Reprinted from the LIBRARY JOURNAL for May 15, 1923.
N what I shall have to say about responsi-
bilities in the extension service of univer-
sity libraries, I shall base my observations.
on the Library Extension Service of the Uni-
versity of Michigan. That service I know per-
sonally and intimately. It is always better, I
feel, to be concrete and specific, even in the
discussion of principles. Hence I do not apolo-
gize for drawing on our experience at Michi-
gan-rather I count myself fortunate that we
have had the rich experience of six years on
which to draw.
Some Responsibilities of University Library
Extension Service*
BY WILLIAM WARNER BISHOP
Librarian of the University of Michigan
To begin with-we have certain very definite
responsibilities to the University Library. That
Library exists primarily for the use of mem-
bers of the University in Ann Arbor. It is
not a state library in the sense that it was
founded and is carried on with the aim and
purpose of supplying books to the State of
Michigan. The Library of the University exists
for and in the University. It has been gathered
with the needs of instruction and research in
the University very definitely in view. Its chief
mission is the direct service of both instruction
and research. So far as other work can be
carried on without seriously hindering or in-
terfering with the primary purpose of the Uni-
versity Library, well and good. But no pro-
posal to scatter the University Library about
the State of Michigan could for a moment be
entertained by the Librarian of the University.
Inter-library loans we do have and we lend
very freely, and we shall continue to lend to li-
braries. Every effort is made to co-operate with
other libraries and with scholars resident in the
state, in neighboring states and in the Province
of Ontario. But the University Library as such
can not become a circulating library of interest-
ing books for citizens of the State. By so
doing it would necessarily cease to be a univer-
sity library. Fortunately we have in the State
Library at Lansing an institution prepared to
do an increasingly large circulation and travel-
ing library service to the State. It has funds
Michigan
Paper read before the A. L. A. University Library
ension Round Table at its meeting at Hot Springs,
Kansas, April 25, 1923.
U
University Library
Library Science Library
rather meagre at the present, but still a spe-
cific provision for carrying on just this sort
of work. Our responsibility toward the Univer-
sity demands that we render the best service
we can with material other than the staple books
and journals composing the University Library.
Hence we have organized our Library Exten-
sion Service as a separate department of the
Library. It gathers its own stock of all sorts,
pamphlets, journals, clippings, and a very few
books. When its service creates a demand for
books, that demand is referred to our inter-
library loan service, which is separately or-
ganized.
This may seem a wholly negative acceptance
of responsibility. But observe the results of
this attitude. We promptly gather a stock of
materials of the most miscellaneous character
on questions of the day. Being no part of
the Library's regular machinery we are under
no obligations to catalog or otherwise put this
material thru any library process.
We may
scrap parts of it whenever we want to-and we
do. We may classify according to the chang-
ing needs of the hour
ing needs of the hour-a truly great privilege.
There is no rigidity, no inflexible schedule, no
card catalog of material-none! Complete lib-
erty results. And even more important are
the new responsibilities which the very success
of our perfectly free development imposes upon
us. These are two. First, we have so much
up-to-date material that we become a welcome
adjunct to the reference work-even occasion-
ally, to the research work of the University.
This development has imposed a very unex-
pected and very welcome burden on the Library
Extension Service. Any moment a librarian, a
student, a professor may appear demanding the
latest bulletin on some phase of public health,
the most recent word on inland waterways, the
last controversial broadside on the wool tariff,
or a play more new than any on the shelves.
The University has discovered in its Library
Extension Service a frequent help in time of
vexation, if not of trouble.

The second responsibility to the University
Library which has come out of the gathering
?
+16
197
*
of separately organized material is the duty
to supply one copy of all valuable pamphlets
and the like, for the purpose of record and
preservation. It is amazing to see how people
will give us stuff which they know will be at
once read and used. We have a duty to pre-
serve such gifts for future use by the historian
of economic conditions. So each pamphlet is
cataloged and classified in due time and course
-and I suppose there are librarians who may
breathe more easily in consequence.
Following our responsibilities to the Univer-
sity itself I should put our duty toward our
colleagues in library work. It is no part of
our plan, nor has it been our practice, to
duplicate the work of other libraries. It is
perfectly possible that people in various towns
may have resorted to our service when they
should have gone to their own public or school
library. We have, however, taken the greatest
care and pains to see that this practice should
not get a start. I think that the testimony of
the librarians of the State of Michigan is prac-
tically unanimous that we are not duplicating
their work or coming into their towns to under-
mine their success. There was some apprehen-
But by a
sion on this score at the outset.
system of carbon copies of letters sent to the
local library when we answered teachers, by
direct effort to refer inquirers to their home
libraries, and by constant vigilance, we have
so far prevented duplication of service and have
built up the most cordial relations with Michi-
gan libraries. A very large share of our daily
mail comes from the smaller public libraries
and from school libraries. Even the larger
libraries have found-as has the University
Library itself, as I have just said that they
could occasionally draw upon our Extension
Service in supplementing their own resources.
And in filling the insatiable demands of school
debaters our combined resources are none too
large. We consider it our business to build up
the use of the local library. Our Extension
Service daily sends people to their home town
libraries for books and magazine articles which
we presume are in those libraries—and we
at the same time send the librarian a note say-
ing that we have so referred them. And we have
gratifying evidence that our care and thought-
fulness in this line are fully recognized and
acknowledged. Moreover we are constantly
sending out propaganda material-much of it
from A. L. A. Headquarters-urging the estab-
lishment of libraries where none exist. For
example, we have sent out a great deal of mate-
rial on county libraries. We have in constant
circulation pamphlets on how to use libraries,
and other material-chiefly in the schools-
on how to conduct libraries. We are doing what
we can to make more libraries, better used
libraries, and better financed libraries in the
State of Michigan. This is one phase of our
responsibilities which we feel most keenly.
Michigan has now no library commission. The
State Library is making heroic efforts with
greatly reduced funds to carry on the late com-
mission's work. We are glad and proud to do
our share in the only way which is open to us.
By far the largest part of our Library Ex-
tension Service is rendered to the schools of
the state. The Service was established as a
direct result of an appeal from the State Super-
intendent of Public Instruction to the Director
of the Extension Service and to the Librarian
of the University. We are in constant touch
with practically all the High Schools in the
state, chiefly in aid of their work in debate,
altho we also furnish much material to assist
rhetoric work, and supply assistance to drama-
tics, etc. The Extension Service is the chief
source of material for the work of the High
School Debating League. You are doubtless
more familiar than I with the work of such
leagues and with the whole problem of debate
material. At the outset we were forced to face
a responsibility from an educational standpoint
for this debate work. The University of Michi-
gan has maintained a very close relation with
the schools of the state. Teachers and superin-
tendents turn almost instinctively toward Ann
Arbor for aid and counsel. We draw our stu-
dents chiefly from the high schools of Michigan.
We could not, if we would, ignore our respon-
sibility for standards, for encouraging sound
methods. And so the question of what form.
and kind of material should be furnished de-
baters in high schools had to be settled in the
light, not only of our possible resources, but of
educational policies and standards.
-
At the very beginning we determined-and
we have seen no reason to regret our decision
-that we would send out material advocating
both sides of any chosen question. Moreover
we decided not to arrange, digest (or pre-
digest), or summarize the arguments and facts
on either side. We believe most firmly that the
educational value of debate work lies in forcing
students to weigh and marshall arguments as
well as present them effectively. Merely to re-
peat considerations and conclusions on a cer-
tain side of a certain topic is to reduce debat-
ing to training in elocution. We send out
original data arguments, speeches, propaganda
material-but on both sides of the question. It
remains for the students to form their opinions,
to arrange their own arguments, to learn ho
to use the data in an effective way.
We wou

not do this work for them under any circum-
stances. True, we compile a sketchy brief, show-
ing how both sides may possibly present their
arguments; but there we stop. We feel that
we are doing a real service to a boy when we
give him Mr. Gompers' and Governor Allen's
speeches on the Industrial Court, for example,
and thus force him to use them in framing his
own arguments and conclusions.
Of course,
this method of work presupposes that we can
supply the material on both sides. But so far
we have been very successful in securing an
abundance of printed arguments and articles.
I believe that this is a vital matter. I have
seen it from the angles of the teacher, the libra-
rian, and the parent of a boy-debater. I would
rather my boy would present an argument of
his own, however crude, based on his own study
and reflection, than have him recite, however
glibly and effectively, a speech or an argument
prepared in advance for him. Train him early
to weigh arguments, to recognize partisan pre-
sentation, to understand what propaganda is,
and you have gone far to make him a discrimin-
ating and reflecting citizen. Any other method
can be justified only by lack of original mate-
rial. So far we have been able to overcome
that difficulty—but only by hard work and much
ingenuity.
And that leads me to speak of the respon-
sibility of the Library Extension Service to
be impartial. It makes no possible difference
what one's own convictions are-material on
both sides of a question must be gathered and
presented. But here comes in the always thorny
question of propaganda material. We are all
of us weary of it, I doubt not. We are waking
up to the fact that its prevalence is one of the
worst legacies of the war. Our attitude is this:
We shall accept and circulate propaganda mate-
rial on two conditions. It must be decent and
reasonably dignified; and we must have at least
some material on the other side as a counter-
irritant. Scurrilous and silly stuff we simply
decline to use, of course. But straightforward
and plain presentation of a cause or an argu-
ment, even when we regard it as futile, we are
willing to accept. We generally find enough
on the other side so that we can safely send out
both. This decision implies constant vigilance
and sound judgment. We have only once been
accused of partisanship; that was early in our
work when we answered an urgent appeal for
material on commission form of government and
sent seven pamphlets advocating it to one op-
posing. The percentage represented faithfully
our holdings at the time. But the clergyman
who bitterly accused us of being "strong for
mission government" taught us a lesson. We
ot sin that way any more. If we can sup-
ply material on one side only, we say so very
pointedly in transmitting it.
