College and Research Libraries The Anthropocentric Needs of IT IS HISTORICALLY CHARACTERISTIC of the elite colleges and universities like Swarth- more, Harvard, Amherst, and Princeton that, unlike their lower-quality brethren, they have been able to assume, on the part of their students, the motivation for much self-learning with a minimum of formal faculty intervention. In our day, alarming projections of enrollment and of the available supply of competent teachers are forcing less distinguished in- stitutions to appropriate this "Ivy League" presupposition. The application of communication media to problems of knowledge transmission in higher edu- cation has already resulted in a better allocation of available faculty resources. At the same time, the proliferation of independent study programs and the rise of undergraduate courses incorporating instruction in the techniques of research manifest faculty interest in individualiz- ing instruction or, put another way, in making the student himself the learner. Throughout the first half of our cen- tury, lecturing professors armed with textbook compendia kept the classroom the primary locale of learning. In re- sponse to societal and graduate school pressures, · the intervening years have seen remarkable changes in the configu- ration of undergraduate education. As professors increasingly insist that semi- nars, tutorial confrontations, sessions with teaching machines, and encounters with educational television be supple- mented by extensive outside reading, the library, as a learning locale, assumes more importance. Substantially increased human activity in academic libraries JULY 1963 Academic Librarianship Bv DANIEL P. BERGEN Mr. Bergen is a doctoral candidate in the Graduate Library School, University of Chicago. seems circumstantially ordained by more than the fact of rising enrollments. At least one of our colleagues, Eileen Thorn- ton of Oberlin who, as librarian of are- search-oriented liberal arts college, is in excellent position to observe the trends discussed, has expressed concern over the implications of "turning the student loose in the library to do more for him- self."1 The problem, thus identified, has a strong human cast. The satiation of this human milieu demands of academic librarianship an increased sensitivity to the psychic needs of those it serves. It may be useful to view the academic library as an institution within an in- stitution, that is, as an institution com- prehended by a college or university which provides for it, at any given mo- ment, an operating context. Unlike a subject department which has prime re- sponsibility for a specified student group, the library must directly serve an all- campus constituency. It has been sug- gested elsewhere that academic libraries can afford little lag in responding to a composite change in the psychological orientation of the students they serve. 2 Ongoing adaptation of this kind hinges upon a conti.nuous assessment of ecolog- ical forces playing upon the library. 1 Thornton, "Libraries in Smaller Institutions of Higher Educa tion," Librar y Tre.n ds, X, (October 1961), 197. 2 S ee Daniel P. Bergen, "Socio-Psychological Re- search on College Environments," CRL, XXIII, (No- vember 1962 ), 473-81. 277 Such an approach, oriented to the struc- turing of library conditions and services on a stimulus-response basis, lacks the long-term impact and overarching qual- ity of more comprehensive perspectives. For such perspectives, there is need to apply what social scientists call the cul- tural and behavioral approaches to social understanding. Canonically, the cultural approach permits one to view youth of college age as comprising a subculture of the na- tional culture.a In the behavioral usage, the focus is on students as individuals, their reflections on the Larger Society and the operating locale, and how these perceptions condition the character of their relations with other students, teach- ers, and even librarians. 4 An analytical beginning may be made by examining the subcultural uniqueness of students who frequent academic libraries. It may be hypothesized at the outset that youth, as the period separating childhood from adulthood, be defined in two ways: (1) youth as apprenticeship for social and occupational mobility and (2) youth as a time of participation in a unique "youth culture."5 In the former conception, which had greater relevance in the earlier, more deprived years of our century (though even now found prevailing on occasiqn), the period of youth was spent girding oneself for an "Horatio Alger" rise to the top. Because the trip to the top began in a college, such an institution was analogically viewed by its inhabitants as approximat- ing the Pennsylvania Railroad Station. 6 If, on the other hand, students in eastern seaboard colleges and universities ac- curately articulate sentiments common to youth the nation over, then the latter view of youth as defined by "youth cui- 3 Otis Dudley Duncan and Leo F. Schnore, "Cul- tural, Behavioral, and Ecological Perspectives in the Study of Social Organizations," American Journal of Sociology, LXV, (September 1959), 134. 4 Ibid. 5 Kenneth Keniston, "American ,Students and the 'Political Revival,'" American Scholar, XXXII, (Win- ter 1962-1963), 44. 6 Quoted in Ibid., p.46. The phrase is Edgar Frien- denberg's. ture" seems more worthy of extended discussion. According to Kenneth Keniston, a member of the psychiatric staff of the Yale Medical School, the post-World- War-n period has witnessed the emer- gence of a common youth culture, the members of which "are expected to be- have in special, idiosyncratic ways that are symbolic of their age."7 In a nation where the transition from childhood to adulthood is prolonged and ritually un- marked, the thrift and determination which powered the upward drive of youth apprentices are being replaced by requisites of the youth culture like "a B.A., a certain personal sophistication, specialized technical competence, an ac- ceptable wife and at least a good imita- tion of a 'genuine interest in people.' "B The rna jor common characteristic of the youth culture is, without question, the internal alienation of youth from the values of the Larger Society, a condition so ·vital to this analysis that it demands further elaboration. Generically speaking, alienation re- fers to "the increasing distance between men and their former objects of love, commitment, loyalty, devotion, rever- ence.''9 It implies a repudiation of cer- tain values or activities of the Larger Society which results in feelings of "non- belonging" or "non-sharing." Professor Melvin Seeman of UCLA has conceived it very aptly as a social-psychological point of view. 1o Processes like exclusive- ness, subordination, discontinuity, and discrepancy, while not validly equated with alienation, tend to promote it.ll Five variants of alienation have been identified: (1) powerlessness ("the ex- pectancy or probability held by the in- dividual that his own behavior cannot 7 Ibid., p.48. 8 Ibid., p.47. 9 Keniston, "Alienation and the Decline of Utopia," American Scholar, XXIX, (Spring 1960), 161. xo Seeman, "On the Meaning of Alienation," Ameri- can Sociological Review, XXIV, (December 1959), 784. 11 Hajda, "Alienation and Integration of Student Intellectuals," American Sociological Review, XXVI, (Octob'er 1961), 762. 