College and Research Libraries


By CHARLOTTE GEORGI 

An Experiment in Library Instruction 
For Business Students 

T HERE IS SMALL doubt in the minds of many educators that students are en­
tering the universities today inadequate­
ly prepared in the skil~s dema~de_d by 
so-called higher education. This Is an 
immediate dilemma. There is no need 
to explore students' past histories to dis­
cover reasons for this situation. The fact 
is present and must be solved in the 
present and very near future for and by 
these students. 

One of the skills needed by the um­
versity student is a working knowledge 
of the research library and its tools. Too 
few students seem to have come from 
high schools with libraries of any size, or 
if they have, they show little evidence of 
having learned basic library procedures. 
Most college and university libraries 
therefore have some plan of instruction 
in necessary techniques for entering stu­
dents. At the University of North Caroli­
na during the orientation periods at the 
beginning of the semester, freshmen are 
given a series of two lectures plus prac­
tical assignments covering the content of 
these classes. 

\Vhile this instruction is all to the 
good, it has been my experience as the li­
brarian of a special collection that by the 
time the student enters the School of 
Business Administration as a junior, he 
has forgotten independent library proce­
dures either because of total disuse or 
because of the somewhat doubtful bless­
ings of the efficient reserve book system. 
The ultimate shock in this area was the 
case of the graduate student who came in 

Miss Georgi is Business Administra­
tion Librarian) University of North Car­
olina. 

despairingly seeking aid in writing the 
first term paper of her entire academic 
career for a seminar assignment! 

An accumulation of such experiences 
with confused, befuddled, and sometimes 
rather desperate students led the writer 
to devise some methods to impart essen­
tial knowledge of library tools and use. 
Thanks to the professor teaching the 
graduate course in bibliography and r~­
search methods for the Master of Busi­
ness Administration program, I was 
given both my start and my inspiration. 
He invited me to give a series of two or 
three lectures on the use of the business 
library and its materials to his class of 
graduate students. Not knowing exa~tly 
what was needed or wanted, some mim­
eographed pages of explanations ~nd 
bibliographies, which have been smce 
revised, were prepared and used as a ba­
sis for subsequent developments of teach­
ing materials. 

The first page of data prepared ~as 
concerned with the most elementary In­
formation: the card catalog, the index 
services, the Dewey classification sched­
ules most used by business and economics 
students, a brief list of books on business 
information and reference tools, and 
mention of other collections in the li­
brary having relevant materials, the Doc­
uments Department and the North Car­
olina Room. This has proved to be a 
good outline for a basic lecture assuming 
that the student knows almost nothing 
about a research library. This, together 
with a brief tour to the various parts of 
the Business Administration and Eco­
nomics Library and a copy of the sixteen 
page University of North Carolina gen-

MAY 1958 221 



eral Library Handbook describing the 
entire library system, proves to be an 
effective, if routine, introductory talk. 

The second page, entitled "General 
Source Tools for Business and Econom­
ics Reference Data," is divided into four 
sections: Directories and Registers; Dic­
tionaries and Encyclopedias; Handbooks, 
Almanacs, and Guides; Magazines, News­
papers, and Publications. This goes on 
to describe the essential tools which 
should be known to business and eco­
nomics students, such as Thomas' Reg­
ister of American Manufacturers, the 
Poor's Register of Directors and Exec­
utives, the Economic Almanac, etc. This 
forms the basis of the second lecture. 

These two lectures are offered to stu­
dents entering the School of Business 
Administration and who are enrolled in 
the basic courses. They are followed by 
a twenty-five question true-false assign­
ment involving actual examination of 
the various tools and techniques de­
scribed and discussed. This paper can 
be graded and corrected quickly and 
sent to the professor of the students in­
volved. 

There is nothing compulsory about 
this program. Professors are invited, on 
an optional basis, to make arrangements 
to bring their classes, during regular 
class hours, to the library for these lec­
tures, These two lectures are given to 
students in the basic courses required of 
business administration majors. For ad­
vanced students in the special fields, ad­
ditional materials have been prepared 
for discussions aiming at their individ­
ual needs. 

For this purpose a third section of 
mimeographed pages is available, "Sug­
gested Reference Tools in Specific Areas 
of Economics and Business Administra­
tion." In this, brief bibliographies of rec­
ommended reference tools are given in 
fourteen fields: accounting, advertising 
and sales, banking and finance, business 
administration and organization, foreign 

trade, industrial production, insurance, 
investments, labor relations, marketing, 
personnel and industrial relations, real 
estate, taxation, and transportation. In 
addition, two other pages have been pre­
pared, "Recommended Government Pub­
lications for Economics and Business Re­
search," and "Finance-Investments: Spe­
cific Company Data; Advisory and Fore­
casting Services." 

From time to time, students and fac­
ulty are interested in knowing what titles 
are available in inexpensive editions. 
This demand has given rise to still 
more mimeographed sheets, "Paperbound 
Books in Business and Economics: A 
Bibliography." This is revised annually 
and the latest edition includes fifteen 
categories: accounting, advertising-mar­
keting, business, economics, insurance, 
labor, law, mathematics-statistics, money­
banking-corporation finance, personnel, 
philosophy, real estate, reference, short­
hand and typing, transportation. To 
date, this has proved to be more popular 
in farther fields. About two hundred 
copies have been sent out to public, col­
lege and university, high school, govern­
ment, and special company libraries. 

All in all, over fifty lectures have been 
given to a total of over six hundred stu­
dents during the past year, all of whom 
were brought to the Business Admin­
istration and Economics Library during 
regular class hours at the option of their 
instructors. At present, this type of in­
struction is not a regular part of the 
business curriculum. The results? No ef­
fort has yet been made to assess them sci­
entifically. The general impression is 
that students get to know where the 
Business Administration Library is, that 
they realize certain information can be 
located by the use of certain tools, and, 
above all, they know that if they forget 
just what does what, there is someone 
there trained to help them. We are sat­
isfied that this is one small step in the 
right direction. 

COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES 222