College and Research Libraries


Fields, or to make a thorough examination 
of the Anglo-American correspondence. 

Professor Gettmann's transcriptions, while 
not impeccable, are more accurate than usual. 
It is to be regretted, however, that the pub-
lisher did not provide a more adequate index 
to the myriad of facts in the t e x t . — R o l l o G. 
Silver, School of Library Science, Simmons 
College. 

Library Administration 
Studies in Library Administrative Problems; 

Eight Reports from a Seminar in Library 
Administration Directed by Keyes D. Met-
calf. [Edited by Keyes D. Metcalf.] New 
Brunswick, N. J . : Graduate School of Li-
brary Service, Rutgers, T h e State Uni-
versity, 1960. 21 Op. $5.00. 

This collection of case studies is more 
valuable for its introductory report on ex-
periments in the methods of training junior 
library administrators than it is for its ad-
ministrative content. T h e eight studies, in-
teresting and quite well done for the most 
part, deal with such subjects as organiza-
tional problems of a decentralized state uni-
versity's library (Rutgers), space planning for 
Columbia, library cooperation in New York 
City, cataloging-in-source at Princeton, se-
lective acquisitions at Yale, resources reloca-
tion at Harvard, and centralization of sci-
ence libraries at Johns Hopkins. T h e cases 
are taken entirely from large and complex 
libraries, and therefore have some value to 
the profession as detailed records of some 
of the problems currently faced by large 
libraries. However, each is an administrative 
rather than a research study, using conven-
tional methods and establishing nothing 
new in administration. T h e more important 
parts are the introduction and the running 
commentaries by the editor. T h e primary 
interest centers about the various methods 
of teaching that were used. 

Five different methods of teaching ad-
ministration were tried. All the experiments 
were conducted under favorable conditions, 
by an accomplished administrator, Keyes D. 
Metcalf, librarian emeritus of Harvard Col-
lege, and under the sponsorship of one of the 
library schools receptive to experiments, the 
Graduate School of Library Service of Rut-
gers University. T h e methods ranged from 

regular teaching in the school, to short 
courses, seminars, and intensive case-study 
workshops. Enrollments in the later experi-
ments were limited and the participants 
chosen carefully, usually at the associate or 
assistant director level. They averaged forty 
to forty-five years of age and already were 
capable administrators. T h e fifth method of 
teaching, of which this book is a by-product, 
included reading in advance, case studies of 
specific problems in major libraries in the 
East, visits by individuals and then by the 
entire group to each of the libraries, plus 
talks by chief librarians and by visiting au-
thorities. This ultimate method is too expen-
sive for regular use in library schools be-
cause of the extensive travelling. Financial 
help was provided by the Carnegie Corpora-
tion. 

While the intensive on-the-spot case study 
method was the most satisfying to Metcalf, 
it may be questioned whether or not the 
excessive costs of this procedure are justifi-
able for the profession. Business has em-
barked during the last ten years on extensive 
programs of training for its middle manage-
ment personnel. This training usually is 
given in intensive short courses at major 
universities, and the case-study method is 
used heavily. However, the cases are drawn 
from the literature or drafted by the teach-
ers, and no visits to industries are involved. 
Since business foots the bill and is usually 
hard-nosed about value received, it may be 
that the library profession should once again 
profit from the successful experience of busi-
ness management. 

Actually the more leisurely study of ad-
ministration in regular courses at the grad-
uate level may prove to be more productive. 
Such courses allow a more scholarly ap-
proach to administrative theory and may 
permit the student to perform some basic 
research, or draw upon basic research, for 
the solution of administrative problems. In-
tensive courses such as the later experiments 
bv Metcalf do have practical values for the 
training of middle management (and future 
chief administrators) in the techniques of 
administration, of course. T h e experiments 
also are important to library education for 
the emphasis they place upon the value of 
the case-study method. This technique prob-
ably should be used more freely in library 
schools. 