Another responsibility under which we work
is our duty to the teachers, especially those
working in the smaller high schools in cities and
towns with inadequate library facilities. Let
me repeat that the relation between the teachers
and the University is very close and intimate.
Every spring the Michigan Schoolmasters Club
meets in Ann Arbor. Most of the high school
teachers of Michigan are graduates of the Uni-
versity. The Library Extension Service has
come into relations amounting to intimacy with
scores and even hundreds of teachers. Chiefly
their need is for bibliographical aid, for direc-
tion to sources of supply, for materials to use
in their classes. They want to know all sorts
of things—many things indeed which no one
could tell them. But it is to teachers in towns
without good libraries and good book-stores,
teachers who wish earnestly to get and use new
and fresh materials, who are conscious that
they do not know where to turn to get what
they need, that we address our aid. Much of
this aid is by direct correspondence. A part
is furnished by packages of pamphlets, such
as courses of study, aid to teaching various sub-
jects, methods of presentation, and the like.
The requests for direct bibliographical aid are
constantly increasing. They want to know what
books to buy for their high school libraries and
what plays to choose for representation. We
have come to regard it as a very real and press-
ing duty to gather reading lists, for example.
I believe that we circulate more copies of sound
and well-selected reading lists than many library
commissions tho here I speak under correc-
tion.
I am accustomed to regard this responsibility
to the teachers of the state as one of our fun-
damental obligations. We have established this
confidential and intimate relation in six years
without having deliberately started out to do
it at all. We have all the resources of the
University-not of the Library alone-at our
command to help us respond rightly to these
appeals. We called up the day this paragraph
was written a professor of chemistry, a pro-
fessor of hygiene and a professor of English,
for instance, to aid in answering inquiries re-
ceived in the morning's mail. We find that
the teachers resort to us in larger numbers each
year. Principals and superintendents of schools
are regularly found on our list of inquirers.
And the expressions of thanks we receive from
all sorts of teachers are most gratifying. What
started in strictly as a by-product of the library
extension service has become one of its chief
functions. We hope that we are daily perform-
ing what one of my old friends used to regard

-
as the chief function of a teacher. Said he,
"The teacher's main business is to render him-
self unnecessary to the pupil at the earliest
possible moment." By bringing teachers into
touch with sources of information we may in
time remove the necessity for this form of ser-
vice.
And lastly, we have a definite responsibility
to the rural portions of our state, to those parts
without library service. Here again, we make
not attempt to duplicate the work of other agen-
cies. We have enough to do and to spare-
without such folly. But there is plenty of work
of a pioneer sort remaining to be done, par-
ticularly in Michigan where county library
service has only begun. Books cannot, as yet,
be sent to every country home where they are
wanted, as they can to most city homes. But
the rural mail carrier goes to thousands of
places where no public library service goes. And
our extension service material goes with him in
an ever increasing amount. Here, too, we await
inquiry. But we gather material which will be
of use to grange lecturers, to public health or-
ganizations, to country schools and to school
officers, and so on. We are in direct touch with
most of the county superintendents of schools,
and with many rural organizations. We get
letters daily from grange secretaries, from pub-
lic health nurses, from isolated country school
teachers. Strange work for a University Libra-
ry, some good folk may think. But here is the
need, here is the material, here is the service.
This responsibility too, we have come to feel,
not as the result of theory, but as an outgrowth
of our actual work. And we have come to feel it
very keenly and deeply. We propose to keep on
at this service, unless the State makes provision
for it thru some other agency. I for one, feel that
if I can help the country boy who tramps a
couple of miles to school in a Michigan winter
to grapple more intelligently with the problems
which will confront him as a voter when a
few years have rolled 'round, then I have done
a distinct service to my state. Any librarian
who can travel thru the remoter parts of our
state and not feel the call to furnish library
service to isolated homes is more cold-blooded
and indifferent than any of us here. And just
so long as we can do a small part in providing
such service we expect to keep at it.
These are a few of the responsibilities which
we had to face in planning our library exten-
sion work at Michigan. They have given di-
rection to that service as we have developed it.
Because we believe they are real obligations
we have founded the extension work and are
carrying it on. The work is growing almost
too rapidly. We have not yet begun to sound
its possibilities of usefulness. And we feel that
it is a form of public service which the Univer-
sity of Michigan can render without going be-
yond the bounds of its legitimate work as a
state university. We have never advertised this
work except by the most simple circular an-
nouncements. It has reached its present pro-
portions because it met a real need in a vital
way. We shall never indulge in propaganda
for it, nor seek to force it on anyone. Indeed
our entire time is taken up in a struggle to keep
abreast of the present demands. But because
we do our work from a slightly different angle
than that of many of our neighbors, I have felt
that you might welcome this exposition of the
principles which have guided us.
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
3 9015 04155 4786