College and Research Libraries


By R U T H E. N E W M A N AND I R A J . P E S K I N D 

Reading Programs and the 
Junior College Library* 

Miss Newman is director of Reading 
Program, and Mr. Pes kind, assistant librar-
ian and audio-visual director, 4 Wright 
Junior College, Chicago. 

CO O P E R A T I O N between the library and the academic departments in a junior 
college is essential to the most effective 
functioning of both groups. W h e n a new 
program or course is established it is gener-
ally recognized that the library has the 
responsibility for providing appropriate 
services and materials. In the case of a 
newly instituted reading program, the 
library has additional obligations of its own. 
A library is, among other things, a center of 
reading materials and a place to read. T h e 
library, informally or otherwise, has an in-
herent interest in reading and in all of the 
problems concerned with reading. T h e 
W r i g h t Junior College Library is very 
much involved in the growth of the reading 
program as it is believed that academic 
library personnel should be constantly 
aware of the reading problems of students, 
and participate as fully as possible in their 
solution. In many institutions the library 
and reading programs are very effectively 
integrated. T h e example with which we 
shall primarily concern ourselves is an in-
stance of such cooperation. It may be 
noted that the term reading program is used 
to designate any formal arrangement within 
institutions of any variety which provides 

* Paper given at A C R L Junior College Libraries Sec-
tion meeting, Feb. 5, 1953, Chicago. 

training by which individuals may become 
more efficient readers. 

W h e n the reading program first came 
upon the scene in higher education many 
persons saw it only as a tool to help the 
student who was seriously retarded in the 
development of a fundamental skill. Now, 
in many instances, reading programs have 
been formulated with the purpose of serving 
all the students at their current reading 
levels. At W r i g h t Junior College in 
Chicago there is such a program. W r i g h t 
is a two-year public college where students 
follow terminal studies and also prepare for 
work on a more advanced academic level. 
W r i g h t is also a community college. As an 
aspect of community service a course in 
Reading Improvement is offered as a part 
of the Adult Education program. Another 
similar but extended service is available to 
persons who are enrolled in the Police 
Training Program. 

T h e r e is a three-level reading service for 
regular students. Attention to individual 
reading problems is given in Reading 
Workshops which are non-credit groups. 
Materials which are used in this work are 
selected in accordance with the students' 
current reading level. A course in Devel-
opmental Reading is designed to serve the 
average student reader. Here, the material 
is all on college level since two hours credit 
is given for this course. T h e Analytical 
Reading course provides challenging read-
ing situations for students who are already 
excellent readers. Reading matter in this 

OCTOBER, 1953 393 -



course is selected from the areas of general 
education: sciences, social sciences, and the 
humanities. Some mechanical equipment 
such as tachistoscopes and reading accel-
erators is incorporated into the reading 
program in various ways in accordance with 
the objectives of the courses and needs of 
the students. 

An academic library should be prepared 
to provide materials and services for all 
courses and phases of the curriculum. If a 
reading program is started in a school, the 
library is obligated to provide for it much in 
the same way that it would for a new 
course in English, chemistry, or in history. 
At the very beginning, existing resources 
should be examined for their applicability 
and usefulness to the new reading courses. 
If present facilities in the library cannot 
handle the new situations, then the guiding 
rule should be that new materials and 
services must be provided to meet the 
situation. 

A f t e r one semester of an experimental 
reading program in the non-credit adult 
education evening classes at W r i g h t Junior 
College, it was decided that a complete 
reading program should be initiated for the 
entire college. At the very beginning, the 
reading instructors conferred with the li-
brarian to make known the needs of the new 
program. T h e librarian then proceeded to 
organize library resources to aid the read-
ing instructors and students. 

In the organizational set-up of the library 
at W r i g h t , the librarian is in charge of pro-
fessional reading resources for the faculty 
as well as the library staff. T o accom-
modate the new reading program, the librar-
ian began a systematic search through books, 
periodical articles, newspaper accounts, and 
other materials of value for the reading 
instructors. T h i s information of a profes-
sional nature is sent to the instructors as a 

part of the library's program of service to 
the faculty. 

