College and Research Libraries A Publisher's View of College Library Opportunities By T H E O D O R E W A L L E R COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY LIBRARIANS have a special role—unique re- sponsibilities and opportunities. T h e col- lege librarian can be a bridge between the rest of the profession and the academic world. H e can interpret the interests and objectives of the library world to the acad- emes and bring the sophistications and insights of the academy to his fellow librarians. If this is to be accomplished, however, the college librarian must be almost equally of the college and of librarian- ship. T o o often he is a librarian isolated in the university community or a scholar remote from general librarianship. T h e r e are a n u m b e r of areas in which the college librarian can make a very special and u n i q u e contribution: 1. Recruitment for librarianship. 2. Strengthening the role of the col- lege a n d university in the develop- m e n t of lifetime reading habits. 3. T h e evolvement of a program to strengthen library public relations, profession-wide and with special ref- erence to college library problems. 4. I n t e r p r e t a t i o n of m a j o r intellectual, scientific, and technological develop- ments of concern to other branches of librarianship. 5. P l a n n i n g the role of the library in the "exploded" college. W e certainly need to take a new look at recruitment for librarianship. W e need a considerable increment in the quantity of librarians being recruited and an improvement in the general qual- ity level. Any discussion of recruiting needs to be in juxtaposition to an investi- gation of the division of labor be- Mr. Waller is Vice-President, The Grolier Society, Inc., and the Americana Corporation. This article is adapted from a paper pre- sented at the College and University Section of the Louisiana Library Association, Mon- roe, March 25, 1960. tween professionals and nonprofessionals within the library. Considerable profes- sional talent could obviously be freed if we were to relax and u p d a t e somewhat the prevailing orthodoxy with respect to library functions requiring professional training. Something might be learned here f r o m the educators who, in the so- called team teaching concept, are mak- ing use of classroom assistants, reserving the teacher for functions which require his special expertise and background. It is a p p a r e n t that college and univer- sity librarians might profitably involve themselves far more fully in recruiting for librarianship, b o t h informally and as a part of ALA's person-to-person recruit- ing campaign. O t h e r professions invest very substantial resources in recruiting: nursing, social service, teaching, to name only a few, have well financed high pri- ority recruiting operations. If we com- pare the resources invested in recruiting for librarianship, the evidence would suggest that we accord a low priority to recruitment. T h e situation can be cor- rected, in part, by strengthening the re- cruiting resources available to ALA. More important, however, the profession as a whole, and college and university li- brarians in particular, might take a more explicit and urgent view of their oppor- tunities and responsibilities in this area. Why, we may ask, do 10 per cent of the S E P T E M B E R 1 9 6 0 389 colleges supply 60 per cent of graduate library school students? Perhaps those col- lege libraries that are most effective in interesting students in librarianship have been particularly successful in one varia- tion or another of the internship idea. Certainly the exposure of a student with predilections toward librarianship to a vital, intellectually deciding college li- brary program is recruiting at its best. T h e commitment of many fine college librarians to efforts of this kind, however, would not seem to discharge fully their obligations to contribute to a profession- wide recruiting program. T h e r e is something to be learned f r o m the N o r t h Carolina experiment as re- ported by the N o r t h Carolina Council on Librarianship. Here all segments of the profession have banded together in a statewide demonstration of a wide va- riety of recruiting techniques. Whatever else the N o r t h Carolina experiment may demonstrate it would seem conclusively to establish the desirability of aggressive and dynamic cooperation at the state level among all branches of the profes- sion. A study has recently been designed to explore the percentage of the top 10 per cent of certain high school and college student bodies that select educational administration as a career. T h e concern here is that, Dr. Conant and Admiral Rickover aside, it is going to be difficult significantly to upgrade American educa- tion unless and until an a p p r o p r i a t e per- centage of the most gifted young people in the country turn to school administra- tion as a career. W h a t about librarianship? How many of the very ablest students in o u r insti- tutions have decided by their sophomore or j u n i o r years that their destiny is in the library? And what can be done to increase that number? Is the development of what we are currently calling lifetime reading habits a proper concern of the college and uni- versity librarians and of the total facuty? A conference on " T h e U n d e r g r a d u a t e and Lifetime Reading Interest" was held at the University of Michigan in 1958, sponsored by the National Book Com- mittee and directed by Dr. Frederick Wagman, to explore the extent to which college experience leads to lifetime read- ing and to continuing self-education. Can we not agree that the college and uni- versity library should have a specific and urgent role in developing the kind of motivation and in sparking the interest that will lead students to read creatively and develop mentally t h r o u g h o u t their lives, that will make the college student a book-oriented man? And may I suggest, f u r t h e r , that the college and university librarian can effectively address himself to this problem through two channels: on the one hand by developing his own library program with these ends in mind, and second, by becoming the center of agitation in the faculty with a view to making more and more professors con- scious of this mission of the university? Why shouldn't a college or university faculty, as a committee of the whole, ex- amine the status of books and reading in the lives of the graduates of their institu- tions? On every campus there are a few professors who realize that whatever in- formation and skills they may transmit, they have truly succeeded in their mission only when the love of con- tinual learning—the lifelong appetite for knowledge—has been instilled in their students. These professors are the li- brarians' n a t u r a l allies. T h i s alliance might well reorient the academic pro- gram on many a campus. In this con- nection we may take as our text the book published by the University of M i c h i g a n P r e s s , Reading for L i f e , a r e - port on the National Book Committee University of Michigan Conference. H a r o l d K. Cuinzberg has w r i t t e n 1 about the dearth of retail book outlets in college communities. This, too, is cer- 1 Reading for Life (Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan P r e s s , 1959). 