College and Research Libraries By R A L P H W . M c C O M B The Professional Organization And Management MY F I R S T O B L I G A T I O N is to explain the title of my remarks. T h e profes- sional organization to which I refer is the University Libraries Section; by man- agement I mean university administra- tion. That the reorganization of A L A has been the cause of some confusion and that we are not very clear as to the func- tion of the University Libraries Section as a section of A C R L have been empha- sized by Mr. Lundy's remarks. Starting from where we are, however, I think we need to consider what plans we may have for our future. Our former chairman, Robert Muller, has pointed out that we might make our choice among three possible courses: 1. W e could disband. This might be justifiable if we discover we have no pur- pose in existing. But before we do that and leave this group without any forum for their interest, we should certainly explore other courses of action. 2. W e might organize program meet- ings only, as we have tended to do in the past. 3. W e could carry out a year-round program with a strong committee struc- ture, referring to other groups results of our deliberations when appropriate. T o explore the usefulness of the third approach, I suggest that we give some thought to the function of this section as a professional organization which Mr. McComb is Librarian, Pennsylva- nia State University. This paper was presented at the meeting of the Univer- sity Libraries Section, ACRL, Washing- ton, D. C., June 24, 1959. could serve us in our relationships with management, or administration, if you prefer that term. Most professions have organizations which speak for them in various ways. T h e architects come to us and tell us what we must do to have our schools of architecture approved. T h e legal groups tell the university how to administer law libraries, and so on. But who speaks for university librarians? Can the Univer- sity Libraries Section be effective in rep- resenting its members to management? Foremost among the problems which we may face in working with administra- tors outside the library itself is the prob- lem of understanding. For some this may seem no great problem. It has been my observation that a strong library pro- gram is more dependent upon an under- standing president than upon any other single factor. It would be unfair to list some of the great university presidents whose enthusiasm and interest in the needs of the library have made their li- braries major centers of scholarship, though I might mention William Rainey Harper at Chicago and Andrew D. White at Cornell. But you may make your own list. T o those of the past should be add- ed, of course, some of our contemporaries who have raised their institutions to take front rank by their devotion to the idea of a collection of books as one of the bas- ic elements of a great university. When the support of the president is lacking, the library falters. Or if the library is always in the position of having to fight for its needs, the success of the library may well be simply a measure of the diplomacy or forcefulness of the individ- ual librarian. Unfortunately, the neces- 496 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES sity for fighting has sometimes provoked a measure of hostility in the administra- tion. This reaction is not difficult to understand. T h e president is faced con- stantly with demands and pressures from all directions, and often must feel that his major problem is the empire builder on his faculty. If he does not recognize the needs of the library beyond the maintenance level, he may easily classify the librarian, who constantly beseeches him, as another nuisance. As evidence of this fact, I have only to cite the remark of John Millett in Fi- nancing Higher Education in the United States: "I have heard more derogatory language used among the eight pres- idents who made up the Commission on Financing Higher Education about li- brarians than I heard about any other component part of university structure." Now, on the other hand, if the pres- ident is wholeheartedly a believer, he may be prodding the librarian, or seek- ing extra funds for books, or even—less happily—attempting to take a hand in book purchasing or in library administra- tion. An agency which would help to guide the president and furnish standards which he could understand and accept would be of value not only to him but to the library itself. Such apparently un- answerable question as to how big a uni- versity library should be, should have an answer. Most of us, except the largest, might easily be caught saying "we should be just twice as large as we are," at what- ever point we are now. If we have 100,- 000 volumes, we strive for 200,000; if we have half a million, we impress our pres- ident with the need for a million. But when we reach a million, we climb up for two. Each librarian works out such answers for his president on the basis of his own estimate of the situation. In ad- dition to the problems of size, we have questions of status, problems of library development, such as the need, or pos- sible need, for undergraduate library service, education for university librar- ianship, new developments in biblio- graphical organization, and the general course of development of university li- braries, particularly schemes of inter- library co-operation. I would like to say something particularly about this last problem. T h e most effective approach to co- operation has been made when univer- sity administrators, as well as librarians, helped plan such programs. T h e library cannot go it alone. When money is avail- able, it is not too difficult to develop strong collections in agreement with other institutions. It is more difficult to re- strict buying without the concurrence of the instructional and research depart- ments of each institution. T h e Farmington Plan, for example, needs only the agreement to buy. Other types of cooperation may involve deci- sions not to buy. This is harder tQ stick to in the university. There is also the new type of program represented by the cooperative newspaper microfilm pro- gram at the Midwest Inter-Library Cen- ter. In such instances, the cooperating in- stitutions must contribute sums of money, sometimes substantial sums, for develop- ing collections which are not owned, in a sense, by the institutions involved. Or there are the regional centers, either for storage or central depositories for special types of material, which seem to hold some real promise of new ways for doing our job. W e must have the cooperation of our administrators in such plans. W e ought to be in the position to bring to bear on such questions the ad- vice of our professional association; and not only the advice but the development of plans for such programs on a national or even an international scale. A drawing up of such plans will not result in accom- plishment unless we have some means of working together as a profession. T h e advice that we are usually able to give our presidents is based on our knowledge of our own institution and NO V EMBER 1959 497 of other institutions or on the literature. Our knowledge of other libraries and the literature is in great part produced by members of this section. Even without more formal methods of approach, this section has clearly contributed to the solution of these problems. T h e very fact that we exist tends to stimulate that in- terchange of ideas and the study which is essential to the formulation of new programs. I have been speaking here of our rela- tion to management in terms of our rela- tion to the president. When I speak of the president, of course, I refer not only to the man who holds that title but to his various vice-presidents, advisors, committees, board of trustees, and per- haps to members of the library commit- tee. There is another aspect of the problem of our professional organization and man- agement which reflects the interest and professional concerns of members of our library staffs who are not administrators. Those of us whose duties include ad- ministration may be inclined to think that management is that portion of the organizational chart above the librarian. But for a lot of staff members we are management. What can University Libraries Section do for those members of our profession? First of all, it can be a means whereby library staffs can correct administrators. If we talked about understanding from above, perhaps members of our staff would be equally glad to receive some understanding from us. What better opportunity might they have than to be active members of a group which con- cerns itself with our general professional welfare? In my own experience, I find that most often our best ideas come from members of the staff who feel a sense of profes- sional responsibility. There may be times when programs or policies which they would like to see developed may not be readily proposed within their own li- braries. T h e opportunity of coming to a meeting of the section to present ideas to the profession is an opportunity which the section should provide. T h e problem of the status of the pro- fessional library staff, for example, is not one to be settled by administrators alone. T h e staff is obviously of prime impor- tance in problems of book selection and public service. When it comes to the technical processes of library administra- tion, management must defer to a con- siderable extent to the greater technical knowledge of the specialist. I would like, therefore, to suggest that in the future we have more non-administrative per- sonnel serving as members of our pro- grams. W e are not a section of administrators only—we are devoted to the problems of university libraries and our responsibil- ity to management includes our respon- sibility to develop professional compe- tence within our staffs. I have spoken briefly of certain areas in which the University Libraries Section could be effective in relation to manage- ment. I am now at the point where I ought to be able to suggest just how we should go about developing this pro- gram. On this point, I have no specific suggestion. It may well be that this will have to be a question of growth. If we can develop the proper image of our- selves as a professional organization, speaking for our members, we shall be able to develop the proper committee structure and the proper programs to ac- complish this purpose. W e have made a beginning in this direction. Our section has a committee structure. But we face difficulties, two of which are paramount. T h e first is our relation to A R L , which has been dis- cussed by Mr. Lundy. From his remarks we can conclude that A R L speaks only on specific problems of interest to it and primarily for a special group of libraries. That leaves a range of problems still available to this group, and a large num- 498 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES ber of libraries not members of A R L . A number of our members also represent their institutions as members of A R L . Perhaps we could leave to them the ma- jor fields of interlibrary programs, and concentrate on internal programs. Or we might become the agency through which their programs are officially brought to our attention. T h e second difficulty is that of our own tradition—or habits. This section, though large, has not in the past been a very active or a very strong one. I d o not know whether we can change or not. W e are pretty individualistic. And with so many areas of interest assigned to other divisions, we may seem to have little left for ourselves. Your officers and steering committee have hopes that we can be- come an effective voice in our profession. W e hope that you will help by serving willingly on programs or committees. Let us have your suggestions and your help. Recent Experiences with Soviet Libraries (Continued from page 473) and Irkutsk as well as a few local li- braries should be in order. A T T I T U D E S O F S O V I E T L I B R A R I A N S AND A R C H I V I S T S There has been a great deal of com- ment by American scholars visiting the Soviet Union upon the cordial reception and helpfulness forthcoming from So- viet librarians and archivists. T h e writer was cordially received by officials of twenty-seven of thirty libraries, ar- chives, and institutes he attempted to visit. T h e first visit, to the Library of the Academy of Sciences in Leningrad, re- sulted in a lengthy, but informative dis- course on the operation of Soviet librar- ies, replete with references to Marxism- Leninism, by M. A. Viklaiev, the scientif- ic secretary of the library. This discourse was so detailed that the writer felt that he was imposing upon the good offices of the secretary. Ultimately it proved, how- ever, of enormous practical help in per- mitting more effective and quicker nego- tiations with other libraries. In institu- tion after institution no effort was spared to permit me to view what I wished to see. In striking contrast was the attitude of the Central State Archive of Old Acts in Moscow, which refused to permit a visit. I went, nevertheless, merely (al- though the archive has been used re- cently by Finnish scholars) to order mi- crofilms of some fifteenth- and sixteenth- century documents on Muscovite rela- tions with Lithuania which I knew to be in the archive. My order was at first accepted, but then rejected when it be- came clear that I was an American and not a Pole. T h e reason given was that per an agreement with the American Embassy no American was to be allowed to use the facilities of the archive with- out a letter from the Embassy. Embassy officials denied the existence of an agree- ment and refused to give me a letter. In the overwhelming majority of cases, I was not made to feel that Americans were subject to discrimination. On the contrary, I felt that I received unexpect- ably gracious and pleasant treatment. Soviet librarians are eager for ex- changes. Soviet Academy and university scholars are often displeased by the ab- sence of western scientific literature from the shelves of Soviet libraries. Soviet in- stitutions have an inadequate supply of "gold" rubles (i.e., convertible currency) with which to purchase western publi- cations. Exchanges present a welcome solution. NO V EMBER 1959 499