278 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES determine the occurrence of the out- comes, or reinforcements, he seeks."); (2) meaninglessness ("the individual is unclear as to what he ought to believe- when the individual's minimal standards for clarity in decision-making are not met ... it is characterized by a low ex- pectancy that satisfactory predictions about future outcomes of behavior can be made."); (3) normlessness ("a high expectancy that socially unapproved be- haviors are required to achieve given goals."); (4) isolation ("assign low re- ward value to goals or beliefs that are typically highly valued in the given so- ciety."); and (5) self-estrangement (in the Sane Society~ Erich Fromm writes: " ... a mode of experience in which the person experiences himself as an alien. He has become, one might say, estranged from himself.") .12 In particular persons, alienation is usually reflected as a mix- ture of these five variants and tends to differ markedly in scope and intensity. It will be most convenient, for the time being, to continue to regard the referent in alienation as the Larger Society, all the time recognizing the alienative im- pact which particular social institutions, like libraries, can have on those who utilize them. If one were to identify the most fun- damental cause of the alienation in youth culture it would be the high dis- continuity between growth stages (i.e.~ childhood, youth, and adulthood) in our highly technical, skills-devouring society. In the developing nations, where cere- monials smooth the interstage transition, there is low discontinuity and an im- provement in what Jan Hajda calls "so- cial and normative self-integration." 1 3 To the youth culturalist the world of the child appears "integral, concrete, im- mediate, and spontaneous" while adult life seems "dissociated, abstract, special- ized, and conformist."14 Neither image 12 Seeman, op. cit., pp.784, 786, 788, 789. 13 Hajda, op. cit., p.760. 14 Keniston, op. cit., p.166. Kaspar D. Naegele sug- gests that in this period of self-containedness, "child- JULY 1963 satisfies youth and both are rejected. Nor is the world of ideas always an answer to the youth's needs for commitment, given the strong climate of skepticism created by so many intellectuals.t5 The above conditions make it less difficult for us to believe that alienation is not so much something which is for- cibly imposed upon youth as the alter- native that, through youth's eyes, has the greatest measure of realism. College- age youth, one suspects, are in a period in which even some of the adolescent values of the high school years no longer seem relevant. While the high school as- sets of personality, reputation, 1 6 looks, athletic ability, clothes, and activities participation still influence college stu- dent behavior, there would seem to be a progressive waning of their importance among the participants in higher educa- tion. Youth is difficult to understand pre- cisely because it is a period of covert at- tachments, attachments which are sub- merged and frequently impossible to identify in manifest individual behavior. Youth, suggests Erik Erikson, undergo a "psycho-social moratorium," a period of institutionalized indecision which has the a priori approval of society. At the end of this time, youth are expected to decide where or even whether they will fit into the adult system.t7 It is understandable that youth should renounce the values of childhood. More difficult to comprehend is youth's re- luctance to' identify with the adult world. Keniston is persuaded that in the relatively few instances where youth choose adult models the decision is diffi- hood looks long ago, and the promised land is only partly visible in the shape of contemporary adults." See his "Youth and Society: Some Observations," Daedalus, LXXXXI, (Winter 1962), 51. 15 Keniston, "Social Change and Youth in America," Daedalus, LXXXXI, (Winter 1962), 170. As Keniston puts it: " ... there has seldom been as great a con· fusion about what is valid and good as there is now . . . . " See his "Alienation and the Decline of Utopia," pp.161-62. 16 James C. Coleman, The Adolescent Society: The Social Life of the Teenager and Its Impact on Educa- tion (New York: Free Press of Glencoe, 1961), pp.40, 44. 48. 17 Keniston, "American Students . • ." American Scholar, XXXII, 52. 279 cult because of the ambiguity imparted to adult roles by the rapidity of social and technological change.18 For example, the circulation librarian in a conven- tional academic library may function as the overseer of black boxes, rather than the overseer of people, with the automa- tion of that library. In general, there is a coolness and lack of enthusiasm in youth vis-a-vis the adult world. Indeed the relative lack of rebelliousness in youth toward adults would suggest that the internalized value system of the former seldom adopts a comp~titive stance with respect to the externalized values of the latter.19 At Sarah Lawrence college, where one might anticipate much sibling-parent conflict because of the school's strong press for independ- ence of thought and behavior,2o such conflicts did not appear to be leading generators of student anxiety.21 The irrelevance of parental models causes young people to arrive at college in search of more credible exemplars. Keniston has proposed that where a rea- sonable amount of academic interest al- ready exists in students, a professor who is expansive and in possession of the right amounts of social and political sen- sitivity can do much to reconstruct com- mitment in those with whom he has con- tact.22 It is expected, conversely, that nar- 18 Keniston, "Alienation . . ." American S cholar, XXIX, 166 . For a di scussion of the problem of identification given an ambiguous referent, see Tal- cott Parsons, "Youth in the Context of American Society," Daedalus, LXXXXI , (Winter 19 62 ), 119. 19 Reuel Denney , "American Youth Today: A Bigger Cast, A Wider Screen," Daedalus, LXXXXI (Winter 1962), 134. Denney notes that the relationship between the father and son (Ja mes Dean) in R ebel W i thott t a Cau se. was "unsatisfactory because it wa s m a rked by slackness rath er tha n moral tension." 20 Esther Raushenbush, "The Climate of Sarah Law- rence College" in Achievement in the College Years: A Record of I n tellectual and P ersonal Growth (New York: Harper , 1960), pp.21-57. 21 Mary Collins, "The College Experience through the Eyes of Students," Ibid., pp.SS- 86. Sarah Lawrence girls were a sked to check those items on a 47-item scale which ca used them worry or anxiety. The results were a s follows: (1) 30 per cent checked "Conflict with your mother" (7th from the top); (2) 29 per cent checked "Fa mily wants you to be more dependent than you are" (11th from the top) ; ( 3) 24 pe r cent checked "Too emotionally dependent on famil y " (1 8th from the top) ; (4) 21 per cent checked "Conflict with father" (22nd from the top); and (5) 4 pe r cent checked "Politica l disagreement with the family" ( 43rd from the t op). 22 Keniston , "American Students . . ." American Scholar, XXXII, pp. 63-64. row, subspecialized pedantry tends to reinforce alienation in students. It is un- doubtedly true that the excitement of commitment in students demands a rare kind of selfless altruism. Such a humane teacher is, to use Joseph Adelson's phrase, a "mystic healer," that is, one who "con- centrates neither on himself, nor the sub- ject matter, nor on the discipline, but on the student, saying: 'I will help you be- come what you are.' " 23 Curiously, those teachers who are not too obviously per- ceptive, original, and intellectually pow- erful will probably make the best models. David Riesman has warned, certainly legitimately, that the exaggeration of such charismatic qualities may make stu- dents fearful of being overly influenced. 