College and Research Libraries R O B E R T F . M U N N The Bottomless Pit, or the Academic Library as Viewed from the Administration Building Library administrators could adjudge their likely fortunes in the aca- demic tug-of-war for funds if they understood more clearly the atti- tudes of institutional administrators toward libraries. Some view the library as "a bottomless pit"; all recognize that the library is unlikely to generate much political pressure for its own aggrandizement. Many young institutional administrators are coming to apply more sophis- ticated measures to their funding formulas than have been utilized in the past. Librarians therefore would be well advised to become more proficient in modern management techniques and program budgeting concepts. A . C A D E M I C L I B R A R I A N S worry a lot. One need only attend a convention or leaf through the library journals to be im- pressed by the range and intensity of their concerns. Some worry about re- cruitment, others about automation, and still others about interlibrary loans. There are even those who worry about the institutionalization of these ever-pro- liferating worries in the form of stand- ing committees and round tables. There remain a few unifying themes, however, matters about which almost all academic librarians worry. Among the most im- portant of these is "The Administration/'1 1 " T h e Administration," as all academics will know, consists of the institution's president, vice-presidents, provost, and their entourage of executive assistants, plus perhaps a few of the more powerful deans. On some campuses the Administration is referred to as " i t " ; on others as " t h e y . " Dr. Munn is Acting Provost and Dean of the Graduate School in West Virginia Uni- versity. Directors of academic libraries are especially prone to worry about the Ad- ministration, and understandably so. For it is the Administration which establishes the salaries and official status of the di- rector and his staff, which sets at least the total library budget, which decides if and when a new library building shall be constructed and at what cost. In short, it is the Administration—not the faculty and still less the students—which de- termines the fate of the library and those who toil therein. While many academic librarians wor- ry endlessly about the Administration, they usually know very little about it. Librarians are not normally part of either the administrative inner circle it- self or the select group of faculty oli- garchs and entrepreneurs whose views carry great weight. They are thus ex- cluded from the real decision-making process of the institution. Indeed, li- brarians are often horrified and/or en- / 51 52 / College <6- Research Libraries • January 1968 raged to discover that decisions of cru- cial importance to the library have been made without their advice or even prior knowledge. Much, though certainly not all, of this frustration might be avoided if librarians had a better understanding of how aca- demic administrators view the library. It is the purpose of this article to offer a few modest insights. The most accurate answer to the ques- tion, "what do academic administrators think about the library," is that they don't think very much about it at all. There are amazingly few references to libraries in the vast and repetitive litera- ture of higher education. Libraries are almost never discussed at the national meetings of presidents, provosts, deans, and other academic luminaries. This rather deafening silence cannot be at- tributed entirely to the faculty club view that all administrators are illiterate. There are other reasons, several of the most important of which are noted be- low. It has often been observed that ad- ministrators devote most of their atten- tion to matters at either end of the spec- trum and have little time for those in the middle. In the academic world, the library is definitely in the middle. It is unlikely to be the cause of either a crisis or a coup. It will not, on the one hand, trigger a riot nor on the other hand will it bring in a multi-million dollar grant. In short, the library is one of those aca- demic sleeping dogs which the harassed administrator is quite content to let lie. Administrators also devote much time and attention to those units which con- sume a large portion of the institution's total budget. The library is not oife of these. Most universities allocate perhaps 4 or 5 per cent of the operating budget to the library. This is not only a relative- ly small percentage but is also a re- markably consistent one, varying little from year to year. As a result, many academic administrators tend to view the library budget as a fairly modest fixed cost and let it go at that. It is cer- tainly the case that librarians worry vastly more about the high cost of li- braries than do administrators. (A study of why this is so might reveal much about personalities of academic librar- ians ). Of course, academic administrators do give some thought to the library. After all, it is they who determine the li- brary's budget. It may be instructive to note some of the factors which the Ad- ministration is likely to consider in de- termining how much of the institution's resources should be devoted to the li- brary. One important consideration is the fact that many academic administrators view the library as a bottomless pit. They have