunity for leadership by striking out into new curricula that will provide librarians capable of establishing a pattern of servtce for divisional librarians.