24 It may be worthwhile, at this point, to reflect on whether librarians, especially those directly serving the public, possess these humane qualities so vital to the deterrence of alienation. Empirical studies of librarian person- ality have been completed by both Rob- ert R. Douglass and Alice I. Bryan. Douglass' doctoral dissertation at the University of Chicago entitled "The Per- sonality of the Librarian" involved stu- dents still enrolled in graduate schools of librarianship. The Public Librarian, Miss Bryan's contribution to the Public Library Inquiry, assessed the personal- ities of practicing librarians. Dean Doug- lass concluded that those in training for librarianshi p were highly conservative, conformist, weak in qualities of ascend- ance, motivation, and drive, and, most significantly, "aloof and impersonal with respect to people."25 Comparing male public librarians with a control group of male university students, Miss Bryan determined that vis-a-vis the control group the librarians were "sedentary," 23 Adelson, "The Teacher a s Model" in Nevitt San- ford ( ed.), The American C allege : A Psychologi cal and Social Interp retati on of the H i gher L earning (New York: Wiley, 1962) , pp.411 -12. lH Riesman, " Student Culture and Faculty Value s" in S potlight on the College St u dent (Washin gton: American Council on Education, 1959), p.l3. 25 As reported in Alfred L. Brophy and George M. Gazda, "Handling the Problem Staff Member," Illinois Libraries, XLIII, (December 1961) , 755. 280 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES "less likely to show qualities of leader- ship," and, on balance, lacking confi- dence and feeling a burden of inferior- ity.26 In the six-orientation typology de- veloped by Alexander W. Astin and John L. Holland for the Environmental Assessment Technique (EAT), librarians were categorized "conventional.'.' Ac- cording to the construction of these two investigators, the librarian "prefers struc- tured numerical and verbal activities and subordinate roles," "conforms," and "identifies with power, externals, and status." 27 Of those disciplines normally taught in a college or university, only accounting, business education, and eco- nomics shared this orientation. The hu- manities were concentrated, by and large, in the artistic orientation; the social sciences were split between the social and enterprising orientations; and the phys- ical sciences fell mainly within the in- tellectual orientation. Further evidence of teacher-librarian incongruity comes from a recent survey by the Center for the Study of Higher Education at the University of California (Berkeley). The center sought opinions from librarians on two classroom teach- ing practices: (1) the discussion of con- troversial social issues and (2) the ex- pression of personal viewpoints by in- structors on traditional values. The data, when analyzed, revealed that "librarians are likely to be marginal members of the academic community" and "to the ex- tent -to which this is in fact the case librarians are less apt than administra- tors or teachers to share academic views about these practices, and are more apt to take on the orientation of the general public." 28 From the foregoing, two conclusions would seem warranted: (1) that librar- 26 As reported, Ibid., p.753. rr Astin and Holland , "The Environmental Assess- ment Technique: A Way to Measure College En- vironments," Journal of Educational Psychology, LII, (December 1961), 310. 28 Herbert Maccoby, "Controversy, Neutrality, and Higher Education," American Sociological Review, XXV, (December 1960), 889. JULY 1963 ians are not likely to possess the personal warmth and humanity which would in- spire commitment in alienated college youth and (2) that librarians do not generally share with their teaching col- leagues the academic ethos, that is, the set of values, beliefs, and attitudes to- ward things academic which has model validity for youth if possessed by the altruistic teacher. The pessimism of these conclusions, however, should prompt one to emphasize their 'seem- ingness.'' Remedial strategy is available to both library administrators and educators. For their part, those charged with as- signing library personnel should, through the skillful use of personality tests and interviews, assure at least a minimum degree of congeniality between those placed in public service positions and the academic library's youthful patrons. The above suggestion may seem utopian in an era of personnel shortages, however, the author is convinced that a better ration- ale than incumbent wishes could be de- vised for determining who should occupy such positions. From here it would also seem desirable for library schools to pro- vide their students with some back- ground in the psycho-biological founda- tions of human development and be- havior. Such a foundation is necessary because, as Kasper Naegele has pointed out, those serving youth must generate images of youth "while no longer be- longing to youth."29 Just as the emerging profession of social service attempts to recruit persons who can relate them- selves well to a diverse clientele, so, it would seem, should academic librarian- ship try to enlist persons of adaptability and congeniality who are as conversant with the elements of human relations as they are knowledgeable about the books which they manipulate. If, as Reuel Denney has suggested, many teach- ing academicians "have a vested interest 29 Naegele, op . cit., p. 57. 281 in books as beleaguered and dutiful,"30 then it may be said that the truly anthro- pocentric librarian displays his interest in humanity · by viewing collections of books as accessible and pleasurable. Mitigation of the marginal3 1 position now occupied by librarians with respect to the academic enterprise can be ac- complished only through an increase in faculty-librarian interaction, particular- ,ly at the informal level.32 The capacity to make such associations is developed by librarians who (1) are willing to devote the time required for the acquisition of fundamental knowledge in one or several subject disciplines and (2) do not see a threat to their autonomy in the making of friendly overtures to the teaching faculty. Support for the first point comes from an overview of recent literature on education for librarianship where there is quite obviously a growing consensus regarding the need to produce academic librarians with subject competence. And it should be understood that subject competence need not imply the ability to do basic research in a discipline. Very recently, the Committee on Academic Status of the University Librarians Sec- tion of the ACRL has accepted the re- search criterion for purposes of promo- tion and the equation of library positions with academic ranks.ss While research is the accepted norm 80 As quoted in Riesman, The Oral Tradition, The Written Word, and the Screen Image (Yellow Springs, Ohio: Antioch Press, 1956), pp.22-23. 81 For an excellent discussion of psychological mar- ginality, see Riesman, "Some Observations Concerning Marginality" in his Individualism Reconsidered and Other Essays (New York: Free Press of Glencoe, 1954), p . 154. 32 Over a decade ago, Lawrence Clark Powell could comment: "On every library staff I have any ac- quaintance with, I can count on a few fingers the number of persons who can establish intellectual camaraderie with the faculty." See his "Education for Academic Librarianship" in Bernard Berelson (ed.), Education for Librarians hip: Papers Presented at the Library Conference, University of Chicago, August 16-21 , 1948 (Chicago: ALA, 1949), pp.133-46. 