College and Research Libraries


By ROSE Z. SELLERS and A N T O I N E T T E C I O L L I 

A College Library Reports on Its 

Freshman Lecture Program 

FOR T H E P A S T F I F T E E N Y E A R S all fresh-men taking English 1 at Brooklyn 
College have had one of their class peri-
ods in composition devoted to a lecture 
on bibliographic procedure, given in the 
library by librarians. Since the library, 
now arranged by form, is to reorganize 
on a subject division basis this year when 
its extension is completed, and will then 
reconsider its orientation program, this 
appears to be a good time for stock-tak-
ing on current practice. 

First, a word about our institution and 
students. Brooklyn College is a liberal 
arts college, municipally supported, with 
a full-time day session student body of 
approximately eight thousand and a sim-
ilar number in the School of General 
Studies. Approximately two thousand of 
the latter are matriculated for the bac-
calaureate degree. T h e students are, for 
the most part, the product of the city's 
high schools, and must have received an 
84 per cent high school average to be 
eligible for admission. In addition to be-
ing selected, bright, students, most of 
them come to the college with some 
background in the use of a library, since 
one of the questions on the English 
"Regents" examination (required in all 
New York State secondary schools) deals 
with this subject, and they are there-
fore given instruction along these lines. 

Our library orientation program con-

Mrs. Sellers is Associate Librarian and 
Miss Ciolli is a member of the Reference 
Department at Brooklyn College. 

sists of two parts—a tour and a lecture. 
T h e former is under the supervision of 
the director of admissions and takes 
place during Freshman Orientation 
Week. T h e entering freshmen tour the 
campus under the guidance of upper 
classmen and visit the library in the 
course of their rounds. T h e supervisor 
of the library's freshman lecture program 
briefs the student guides and provides 
them with outlines. 

T h e lecture, which is, as indicated, a 
one-period activity,1 aims to accomplish 
two purposes: acquaint the students with 
the physical organization of the library, 
particularly those aspects which are 
peculiar to Brooklyn College (e.g., the 
divided catalog, arrangement of mate-
rials by form, separate housing of bound 
and current periodicals); and drill them 
in the fundamental procedures to be 
followed in searching for data for a term 
paper. 

T h e following points are covered: 

I. Brief statistics about the collection and 
introduction to library organization 

II. The Catalog 
A. Author-Title Section 

1. Kinds of authorship 
2. Title as secondary entry 
3. Title as main entry 

B. Subject Section 
1. Person as subject 
2. Subdivisions 

JA period in the School of General Studies lasts 
seventy-five minutes instead of the usual fifty. Since 
the evening student is less apt to use the library than 
his day counterpart, the extra time is used for a 
brief tour of the stacks and reference room. 

474 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES 



C. Unit Card System 
D. Cross References 

III. Bibliographies and Indexes 
IV. Reference Books 
V. Sample bibliography 

VI. Helps for the student 
A. Reference advisory service 
B. Brooklyn College handbooks and 

bibliographies 

T h e lecture is illustrated with slides 
made to our specifications. Included 
among them are floor plan sketches, cat-
alog cards, and pages from various ref-
erence tools. Questions are permitted as 
each item is covered and again at the 
end of the lecture. A copy of the library's 
student handbook2 is distributed to each 
student after the lecture for review pur-
poses. T h e follow-up, formerly a prob-
lem sheet worked out in the library, 
was changed to an examination after it 
became clear that the former had be-
come a "co-operative effort." 

T h e examination, a short-answer type,3 
given approximately one week after the 
lecture to give the students an opportu-
nity to prepare for it, is composed lay the 
library's reference division and revised 
each year. It seeks to discover whether 
the students can identify the items on a 
standard author catalog card and the 
items in a typical Readers' Guide to 
Periodical Literature entry; can compre-
hend the general purpose of such refer-
ence tools as the Cambridge Bibliog-
raphy of English Literature, the Diction-
ary of American Biography, the Diction-
ary of National Biography, the Educa-
tion Index, the Essay and General Lit-
erature Index, the Harvard Guide to 
American History, Murray's New Eng-
lish Dictionary, the New York Times In-
dex, and Who's Who in America; and, 
finally, whether they are familiar with 

2"Clue to the Resources and Services of Brooklyn 
College Library, 1957." 

3Sample copies of these tests may be obtained from 
the authors. 

the physical organization of the library 
and its rules and procedures. 