An assistant librarian is assigned to be in 
charge of supplies which are used by 
reading students. T h i s librarian scans book 
catalogs, lists, trade bibliographies, and 
other sources to find reading materials 
which are graded and texts that are specif-
ically designed for remedial reading or are 
otherwise well suited to the W r i g h t reading 
program. 

T h i s concern for appropriate materials 
has led to a certain amount of reorientation 
in book selection procedures. T h e student 
with reading difficulties was recognized and 
accepted for the first time and adjustments 
were accordingly made in the book collec-
tions. An example of an adjustment to 
reading has occurred at the request of the 
reading instructors themselves when the 
World Book Encyclopedia was added to the 
reference collection. Other reference 
works of a simplified nature were acquired 
to meet the needs of students who, although 
they have difficulties in reading, may be very 
intelligent and serious about their studies. 
Evaluation and change in book selection has 
occurred as a result of the new reading con-
sciousness of teaching departments in the 
junior college. Requests for books from 
departments now typically contain a few 
books of excellent quality which are geared 
at lower levels of reading difficulty. 

All the departments of the library have 
been drawn into the reading program in one 
respect or another. T h e reference librarian 
and the cataloger-order librarian both 
assume responsibilities for reading materials 
just as they do for other materials. As the 
W r i g h t Library has a rather well-developed 
audio-visual section, it, too, is integrated 
into the reading program. Reading accel-
erators are housed in the library adjacent to 
the audio-visual room and convenient to 

394 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES 



electrical outlets and supervision by the 
audio-visual librarian. Students are as-
signed by the reading instructors to use the 
accelerators on an individual basis. T h e r e 
is a special collection of books on the tables 
with the accelerators and recommended for 
use with them. These books were chosen 
by the reading instructors for their reading 
content and have word counts in them so 
that rates on the accelerators can be imme-
diately determined by the students without 
computation. 

T h e audio-visual department also pro-
vides mechanical maintenance for the accel-
erators as well as for the tachistoscopes, 
ophthalmographs, and other devices used in 
the reading classes. T h e library dispatches 
student operators to deliver this equipment 
to instructors so that it is set up and ready 
for immediate use. T h e reading instructors 
and the audio-visual librarian work very 
closely together to work out problems 
involving technical equipment and audio-
visual materials. 

Though the library has already adapted 

its resources and abilities to the new reading 
program, it plans to expand its services. As 
the reading program becomes more exten-
sive, the library services will undoubtedly 
become greater and more varied to meet the 
new demands of the program. T h e library 
has formulated plans for increased reading 
activities including a separate area for 
reading students which will be equipped 
with accelerators, special books, materials, 
and other devices. 

T h e school or college library will prob-
ably make its greatest contribution to the 
expanded interest in reading by performing 
its usual function of directly integrating 
itself with the teaching program. W h e n 
new courses, workshops and other curric-
ulums concerned with reading are insti-
tuted, the academic library will play a role 
as important as those which it plays in tradi-
tional courses and academic activities. 
Only by constantly adapting itself to school 
and college needs, can the library continue 
to perform its basic educational function. 

Prompt Payment of Bookdealers' Invoices 
(Continued from page 392) 

ards depends upon the incorporation of a 
tolerance factor. Standards might then be 
stated in some such terms as these: "If a 
university library processes 85% of all in-
voices within ten days and the remainder 
within a month, its performance may be 
adjudged highly satisfactory." 

Conclusion 
Implicit throughout this discussion is the 

premise that promptness in processing pay-
ment for library materials is essential to the 
maintenance of strong, cordial relationships 
between dealers and libraries. Motivated by 
a desire to promote mutual understanding 
between partners in an enterprise of con-
siderable importance to academic communities, 
an attempt has been made to explore the 

possibility of constructing standards acceptable 
to both. 

An analysis of Columbia University Li-
braries' performance in this area indicates that 
the standards tentatively evolved may be 
applicable to a majority of university libraries 
in the U.S. Their general applicability and 
adoption, however, must wait upon reports 
of library investigations other than the one 
reported here. 

A separate analysis of invoices requiring 
longer than ten days to process suggests (1) 
that dealers' expectations do not take fully 
into account certain factors which are not 
subject to effective control, and (2) that the 
practicability of any adopted standards de-
pends upon the incorporation of a realistic 
tolerance factor. 

OCTOBER, 1953 395 -