83 Arthur M. McAnally, "Privileges and Obligations of Academic Status," CRL, XXIV, 106. Neal Gross of Harvard, a student of the organizational problems in higher education, has recently pointed out that "al- though the reward system of the university stresses research and scholarly productivity the social arrange- ments of the universtty for most faculty members are not conducive to the effective accomplishment of this objective. The university generally has no resources of its own for the research function. Its budgets are basically teaching budg-ets and so the faculty members are forced to go outside the university to the founda- of progress in universities, one wonders about the status of teacher-librarian in- tegration, based on the sharing of sub- ject knowledge, if, as seems implicit in the committee's proposals, most librarian research is concentrated in the field of librarianship (e.g.} Arthur McAnally contends that research librarian positions should be established). Moreover, is it not logical to be more optimistic about the motivation of librarians to acquire knowledge of some depth in a tradi- tional discipline than about their drive to become professional researchers, even in their own field? There are undoubted- ly many who have selected a library ca- reer in order to avoid the research re- sponsibilities of the university professor. While recognizing the requirement for more operational research in academic librarianship, one cannot help but feel that the subject-qualified librarian, cap- able of intellectual intercourse with his teaching associates, will be best able to carry over into the library the creative tension of the great teacher's classroom. Another major characteristic of the youth culture is its familism, that is, the tendency of its participants to seek pri- vacy within the manageable confines of the family. 34 Rather than face the press- ing issues of the Larger Society, youth have issued a manifesto of parochialism in which, according to David Riesman, they express preference for the "post- collegiate fraternity of the small sub- urbs."35 Indeed, an analysis of question- naires from three thousand boys and girls (ages 14-22) at work, in high school, and at seventy-eight colleges and universities tions, to industry, or to the federal government pri- marily for support of their research activities." See Neal Gross, "Organizational Lag in American Uni- versities," Harvard Educational Review, XXXIII (Winter 1963), 68. It may be suggested that imposing the research criterion on librarians may cause them to become less oriented to the institutions in which they work. Like the "cosmopolitans" in Alvin Gould- ner's analysis of "cosmopolitans" and "locals," they may begin to look to associates in the field rather than their local superiors for their advancement. See Alvin Gouldner, "Cosmopolitans and Locals: Toward an Analysis of Latent Social Poles (Part I) ," Adminis- trative Science Quarterly, II, (January 1958), 280- 306. 84 Riesman, op . cit., p.14. 35 Riesman, "Where is the College Generation Head- ed?," Atlantic, April 1961, 40. 282 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES forced George Gallup and Evan Hill to conclude that: Our typical youth will settle for low success rather than risk high failure. He has little spirit for adventure. He wants to marry early-at twenty-three or twenty-four-after a college education. He wants two or three children and a spouse who is 'affectionate, sympathetic, considerate and moral'; rarely does he want a mate with intelligence, curi~ osity or ambition. He wants a little ranch house, an inexpensive new car, a job with a large company, and a chance to watch TV each evening after the smiling children are asleep in bed. 36 The Gallup-Hill characterization is sup- ported by the findings of two previous studies: (1) Time magazine's 1955 sur- vey of seniors at twenty colleges and (2) a study of women undergraduates spon- sored by Mademoiselle magazine in 1954.37 While the majority of youth do not overtly reject society and become beat- niks or "angry young men,"3 8 it is ap- parent from the foregoing that, for most, the dolce vita belongs to the private. In this private or inner world to which youth migrate there exists a strong tend- ency to seek sensual gratification in the here and now or, in Keniston's lexicon, "a kind of hedonism of the moment."39 This contemporaneity is so powerful that most youth are little obsessed with past commitments or future planning, beyond graduate school.40 A critical consequence 36 Gallup and Hill, . "Youth: The Cool Generation," Saturday Evening Post, December 23·30, 1961, 64. 37 Reported and discussed in Riesman, "The Found Generation," American Scholar, XXV, (Autumn 1956), 429 , 432. Riesman observed that in the Time survey, it was the exception for a student to say more about his intended career than about his prospective wife and family. The women undergraduates questioned in the Mademoiselle study revealed a fear of ambition in themselves and in their prospective spouses. 38 Denney, op . cit., p.158. According to Denney, to be "beat" implies "the shallowest commitment of one's self and the broadest satire on the rat race." For a further discussion of overt social deviance, see David Matza, "Subterranean Traditions of Youth," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sci· ence, CCCXXXVIII, (November 1961), 102-18. 39 Keniston, op. cit., p.48. See also what Philip E . Jacob suggests about the feelings which prevail among 75 per cent to 80 per cent of American college stu- dents in his Changing Values, in College: An Explora- tory Study of the Impact of College Teaching (New York: Harper, 1957), p .l. 4° Francis Golffing has made an interesting analogy JULY 1963 of this privatism is that, with the excep- tion of an activist minority, students find more meaning in immediately con- trollable activities like taking part in a play, listening to music, spending a week-end with friends, or even dating a steady girl than in trying to understand and act upon the vital issues of society. When confronted with really pervasive issues, a "social powerlessness" overtakes youth. This sense of incapacity is re- flected in the novels and short stories of those authors currently enjoying popu- larity among young people. Salinger, Up- dike, and Walker Percy, among others, center not upon the life-sized problems of the macrocosm, but on the microcos- mic issues of everyday life. 41 One South- ern boy, responding to the survey by Gallup and Hill, accurately articulated these feelings when he submitted that, in the absence of great heroes, all impor- tant work was completed by highly spe- cialized teams of men. 42 Needless to say, there are important implications of youth's withdrawal from the public domain. Being in society but not for society creates, over the long term, an untenable dichotomy. The de- liberate failure to recognize the reality and importance of the nonprivate world can result in severe psychological ten- sion.43 Because it restrains students from seeking new worlds to conquer, feelings of social powerlessness might even cause a vast waste of talent. As Keniston has contended: " ... an alienated generation seems too great a luxury in the 1960's. To cultivate one's garden is a stance most appropriate in times of peace and calm, and least apposite to an era of desperate international crisis."44 between present day youth's quest for experience qua experience and the "mild and intellectualized" hedonism of the Alexandrine Age. See his "The Alexandrine Mind," Partisan Review, XXII, (Winter 1955), 43-82. 