390 C O L L E G E A N D R E S E A R C H L I B R A R I E S tainly a subject of compelling interest to college librarians, as it is to pub- lishers. T h e subject of conventional public re- lations is anathema to many college li- brarians. I n the very nature of things, National Library Week was abhorrent or, at least, an object of slightly irritated tolerance to many if not most A C R L people. Somehow, the more handsomely such promotion and public relations pro- grams succeed, the less many college li- brarians like them, or so we have been led to believe. But doesn't this whole question need a new look? Don't we want much closer and more functional ties be- tween college and university librarians and the rest of the profession, notably public librarians and school librarians? Is it not more than desirable for college librarians to exercise strengthened lead- ership profession-wide and particularly in such projects as National Library Week, and, apart from obligations to the rest of the profession, might not Na- tional Library Week be an opportunity to do some f u n d a m e n t a l interpreting of the college library role to faculty, trus- tees, and student body? Further, is it not possible that in many situations Library Week would provide the occasion for making the local community more con- scious of the college or university library and its role in the institution? Which is not to deny that many college and university librarians devote great energy and imagination to interpreting the li- brary to students, faculty, and towns- people. W e must be careful to avoid letting this argument r u n aground on semantic shoals. Any well administered college or university library, of course, has an aggressive "public relations" pro- gram ranging from work with "the friends of the library" to exhibits. Here, however, we address ourselves, as in the case of recruiting, less to what is being done in individual libraries than to the o p p o r t u n i t y for college library participa- tion in profession-wide programs. And, as with the other matters with which this paper is concerned, these points are made with the greatest circumspection. T h e "view" taken here may not be wholly ap- propriate to the subject. I n this enumeration of challenges and opportunities, we mentioned interpret- ing m a j o r intellectual, scientific, and technological developments of concern to other branches of librarianship to the rest of the profession. W e are in a period not only of explosion of general knowl- edge b u t of incipient revolution in sev- eral phases of education. Librarians are either going to be p a r t of the inner cir- cle, p l a n n i n g and guiding these striking developments, or they are going to be service personnel passively at the com- m a n d of trends. As an example, there is the matter of educational television. In less than a year the Council for Airborne Instruc- tional Television is going to p u t a DC- OB in orbit over Lafayette, Indiana, and through transmitters in that airplane broadcast twenty-four (possibly seventy- six) half-hour programs a day to a five- state area with a potential audience of five million children. These programs will be at the elementary, secondary school, and college level. T h e project has been made possible by a grant from the Ford F o u n d a t i o n and through the sig- nificant financial support of half a dozen of the greatest industrial enterprises in the country. T h e Council is being di- rected by the able J o h n Ivey, recently vice-president of New York University. T h i s is a demonstration. It may become a permanent part of the educational pat- tern in the area and lead to other com- parable projects. T e n airplanes could blanket the country. It may not be long before more sophisticated devices than a DC-6 will be used for transmission. Even if this project does not succeed per se it is certain to be effective shock therapy. It is certain to introduce new ideas, new techniques, new concepts to educators in that region and nationally. S E P T E M B E R 1 9 6 0 391 T h e television teachers are now being recruited. T h e y will be b r o u g h t together for a period of t r a i n i n g at P u r d u e and then will operate f r o m p r o d u c t i o n cen- ters adjacent to their homes. All broad- casting will be f r o m video tape. I n the five-state area thirty regional centers will be established on thirty college cam- puses. These centers staffed with project personnel will h e l p schools tool-up both mechanically a n d educationally. T h e y will train elementary, secondary school, a n d college faculties in the use of this educational television. W h e r e are librarians in this picture? Shouldn't they be in the very middle of the act? If library insights and skills are b r o u g h t to bear early, intensively, and consistently, will this unprecedented ven- ture in educational television not result in infinitely increased use of the library, either school library or university li- brary? Will it not make i n d e p e n d e n t study, reading, a n d research a far more significant p a r t of the individual stu- dent's academic life? B u t is this inevitable? Finally, how about the role of the li- brary in the " e x p l o d e d " college? I n ten years there is no d o u b t that double the n u m b e r of college students will require more than double the present library fa- cilities. More library resources will be needed to deal with more students and more faculty and vastly more knowledge. Existing institutions must undoubtedly e x p a n d their book budgets. T h e r e is, of course, local p l a n n i n g on many cam- puses to deal with the anticipated prob- lems. But who is worrying about college and university library p l a n n i n g nation- ally? T h e increase in enrollment will occur in institutions least e q u i p p e d to provide library service—junior colleges burgeon- ing i n t o universities, community colleges, state teachers colleges. T h e weight of the increase in the national college stu- dent body will not be in established in- stitutions which can, a f t e r all, in some considerable degree control the size of their student bodies by a d j u s t i n g en- trance requirements. It will be in these new institutions or newly significant in- stitutions. Is it too m u c h to suggest that lack of adequate library facilities in these latent universities is a critical national problem? W h e r e are the college librarians to come from? Will the administrations and legislatures u n d e r s t a n d that substantial resources will be required to build col- lections f r o m scratch or are we going to have sumptuous library buildings rela- tively barren of materials? Is the old Shaw list adequate to meet this chal- lenge? Don't we urgently need more new t h i n k i n g and profession-wide action here? Might it not be a p p r o p r i a t e for college and university librarians to p u t the weight of their profession b e h i n d proposals for a national study? Many college librarians would be sur- prised to know how many publishers and N a t i o n a l Book Committee-type citizens have an acute interest in the problems of college and university libraries. T h e college and university library is every- body's business. It is the business of the student body, of the faculty as a whole, of the library profession as a whole, of everybody in the national community who is concerned about books and read- ing. College librarians have strong allies in the National Book Committee and among the citizens across the country who have been involved in N a t i o n a l Li- brary Week. 392 C O L L E G E A N D R E S E A R C H L I B R A R I E S