observed that increased ap- propriations one year invariably result in still larger requests the next. More important, there do not appear to be even any theoretical limits to the li- brary's needs. Certainly the library pro- fession has been unable to define them. This the Administration finds most dis- quieting. The science chairmen may re- quest staggering sums for equipment, but at least they have a definite and per- haps even attainable goal in mind. It is possible to imagine that, with an assist or two from the National Science Foun- dation, the physics department might reach the point where it has all the equipment it wants; another reactor or accelerator would actually be in the way. Even the athletic director will admit, if pressed, that it would be absurd to build a field house above a certain size. Only the librarian is unable to place any limits on his needs. Research li- braries are, after all, infinitely ex- pandable. This being so, the Administra- tion is understandably reluctant to de- The Bottomless Pit / 53 vote a very great per cent of its resources to the pursuit of an undefined and pre- sumably unattainable goal. The allocation of an academic institu- tion's resources is influenced by many factors: truth, justice, wisdom—and pres- sure. While the library is the institution's official repository for the first three, it has never managed to accumulate much in the way of pressure. Almost everyone is in favor of more money for the library, but always at someone else's expense. Dean A and Chairman B will cheerfully support an increase in the library budget as a general proposition or even at the expense of some other unit. However, any suggestion that the funds should come from their budgets produces a re- action rather like that of a mother grizzly guarding its young. In most institutions, a significant in- crease in the library budget is third or fourth on the priority list of most of the deans and chairmen—falling well below more money for salary increases and more money for new staff. Depending on local circumstances, it tends to rank just above or just below more money for parking facilities. Indeed, only the li- brarian is likely to be intensely con- cerned about the library, and, as has been noted, he does not often carry great weight in the academic power structure. Thus the administrator who consistently favors the library does so largely because he happens to think it a Good Thing, and not because he is under great pres- sure to do so. A third factor which the Adminis- tration is increasingly likely to consider in determining the library's budget is the advice of its own research staff. Un- til fairly recently few academic admin- istrators had even heard of such concepts as program budgeting, decision matrices, and cost-benefit analysis. Now, however, almost all universities have established offices—often called the office of institu- tional research staffed by zealous young men learned in such matters. While they are doubtless disliked and even feared by many older administrators, the future is clearly theirs. Increasingly sophisti- cated attempts to achieve effective re- source allocation are inevitable. All this presents even the most "li- brary-minded" administrator with a real dilemma. His long-held article of faith that the library is a Good Thing and somehow self-justifying is questioned. The young men are contemptuous of articles of faith. Even the fact that the prestige universities tend to have the largest libraries leaves them unmoved. They point out that this is simply a re- sult of wealth, and that the prestige uni- versities also have the best student psy- chiatric services. In short, the conventional wisdom is simply no longer useful in the area of re- source allocation. It does not, for ex- ample, help the Administration deter- mine whether an additional $100,000 a year would be better spent on books or on the addition of new staff in the de- partment of civil engineering. At the mo- ment, neither do the analytical tech- niques developed by institutional re- search. The young men are hard at work, however, and their mere presence has forced administrators to think in terms of cost-benefit. Since nobody yet ap- pears to have the slightest idea how to make a cost-benefit analysis of the con- tribution of the library, few administra- tors feel justified in straying far from the traditional percentage. In summary, academic administrators devote little real thought to the library. Tradition, what other institutions are doing, academic politics, and the per- sonal predilections of the officials in- volved tend to determine budget sup- port. Such criteria may not seem very impressive, but at the moment they are about the only ones available. 54 / College <6- Research Libraries • January 1968 The current pressure to introduce modern management practices into the universities will not leave libraries un- affected. Such techniques as program budgeting require a much more rigorous analysis of the balance of return against investment than has ever been applied to libraries. Just why should the library receive 3 or 6 or 1 or 10 per cent of the institution's total budget? How should the claims of the library, the com- puter center, and educational television for budget support be evaluated? These and similar questions are certain to be asked. It might be prudent for academic librarians to have some answers. ••