41 Time magazine, for example, calls Salinger's Catcher in the Rye "a brilliant and intensive vision of a very few compass degrees of experience." See "The Sustaining Stream," Tim e, (February 1, 1963), 84. 42 Gallup and Hill, op. cit., p.66. 43 Keniston, "Social Change . Daedalus, LXXXXI, 166-6 7. 44 Ibid., p.167. 283 It has already been suggested that academic librarians, particularly those dealing with users, can do their part to- ward counteracting alienation by adopt- ing attitudes toward youth which do not proceed from false or unrealistic assump- tions about youth's character. It may also follow, from what has been said about privatism and social powerlessness as components of alienation, that the physical structure of libraries could rep- resent a countervailing force. A beginning may be made by design- ing libraries, and interiors, over which student users can feel some measure of control. If the cavernous main reading rooms and gothic towers of libraries con- structed during the early part of the twentieth century reflected our reverent attitude toward knowledge, as Ralph Ellsworth has suggested, 4 5 then our pres- ent attempt might be to put up buildings whiCh combat the feelings of alienation inspired by the older, awe-eliciting struc- tures. One might propose a library with diverse environments scientifically struc- tured, a library in which a student with a locally average alienation profile could move from smaller to larger rooms, and through rooms with varying configura- tions, with little corresponding loss in his perception of control over the situa- tion. The instruments thus far d evised for assessing alienation within a social system will be discussed a bit later. It suffices to say for the moment that the programing of a library's interior and exterior demands systematic information on those who will use it. Only infrequently in the past have academic librarians given consideration to the common psychological character- istics of youth in their plans to improve operations. A striking thing about E. Walfred Erickson's overview of aca- demic library surveys for the period 4 5 Ellsworth, Library B uildings (Volume 3, Part 1) in Ralph R. Shaw (ed .), Th e State of t he L i br ary Art (New Brunswick, New Jersey : Rutgers-The State University, Graduate School of Libra ry Service, 1960), p.104 . 1938-52 is the almost complete absence of data regarding human and psychic factors, a lack which may be more di- rectly related to the nonavailability of measuring instruments than to a lack of concern for such matters on the part of the surveyors. Clearly, if an academic library survey is "a scientific collection and analysis of data pertaining to the op- eration of a particular library" 46 and if, as Ellsworth has observed, "each new library tends to be a law unto itsel£," 4 7 then the failure to consider psychological factors is to deny a body of information which may possess significant relevance for the sophistication of library opera- tions. An understanding of the ebb and flow of the alienative and integrative tend- encies in a student body could certainly influence, in conjunction with factors of economy and efficiency, the positioning of the movable elements in a modular library building. For example, where high alienation prevails, reading areas might be restricted to the low-ceiling periphery of the upper floors of a build- ing, where, through an abundance of glass, students may look down upon the campus panorama below. The alienated could profit from a vista like that pro- vided by a fifth-floor student study on the north side of the all-glass library unit in the recently erected University of Chicago law quadrangle. The late Frank Floyd Wright was con- vinced that to be truly civilized a build- ing had to be organically linked with its physical environment. 48 It does not seem such a crude analogy, then, to propose that psychic costs will be minimized in those libraries which respond structurally to the perception needs of their student clienteles. It is unfortunate, but true, that on most campuses library designers must 46 Erickson, C r>llege an d Univer sity Li brary S1wveys : 19 38-1952 (ACRL Monograph No. 25) (Chicago: ALA, 19 61) , p.l. 4 1 Ellsworth, 0/J. cit., p.13. 48 Wright, An Autobiograp hy (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1943 ) , pp.326, 338. 284 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES contend with a strong press for low-cost functionalism in the building to be con- structed. With money in short supply, many college and university administra- tors must content themselves with new library buildings which do little more than satisfy the physical norms of econ- omy and efficiency. It is a fact, however, that what is efficient physically may be less propitious for the psyche. An archi- tect writing for librarians has noted that "it is difficult to persuade ourselves that there is usefulness to what is not im- mediately and apparently useful to us." 49 It is difficult to concur, considering the above, with Ellsworth's argument that a library should look like what campus habitues are used to -visualizing as a library.5o If to look like a library de- mands that space be rectilinearly en- closed, then one might take issue with the continuing construction of libraries that look like libraries. Rectilinear struc- tures have great utility, to be sure, but what really stimulates the mind, as Rob- in Boyd has pointed out, are buildings characterized by space enclosed by curved structures, even by structures which curve in opposing directions. 51 The real constant in modular building, therefore, is how interestingly its fixed external shell encloses its flexible interior. It is the exterior which dominates a modular library for its lifetime, conse- quently the composite of that exterior should be inviting and . meaningful for students burdened with an alienation un- happily born Jof choice. Obviously cog- nizant of the human elements in the library's situation, the chairman of the department of architecture at Carnegie Institute of Technology has concluded that "if utility is our one objective we'll do better in the days ahead to go un- derground." 52 49 Paul Schweikher, "The Space in Between" in Guidelines for Library Planners: Proceedings of the Library Building and Equipment Institute ( 1959) (Chi- cago: ALA, 1960), p.8. 50 Ellsworth, op. cit., p.104. 51 Boyd, "The Counter-revolution in Architecture," Harper's, September 1959, 45. 62 Schweikher, op. cit., p.7. JULY 1963 The design of a library's interior in- volves the constant reconciliation of technical operating requirements with psychological needs of not only the users but of the library staff as well. To sug- gest, as did the Program for an Under- graduate Library at the University of Michigan, that the UGL should be "in- viting and pleasant ... friendly, beauti- ful, and informal rather than impos- ing"53 is to operate on a high level of abstraction, meaningless .without the ex- cellent specification subsequently given these concepts in the Michigan program. It is imperative to understand that the sense of beauty is an individual experi- ence. A library which is pleasant, invit- ing, and beautiful in the perspective of one student may possess opposing char- acteristics in the view of another. The most carefully designed and psychologi- cally informed library imaginable will seem distasteful to some persons on cam- pus. A library interior will seem con- genial to the majority, however, if its arrangement is based upon a composite assessment of the psychological state of those who frequent it. Perception, which involves our domi- nant sensory field of vision, 54 is a special kind of interaction between man and his environment. A psychological model of the experience of beauty in something physically present might look like this: W (world or environment) ~ S (stimulus)~ 0 -- (our organism with its sense receptors, brain and muscles) ~R (response) ~ W (world) 55 Diagrammatically implicit in the 0 (or- ganism) portion of this model is the on- going character of perception as an ac- tion conditioned by the needs, values, 53 Program for an Undergraduate L i brary . . ' . (Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Li- brary, n.d.) (mimeographed), p.2. M Schweikher, op. cit., p .9 . 65 Victoria Kloss Ball, The Art of Interior Design: A Text in the Aesthetics of Interior Design (New York: Macmillan, 1960), p.2. 285 and ideals of self, as well as the reality of the object perceived. In general, tension is effectively re- solved in a locale through the effective manipulation of colors and the proper use of illumination. It may be desirable, however, to introduce tension-creating opposition into certain portions of the library. Where reading areas are in or adjacent to the stacks, tension may be valuable in the vicinity of the social science collections, for example, as a means of heightening student sensitivity to the societal tensions being studied. 5 6 As a general rule, the degree to which tensions need resolution is directly re- lated to the extent of alienation in the student body. Developments in academic libraries REPRODUCED BY P E RMISSION OF Punch. since the end of World War II, it should be recalled, have emphasized the need for anthropocentric perspectives. A com- bination of rising enrollments and in- adequate physical facilities, to say noth- ing of the geometric progression of M A theoretical suggestion made in Ibid., p .9. knowledge and new publication, has forced library administrators to empha- size output, to the almost total neglect of associated ends. Computers, closed- circuit television, reproducers, and charg- ing machines are all part of a technology aimed at giving library users more rapid and thorough access to information. Re- cent developments in the library of the Chicago undergraduate division of the University of Illinois would seem to in- dicate that the completely automated library is just around the corner. The application of technology to li- brary operations demands, one feels cer- tain, unusually good information on pat- terns of library and literature use. One wonders, nevertheless, whether the in- troduction of a machine might not re- quire a psychological understanding of the human matrix of academic librarian- ship. The Council on Library Resources, which has so admirably supported the technological maturation of librarian- ship, has done little to promote projects of a sociological or psychological nature which are not immediately related to in- creased output. In his recent book, Sci- en ce Sinc e Babylon, Derek J. S. Price calculates that the scientific aspects of our cui ture are doubling every decade while similar progress in nonscience takes from thirty to fifty years. If this pattern holds, the information needs of scientists by the year 2000 will be sixteen times what they are now while our ca- pacity, as librarians, to cope with the psychological issues posed by these needs will have increased but in the magnitude of one. It would seem only prudent to plan now for the psychological aftermath of automation. Recently, while discussing the organ- izational and research problems of pub- lic librarianship, Paul Wasserman sub- mitted that "if no agreement can be reached about [organizational] goals no one can ever agree about success or fail- ure of performance." 57 It should be said, 111 Wasserman , "Research Frontiers," Library Jour- nal, LXXXVI, (July 1961) , 2413. 286 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES however, that where goals have been formulated by academic libraries they represent a -far too narrow, unidimen- sional criterion of organizational success. Admittedly, there are those who regard the goal model of organizational per- formance as having significant validity because it "applies the values of the subject under study as the criterion of judgment."5S Others, like Amitai Etzioni, have discerned serious problems in the goal model or organizational analysis: "Goals, as norms, as sets of meaning- depicting target states, are cultural enti- ties. Organizations, as systems of coordi- nated entities of more than one actor, are social systems. There is a general tendency for cultural systems to be more consistent than social systems."59 This inconsistency results from the general failure to endow social systems, like academic libraries, with sufficient resources, human and physical, to satisfy the goals set for them. Moreover, as so- cial systems, academic libraries are mul- tifunctional and devote some of their efforts to the meeting of goals, some to the acquisition of resources only indirect- ly related to the satisfaction of goals, and, finally, a substantial amount to their own maintenance and perpetua- tion. Consequently, if one desires to measure organizational success it may be better to view the organization as a functioning system rather than as an agency devoted exclusively to fulfilling a priori goals. In the system model of analysis, one's effort is to learn whether an organiza- tion, like a library, has optimally allo- cated its resources to its manifold func- tions. If, for example, all resources were allocated to goal requirements, other organizational needs could hardly re- ceive maximal satisfaction.6o Nominally, the goals of academic librarianship relate 1511 Amitai Etzioni, "Two Approaches to Organiza- tional Analysis: A Critique and a Suggestion," Ad- ministrative Science Quarterly, V, (September 1960), 258. &o Ibid. , pp .258-59. eo Ibid., p.262. JULY 1963 to preserving important materials and satisfying the information requirements of users. Although ancillary to its osten- sible objectives, the establishment of li- brary conditions that are psychically sat- isfying to users would seem fully as im- portant. Some support for the system model of library analysis comes from an effort by Richard L. Meier to establish efficiency criteria for a large state university li- brary. Meier hypothesized that the li- brary was handling messages at a rate which metropolitan areas would be forced to meet some time in the future. Equating marginal cost to the library of providing a unit of service with an esti- mate of the worth of the time students spend waiting for service to be provided, he suggested, as an optimization crite- rion, that "the sum of the marginal cost of providing a unit of service and the marginal cost for the user should be a minimum."61 In a tight goal model of library organization, such a criterion might seem quite tenable. The investi- gator learned, however, that all-out ef- forts to minimize the cost to libraries of providing service neglected the need for resource allocation to organizational im- provement and to the restructuring of service in anticipation of demand. Mei- er's final criterion, still understated be- cause of its failure to account for the re- quirement of a priori investment in an- ticipation of future demands, was that "improvements should be made in the quality and scale of service until the combined costs to the library and the user reached the value of the alternative uses for the time of the faculty and stu- dents."62 In Meier's empirical validation of the system model, convincing evidence is presented that maximum output at minimum cost is an unsatisfactory stand- et Meier, "Efficiency Criteria for the Operation of Large Libraries," Library Quarterly, XXXI, (July 1961), 230. 62 Ibid., p.234. For Meier's description of a range of responses which academic libraries might make to increasing communications loads, see his "Communi- cations Overload: Proposals from the Study of a University Library," Administrative Science Quarterly., VII, (March 1963), 534-40. 287 ard for libraries. Implicit in the investi- gator's final criterion, moreover, though couched in financial terms, is a recogni- tion of the need to improve library op- erations qualitatively as a concession to the psychological needs of users. At the outset, it was suggested that while the alienation of youth culture is generally re~ated to ·the Larger Society, it may, nevertheless, be experienced to varying degrees in particular social insti- tutions. It may, for example, be reduced or reinforced with reference to an aca- demic library. Scales thus far developed to measure alienation, either societally or within the smaller context of the so- cial system, set humanistic values (e.g. , mastery and autonomy, insight and un- derstanding, order and trust, consensus and commitment, and interplay and in- volvement) off against the variants of alienation (e.g. , powerlessness, meaning- lessness, normlessness, isolation, and self- estrangement).63 Sample items from a three-component, twenty-four-item scale for measuring societal alienation in Co- lumbus, Ohio, were: I. Powerlessness (9 items with .78 re- liability) "There is little or nothing I can do toward preventing a major 'shooting' war." "We are just so many cogs in the machinery of life." 2. Normlessness (6 items with .73 relia- bility) "The end often justifies the means." "I often wonder what the meaning of life really is." . 3. Isolation (9 items with .84 reliability) "Sometimes I feel all alone in the world." "One can always find friends if he shows himself friendly." 63 Melvin Seeman and John W . Evans, "Aliena tion and Learning in a Hospital Setting," American So ci- ologi cal Review, XXVII, (December 1962), 772. Other types of alienation scales may be found in the foiiow - ing articles: (1) Gwynn Netler , "A Measure of Aliena- tion," A m erican So ciological R eview, XXII, (Decem - ber 1957) , 670-77; (2) Wendell Bell, "Anomie, So- cial I solation, and the Class Structure," So ciometry, XX, (June 1957), 105-1 6 ; (3) Allan H . Roberts and Milton Rokeach , "Anomie, Authoritarianism, and Prej - udice: A Replication ," American Jo urnal of So cio logy, LXI, (January 1956) , 355-58; and (4) Leo Srole, "Social Integration and Certain Corollaries : An Ex- plora tory Study," American Sociological R eview, XXI , (December 1956), 709-16 . (The 24 item Alienation Scale had a .78 reliability.64) In this study, the correlation among the three subscales, or variants of aliena- tion, revealed each as sufficiently inde- pendent to merit treatment as an inde- pendent variable. All of these three vari- ants are strong components of the youth culture. Perhaps more important for our con- sideration are the alienation studies al- ready completed on an agricultural co- operative65 and a TB hospital. In their study of the hospital, Melvin Seeman and John W. Evans postulated that powerlessness, as a variant of alienation, was related to limited knowledge of the environment. "In an important sense," according to these researchers, "knowl- edge acquisition is irrelevant for those who believe that fate, luck, chance, or external forces control the fall of events."66 When applied, their scale for powerlessness, . which measured expec- tancies for control, 67 revealed that low alienation was related to the quantity of one's information about TB and of the meaning of the hospital environment. On the basis of their research, Seeman and Evans proposed a broad hypothesis for social systems, namely that "differ- ences in alienation (i.e., in powerless- ness) are associated with the differential learning of behavior-relevant informa- 64 Dwight G . Dean, "Alienation: Its Meaning and Measurement," American So ciologi cal Review, XXVI, (October 1961), 756. 6 5 John P. Clark, "Measuring Alienation Within a Social System," American Sociological Review, XXIV, (December 1959), 851. ln the Clark study, the out- standing correlate of alienation (at .62) was the mem- bers' level of dissatisfaction with the cooperative as an organi zation. 66 Seeman and Evans , op. cit. , p .773. 61 Ibid., pp.774-75. In the Seeman-Evans study , powerlessness was measured by a scale of forced- choice items developed at Ohio State University . The foilow ing are sample choices: 1. Becoming a success is a matter of hard work; luck has little or nothin g to do with it. ---- Getting a job depends mainly on being in the right place at the right time . 2. - - -- Many times I feel I have little influ- ence over the things that happen to me. ---- I do not believe that chance and luck are very important in my life. 3. ---- The average citizen can have an influ- ence on the way the government is run. ---- The world is run by the few people in power, and there is not much the little guy can do about it. 288 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES tion." 68 Based on this study, one might tentatively suggest that academic librar- ians can help counteract student aliena- tion by insuring that students have a good understanding of the functions and purposes of the library. As the setting for learning moves away from the class- room, librarians should make a strong effort to make students as familiar with the raison d' etre of the library as they are traditionally acquainted with the purposes of the classroom. Thus far, our study of academic li- brarianship has utilized mainly the cul- tural and behavioral approaches, with rather little emphasis on the more usual ecological one. Librarians have used a first approximation of the latter ap- proach when they have observed patterns of physical activity within and without their libraries (e.g., the hours of peak circulation, the relative use given vari- ous portions of the collection, the char- acter of student traffic patterns as they relate to the positioning of a new li- brary, etc.). In her seminal study of the use of the Knox College library, Patricia B. Knapp combined the ecological and behavioral perspectives when she· associ- ated library activity with student char- acteristics like (l) academic class; (2) scholastic achievement; (3) scholastic ap- titude; and (4) sex.69 It is perhaps the failure to recognize the ecological aspects of Mrs. Knapp's style and the specificity of her locale that has caused many to overgeneralize her conclusions. The very essence of the ecological approach is its nonuniversal- 118 Ibid., p .772. In a recent overview of studies on the diffu sion of knowledge about science to the pub- lic, Wilbur Schramm of Stanford determined that such knowledge is widely but not deeply distributed in the United States. He ascertained that the depth of one's scientific knowledge walii inversely related to one's feelings of fo.reboding about the scientific enter- prise and that those wh·o felt alienated with respect to science still had "a tendency to clothe science with ma gic and myth and for s·uspicions to develop." See Wilbur Schramm , "Science and the Public Mind" in St u dies of I n novation and of Communication to the Public (Volu111e 2 of "Studies in the Utilization of the Behavioral Sciences") (Stanford, Calif. Stanford University Institute for ' Communication Research, 19 62)' p.2 65. . . IV Knapp, College T eachin.Q. an d th e College Library (ACRL Monograph No. 23) (Chicago: ALA, 1959), pp. 28-29. JULY 1963 ity and its low validity for other than a particular institution at a given period of time. The universalizing· of ecological conclusions can result in a dangerous im- itation of corrective prescriptions. Given the current irrelevance of collegiate mod- els provided by Europe, David Riesman has noted the tendency of colleges and universities to be isomorphic, or conver- gently imitative, of certain elite institu- tions with little or no consideration of how what is imitated will be congruent with local conditions.7o Why, for example, should Winona (Minnesota) State College use what Dartmouth has done as a prescription for action? Why should Catholic .colleges currently abuilding use as models older institutions .whose "owners" have been tempted to "identify the college with the religious community and to think of the students as a temporary part of the com- munity"?71 Is it logical for institutions to construct a separate undergraduate library on the Harvard model without first ascertaining empirically the capacity or noncapacity of their students to use effectively a large open research collec- tion like that of the Firestone library at Princeton?72 Because some state universi- ties have decided to accommodate supe- rior students in their undifferentiated student bodies by either internal (e.g. , the Honors College a,t the University of Illinois) or external (e.g., Michigan State University at Oakland) decentralization does not mean that all colleges and uni- 70 Riesman , Constrain t and Variety i n Ameri can Edu- cation (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1958), pp .3 5- 36. Riesman ' s image is that of a snake whose middle and end segments look to the head for direction but never seem to get it. 71 Andrew M. Greeley, Stran gers in the Hou se: Catholic Youth in America Toda y (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1961), pp.74-75 . For an extensive dis - cu ssion of "community ownership" of institutions of higher education, see James J. Maguire , "Fa mily A f . fair ," Commonweal, LXXV, (November 10, 1961) , 171-73 . . ' 72 I am not certain that librarians generally h a ve suffici ent evidence of a hard sort rega rding- student capacities to give immediate assent to Ellsworth's proposition that "the youngsters in most u'niversities aren't ready to work in a resea·rch ·library . . ." For Ellsworth's discussion of this ·i ssue, see Planning . th e College and Universit.v Library Bttildino: A Book for Campus Planners and Architects (Boulder., Colo ., 1960), p .14. . . 289 versities, by analogy, should construct separate facilities on a basis of the maxi- mum overt participation of superior stu- dents only. All such decisions, including those relating to the establishment of library facilities, should be based on a better assessment of local conditions than has prevailed thus far. Very recently, a student of higher edu- cation observed that the college is the "major socializing agency for the sub- culture of educated men." 73 If that is so, students are called upon to acquire some cultural sophistication during their col- lege experience, a cultural sophistication which comprehends knowledge in some depth of the human situation and the concomitant ability "to respond to ideas on their own terms rather than as eval- uations or prescriptions for action."74 Teachers and librarians must work to- gether to help students to construct within themselves the commitments to society and ideas which underlie a valid cultural sophistication. In nonresidential, working-class col- leges and universities, where many stu- dents view themselves as youth appren- tices who have already accepted societal life ways in their outside jobs, there is a need for improved student understand- ing of the worth of ideas and abstrac- tions generally. Following is a hypothet- ical scheme of college-student subcul- tures devised by Martin Trow: Identify with (+) their college (-) Involved with Ideas (+) (-) I 2 3 4 I =the academic subculture 2 =the collegiate subculture 3 = the nonconformist subculture 4 =the vocational subculture75 'Ill Martin Trow, "Cultural Sophistication and Higher Education" in S electi on and Edu cational Di ffer en tia- tion (Berkeley, Calif.: University of Californ ia Field' Service Center and Center for the Study of Higher Education, 1959), p .107. or• Ibid. , pp.109-10. . 'l5 Trow, "The Campus Viewed as a Culture," in It should be indicated that in the Trow scheme, the greatest threat to the academic subculture (where there is both involvement with ideas and identi- fication with the college) is not from the collegiate subculture (where, despite the enchantment with football and fraterni- ties, there remains identification with the institution) but from the vocational sub- culture where alienation can derive from a lack of ideological or social roots in the college rather than as a consequence of the rejection of adult life styles, to which most vocationalists, as part-time employ- ees, have already subscribed.76 It must be pointed out, however, that the kind of alienation felt by the apprentice vis-a- vis his college does not have nearly the power of the alienation felt by the youth culturalists in the institutions where there is a strong academic andj or non- conformist orientation. Let it be said, finally, that forces in our "white collar" society do not permit us the luxury of reducing felt alienation by making all youths apprentices. As librarians concerned with the recti- tude of our acquisition policies and pat- terns of service, our effort should be toward some assessment of the character of the balance between youth culture and youth apprenticeship in our institu- tions. William G. Land, a Washington, D.C., educational analyst, has p.ow de- vised a continuum suitable to our needs which, as initially used, describes the ed- ucational orientations of one hundred (Contin.ued on page 307) Hall T. Sprague (ed.), Research on College Stu dents (Boulder, Colo.: Western Interstate Commi ssion for Higher Education and the Center for the Study of Higher Education of the University of California (Berkeley), 1960), p .lll. 76 In an unpublished paper, two University of Cali- fornia (Berkeley) inves tigators have reported a study of students on the Berkeley campu s which attempts to measure the impact of school spirit on scholarship. They discovered that although the school spirited are less interested in intellectual thought for its own sake than are the strict academic . subculturalists, neverthe- less, " school spirit has no ('ffect on the amount of time s pent in studyin g, the motivation to get good grades, or grades high enough to remain in s chool; and it has only slight effect on the attainment of top grades." See Robert Wenkert and Hanan Selvin, "School Spirit and the Spirit of Scholarship ," un- published manuscript, University of California (Berke- ley) Survey Research Center (January 1962), p .21. 290 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH L-fBRA·RIES