J U L Y 1 9 6 1 309 



T h e profession owes a debt of gratitude 
to Mr. Metcalf, and to the library school of 
Rutgers University, for making this series 
of experiments. They have shed more light 
on a major problem of the library profession. 
And it will be interesting to see what hap-
pens with the group of participants in this 
intensive program. 

One curious aspect of the preparation of 
library administrators ought to be investi-
gated by someone. Several universities, or 
university librarians, have been unusually 
productive as training grounds or teachers 
for future university librarians. Some of 
these universities are not large ones. Why 
do these men or these situations produce an 
unusually large percentage of university li-
brary administrators, and how? This subject 
should be explored in historical perspective. 

Incidentally, the book is undistinguished 
typographically. T h e press could benefit 
from the services of a competent designer 
and typographer. Arthur M. McAnally, Uni-
versity of Oklahoma Library. 

Paper Durability 
The Manufacture and Testing of Durable 

Book Papers. Based on the Investigations 
of W. J . Barrow; edited by Randolph W. 
Church. Richmond: Virginia State Library, 
1960. 63p. Permanent/Durable Book Paper. 
Summary of a Conference held in Wash-
ington, D. C., September 16, 1960. (Vir-
ginia State Library Publications, Nos. 13, 
16). Richmond: Virginia State Library, 
1960. 53p. 

T h e book trade has been, in effect, vic-
timized by its own success in spreading the 
desire for learning. For four hundred years 
after the first printers learned how to multi-
ply the supply of books the demand for 
paper remained in uneasy equilibrium with 
the supply. Difficulties were never completely 
surmounted, and there are constant reports 
of paper shortages produced by economic 
warfare, priatical cutting of trade routes, 
governmentally sponsored attempts to seduce 
the paper-makers from traditional loyalties, 
or officially approved armed intervention. 
Linen rags were in such short supply that 
sumptuary laws forbade the use of linen 
burial clothes, and even the linen wrappings 

of Egyptian mummies were requisitioned by 
certain ingenious paper-makers. Major works 
of scholarship were delayed or abandoned for 
lack of paper, or published only after gov-
ernmental privilege permitted duty-free pa-
per. But however scarce or expensive the 
paper was, its permanence was not in ques-
tion: quality varied widely, and yet not only 
the best but essentially all good paper, made 
from linen and gelatine-sized, seems likely 
to be able to outlast our civilization. 

One hundred years ago the revolution 
came with unexpected speed. T h e power 
press and the public's rapidly increasing 
literacy combined to make ever-larger edi-
tions both feasible and necessary, and linen 
rags could never have supplied the paper now 
demanded by daily newspapers, comic books, 
paper backs, and popular magazines. Had 
technological change come in a different 
sequence, the principal raw material might 
have become cotton; but the development of 
the sulphite process and rosin-alum sizing 
turned the field over to wood-pulp, leaving 
to rags only the non-expanding field of ex-
pensive hand-made paper. 

When book papers are made by the acid 
sulphite process, preservation becomes im-
possible. T h e book trade was driven by the 
inexorable presures of demand and costs to 
turn almost entirely to wood-pulp papers, 
and it ought in fairness to be reiterated that 
the publishers were not the initiators but 
the victims of these pressures. Librarians 
have been forced to stand idly by as their 
collections ceased to be printed on ageless 
linen paper and even books planned for 
permanent record were almost universally 
printed on the only available paper, made of 
alum-sized chemical wood-pulp. (Only one 
incidental reference is made in these two re-
ports to the added hazard of library climates 
in American cities.) 

Because of the enthusiasm of Mr. Barrow, 
the support of Mr. Church, and the vision of 
the Ford Foundation through its Council on 
Library Resources, the Virginia State Library 
has spent three years in a systematic attempt 
to learn what can be done within the limits 
prescribed by technology and economics. T h e 
first step, to certify that books printed on 
wood-pulp paper deteriorate, was perhaps 
necessary to convince doubting industrialists 
and perhaps artistically attractive to establish 
the validity of carefully controlled experi-

310 C O L L E G E A N D R E S E A R C H L I B R A R I E S