In the seven semesters between the fall 
of 1954 and the fall of 1957, 520 English 
sections heard the lecture and took the 
test. Of these, 4,276 papers from 189 sec-
tions of English were analyzed, and a 
tabulation made of the questions which 
yielded the largest number of incorrect 
responses. Consistently the item posing 
the greatest difficulty was periodical 
material—how to look up subjects in the 
indexes and in the catalog, how to locate 
specific issues, how to distinguish be-
tween current and bound volumes—in 
fact, every aspect but interpretation of 
the entry in the index. T h e latter is ap-
parently one of the items that has been 
drilled to the point of recall in the high 
school library lessons. 

T h e second most troublesome area was 
found to be reference tools. T h e students 
fell down on such questions as which 
reference book among a choice would 
best supply information on Raleigh, 
Swift, and Caxton, the importance and 
location of the index volume of the En-
cyclopaedia Britannica, the period cov-
ered by Poole's Index to Periodical Lit-
erature, etc. 

T h e catalog was the third obstacle. 
T h e fact that ours is divided into au-
thor-title and subject sections takes some 
time to sink in, but in addition the 
freshmen had trouble with the filing sys-
tem, the author as subject (they in-
dicated that they would look in the au-
thor-title catalog for books about Con-
rad), and the listing of main entry cards 
for periodicals. Fourth among the stum-
bling blocks were location questions— 
where the New York Times is kept, what 
floor the pamphlet file is on, where to 
charge books and periodicals taken from 
the stacks. 

Aside from the entire area of period-
ical materials, then, it appears that the 
questions presenting the most difficulty 
are either tools new to the beginning 

NO V EMBER 1959 475 



college student (e.g., the Education In-
dex, Poole's Index to Periodical Litera-
ture, the Dictionary of National Biog-
raphy, and the Dictionary of American 
Biography), or elements of service and 
organization peculiar to Brooklyn Col-
lege. 

As far as the four difficult areas are 
concerned, the fourth group does not 
give us any concern because it is simply 
a question of time before the students 
know their way about. T h e other three 
problem areas are taken care of through 
the individual help available at all desks 
where librarians are on duty. At the 
reference desk, in addition, special ad-
visory service for students working on 
term papers is provided. 

On the cheerful side, it is plain that 
little difficulty is experienced by the stu-
dents in such areas as: interpreting the 
items on catalog card and in a typical 
Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature 
entry; comprehending the general pur-
pose of such simple reference tools as 
Who's Who, the New English Diction-
ary, the New York Times Index; know-
ing where in the library to find teaching 
aids, government publications, and re-
serve books. 

D o we feel the lecture is helpful? W e 
emphatically do. Thanks to the fact that 
several of the lecturers work at public 
service desks (reference, education, 
periodicals and documents, and circula-
tion) we are in a strategic position to 
judge the results. It is very easy to tell a 
freshman who has not had the lecture 
from one who has had that benefit. T h e 
latter will, if he doesn't know anything 
else, know how to phrase his question-—-
a skill that appears to be lacking before 
the fifty-minute exposure to lecture and 
slides. 

T h a t the faculty members are in 
agreement with us about the program 
was proved when a Ford Foundation 
grant made available a study of the 
English courses in the new curriculum. 

W e had switched the lecture from the 
first term to the second, but the seminar 
studying the course offerings considered 
that the objectives of the elementary 
course would be better served if the 
students received the lecture in the first 
term rather than the second. T o quote 
from the report: " T h e students them-
selves have voiced the feeling that they 
need the guidance provided by the li-
brary lecture much sooner than the 
spring of their freshman year. W e all 
find the library lectures especially valu-
able, and want them as close to the be-
ginning of the year's work as is feasible." 

Furthermore, requests for the lecture 
have also come from instructors in voca-
tional studies programs, whose students, 
since they are not enrolled in the same 
freshman English courses as those of-
fered students matriculated for a bac-
calaureate degree, are not ordinarily 
scheduled to receive a lecture. 

T h o u g h we feel confident that we 
are on the right path, we do not feel 
satisfied with the program as it is at 
present. W e know that fifty minutes is 
insufficient for adequate coverage of all 
the necessary information and skills. 
Unfortunately, we cannot afford to give 
more time with the present staff. Ours 
is a small one (twenty-five professionals, 
two of whom are Fellows) for the number 
of students and the type of service given. 
In order for the lectures to reach the 
ninety-five sections of freshman English 
without overburdening any one person, 
ten librarians participate in the program. 
All the departments (including acquisi-
tion and catalog) are represented among 
the ten, and even now the time devoted 
to this project (lecturing, briefing meet-
ings) is sometimes a burden to the de-
partments. A second hour cannot, there-
fore, even be considered now. 

W e hope, however, that the library ex-
tension will mean more librarians, which 
in turn will mean more hours for lec-
tures. 

476 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES