College and Research Libraries By G E O R G E H . S A B I N E The Library in the Educational Institution1 NO ONE questions the proposition that the library occupies a central position in any educational institution, whether it be a great university, with thousands of under- graduate students and hundreds of potential scholars and scientists in its graduate school, or a small undergraduate college. T h e treasures of the literary arts, the k n o w l e d g e of man's past and the moral and social achievements of his civilization, the ac- counts of discovery and of scientific investi- gation, are recorded and preserved f o r the most part in books. Education consists in no small degree in making each rising gen- eration aware of what has been felt and thought and discovered by the generations that have preceded it, and while no really vital education can content itself merely with this task of conserving w h a t has been done in the past, every n e w step that men make into the future must take its beginning f r o m the recorded achievements of the arts and sciences. T h i s dependence upon the spoken and the written w o r d is indeed the chief mark w h i c h distinguishes man f r o m all the other crea- tures of the w o r l d . It is this alone w h i c h enables him to create and possess a culture. O t h e r animals learn by observation and by imitation, but the learning of an animal, stored in the skilled adjustments of his nerves and his muscles, dies with him, and each successive generation begins again at the place where the preceding generation began and acquires in its lifetime only the 1 A d d r e s s at the l i b r a r y supper, K e n y o n College, J u n e i s , 1947. same skill that its predecessors had. L a n - guage, on the other hand, is the great reposi- tory of all the skill and learning of man's past, enabling each n e w generation, if it is wise, to begin where the preceding genera- tion left o f f . T h e linguistic symbol becomes intellectual shorthand f o r years of labor and enables the human learner to by-pass the roundabout learning of trial and error. A n d though the spoken tradition was an instrument of enormous p o w e r , compared with the mental apparatus available to any nonhuman animal, its leverage was lengthened many hundred times by the in- vention of w r i t i n g . T h e alphabet is perhaps some 4 , 0 0 0 years old, and within its life- time is contained the history of all the great civilizations. T h e life of the printed book runs back f o r hardly half a thousand years. W i t h o u t it modern science, modern government, modern social organization, and m o r e especially modern education w o u l d be unthinkable. I t is no mystery that at the center of every modern college and university stands the library. Nevertheless, the library poses f o r every educational institution some very serious practical difficulties. In no small part these difficulties arise f r o m a real embarrassment of riches. W i t h our modern ideals of the collecting and storing of books the ways in are always open and the ways out are always closed. A n d since the production of books goes on at an ever increasing rate, the collection not only g r o w s ever faster but it g r o w s endlessly. It takes only a very elementary calculation in arithmetic to see 3 that this makes an impossible situation, f o r if a number increases w i t h o u t end, no matter h o w slowly it increases, it must at some time exceed any limit you may wish to assign. A n d l o n g before that process pro- duces an arithmetical monstrosity, it w i l l produce a library that no college can afford to house and keep in order. M o r e o v e r , a great portion of such a collection w i l l at all times be obsolete. T h e r e are college libraries that contain an impressive number of volumes, but if the obsolete textbooks, f o r example, w e r e subtracted, the number w o u l d shrink to very modest proportions. Selective Purchasing and Cooperation M y o w n experience as a teacher has been w h o l l y in universities that aimed to support research in a great variety of subjects, and f o r purposes of research, especially in his- torical subjects, many books are n e e d e d — not to mention m a n u s c r i p t s — w h i c h f r o m the point of v i e w of undergraduate instruc- tion are quite useless. Such libraries must number their volumes in the millions. Y e t even here the problem is not solved. F o r if the biggest library w e r e ten times as big as it is, it still could not contain all the books that some scholar might legitimately w a n t to see. T h e day has certainly gone b y — i f there ever was such a d a y — w h e n any library could intelligently aim at bigness or f o l l o w a policy of trying to g r o w equally at all points. If the library services of the c o u n - try could be r a t i o n a l i z e d — w h i c h I fancy is not likely to h a p p e n — t h e line to be f o l l o w e d w o u l d be, first, selective purchas- ing, the development of every library upon some line of specialization appropriate to the institution of w h i c h it is a part, and second, cooperation w i t h other libraries in a system of interlibrary loans by w h i c h o u t - o f - t h e - w a y books might be made available w h e n and where they are needed. Libraries devoted primarily to research, however, are f e w and far between, and, I take it, are not the subject in w h i c h this meeting is chiefly interested. A t the same time I do not believe that w h a t has been so far said has been wasted. T h e problem is the same everywhere and in general the solution is the same e v e r y w h e r e — n a m e l y , a wise and far-seeing selection of purposes and a steady policy of directing one's action into channels marked out by those purposes. In these respects the great research library and the library of an undergraduate college c o n f o r m to the same principle. A n y library, wherever and whatever it is, is a service institution and its activities ought to corre- spond to the service it is intended to render and the needs of the public w h i c h it serves. In this respect the undergraduate college and its library must jointly make up their minds w h a t they intend to do and h o w best to do it. T h e college must decide w h a t it means to teach, w h e r e the emphasis of its teaching falls, w h a t kind of students it has, and w h a t it means to make of them. T h e n the library has to be planned w i t h reference to these purposes of the college. Tfyere is no w a y to decide w h a t kind of library is needed, h o w big it must be, w h e r e it must be strong, and w h e r e it dares to be weak, until one k n o w s w h o w i l l w a n t to use the library and f o r w h a t . T h e first principle is that any library must reflect the educational purposes of the college of w h i c h it is a part. * Need Well-Selected Books It is obvious that w h a t undergraduates need is not many books but well-selected books. A n d while every college w i l l f o l l o w its o w n special bent in the selection, there are t w o rules that w i l l be applicable every- where. Education has always t w o sides: it makes students aware of the achievements of the culture to w h i c h they belong and it fits them to take a part in the present struggles and problems of that culture. Some w o r k a b l e combination of these t w o purposes is the object sought by any college 4 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES curriculum. T h i s affects the library by giving it t w o principles of selection: it must make available g o o d and readable editions of the classics in all the subjects that the college aims to teach, and it must provide the best of the contemporary publications even though these continually become o b - solescent. / W h e t h e r a college directs its teaching especially t o w a r d the humanities, or especially t o w a r d the social studies, or especially t o w a r d the sciences, it w i l l have to make this combination of past and pres- ent. F o r without a present meaning the study of the classics in any subject w i l l become antiquarian or scholastic. But w i t h - out the historical aspects of a subject its present problems have no roots. A n o t h e r rule f o r the library of an under- graduate college is provided by the fact that it aims not merely to offer a service to per- sons w h o are already readers but also to make readers out of boys w h o have not yet f o r m e d the habit. In order to do the latter books must be accessible. N o one can have a very genuine interest in books until he has learned the trick of being intrigued by a title, and w h e n his curiosity has been aroused it needs to be fed at once. Some books at least ought to be where under- graduates can turn them over w i t h o u t the formality of asking f o r them. A l l this makes trouble f o r librarians. Books are put back in the w r o n g places; they are l o s t ; sometimes unhappily they are stolen. T h i s is the part of the price that has to be paid f o r making libraries attractive to students, and the undergraduate library cannot afford not to be attractive. Teach Books Can Be Beautiful T h e r e is one other object that an under- graduate library ought to keep in v i e w . It should first awaken and then keep alive the idea that book-making is an art and that books can be b e a u t i f u l / If a library is f o r t u - nate enough to have the material to furnish a rare book room, w i t h fine specimens of old books or even manuscript books, so m u c h the better. But this, though desirable, is not essential. O u r fully mechanized m o d - ern printing plants can and do turn out beautiful books, and our modern book de- signers have learned to use these mechan- ized processes in ways that are artistically sound. A n d in books more than in most things taste can be made independent of price. T h e hand-printed and highly illustrated book w i l l always sell at a price that makes it a collector's item, but a book turned out in quantity to sell at an ordinary price can still be well designed and well printed. F o r this kind of book g o o d printing and g o o d designing cost little m o r e than bad. T h e r e are f e w articles of c o m m o n use in w h i c h g o o d taste has as free scope as in books, and there are f e w places where taste can be so easily trained as in the appreciation of a g o o d piece of book designing, a g o o d face of type, and a g o o d j o b of printing. T o make students sensitive to such matters is not the least important thing that a college library can do f o r them. In conclusion I shall come back to the point where I began. A college can neglect many things w i t h o u t too much hampering its educational usefulness. B u t its library is one thing that it cannot neglect. F o r at some point every course that it teaches w i l l depend upon its library. Even a quite ele- mentary course taught largely out of a textbook ought still be taught by a teacher w h o is continually reading and studying beyond the limits of any textbook. N o g o o d course at a m o r e advanced level can be taught exclusively out of a textbook. If it be a course in history, it must give to students some conception of sources and the ways in w h i c h historians handle evi- dence. If it be a course in literature, the best that it can do is to stimulate a student to read f o r himself the great books. If it (Continued on page 14.) JANUARY, 1948 5 has so far been chiefly to locate f o r the dele- gations and the Secretariat documents c u r - rently under discussion in the sessions of the various organs of the U n i t e d N a t i o n s — speeches, d r a f t resolutions, reports, and the like, to identify documents referred to or quoted, and to bring together documents dealing w i t h any particular subject. T h e card index files cover a vast range of docu- ments f r o m the San Francisco C o n f e r e n c e , through the Preparatory Commission, the General Assembly, the three councils, and the various commissions and other ad hoc bodies established by the main organs, as w e l l as the circulars and bulletins of the Secretariat. But the efforts of a small staff to establish clues to all this material through cards, indexes, and other devices have left little time f o r publication of up- to-the-minute checklists o r of detailed sub- ject-indexes. G r a d u a l l y , h o w e v e r , the backlog of checklists to documents is being whittled away by the issue of individual checklists to each committee series of the General Assembly f o r 1946. T h e D o c u - ments Index unit also issues at the close of sessions of any organ during 1947, check- lists w h i c h also list under each agenda item the documents submitted concerning it, the records of meetings in w h i c h it was dis- cussed, and the section of the final report concerning the item. T h e s e checklists are themselves processed documents, but it is hoped that before the end of the year the unit w i l l be able to publish this material in its o w n periodic checklist on a sales or sub- scription basis. Summary Note • T h i s survey has been of necessity brief, but it has possibly clarified the picture in some degree, and has suggested some of the documentary questions facing the U n i t e d N a t i o n s and its associated bodies. T h e magnitude of the problem of international documentation demands that the best of technical skill and imagination be employed t o w a r d its solution f o r the benefit of all peoples. T h e cooperation and advice of A m e r i c a n librarians in meeting this chal- lenge w i l l certainly be both w a r m l y w e l - comed and expected. The Library in the Educational Institution (Continued from page 5) be a course in science, it needs a reasonable selection of scientific journals almost as much as it needs its laboratory. A n inade- quate library means crippled instruction everywhere, because it shuts off the sources of information or of inspiration f r o m teach- ers, f r o m students, or f r o m both. A n d apart f r o m f o r m a l instruction, the library properly equipped and managed can be the chief intellectual influence on the campus. 14 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES