College and Research Libraries


Book Reviews 
The Library-College: Contributions for 

American Higher Education at the 
Jamestown College Workshop, 1965. Ed. 
by Louis Shores, Robert Jordan, John 
Harvey. Philadelphia: Drexel Press, 1966. 
2 8 7 p . 

For several years before the Jamestown 
College Workshop was convened in De-
cember 1965, the participants had circu-
lated papers and corresponded on the li-
brary-college idea. They were already advo-
cates of the idea when President Sillers in-
vited them to think with him and members 
of the Jamestown faculty about the estab-
lishment of a library-college for the liberal 
arts on that campus. Their papers, the 
Library-College Newsletters, and the James-
town Workshop Committee Reports—Char-
ter, Curriculum, Personnel, Supporting Me-
dia and Architecture—are gathered in this 
volume. "A Genealogy of the Library-Col-
lege Idea" and a chronologically arranged 
"Library College Bibliography" compiled by 
Robert Jordan round out a collection which 
should be of vital interest to any librarian 
who is concerned as an educator. 

The earliest paper was written in 1934 
by Louis Shores and is entitled "The Library 
Arts College, a Possibility in 1954." He 
says that his "undergraduate experiences 
like those of many other students, convinced 
him he could learn much more in the li-
brary reading than he could by attending 
most classes." Looking ahead he saw the 
library arts college as "merely the logical 
culmination of such current trends in Ameri-
can education as are exemplified by honors 
courses, comprehensive examinations and 
other reforms of the last decade." 

And indeed, under B. Lamar Johnson as 
dean and librarian, Stephens College be-
came a "library arts" college as early as 
1938. Books were made a constant part of 
the student's environment, and teachers and 
librarians merged into a single instructional 
staff. "Vitalizing a College Library" and the 
Summary are his valuable contributions to 
the book. 

In the decade after World War II the 
trend described by Louis Shores and ex-
emplified by Stephens College did not con-

tinue. Rather, older institutions expanded 
in a pattern of classroom and lecture hall 
for larger and larger groups of students. 
New small colleges like the experimental 
ones begun in the 1930's were not de-
veloped. 

New ground was broken by Patricia 
Knapp in 1956 in her paper "A Suggested 
Program of College Instruction in the Use 
of the Library" (see "The Monteith College 
Library Experiment," CRL, XXVII [Novem-
ber 1967]). According to her, library use 
is one of the liberal arts and the library is 
the college. She states this in "The Library 
Organization of Resources As the Curricu-
lum: a Minority Report," where she writes, 
"Educators maintain the curriculum should 
be based on the structure of the discipline. 
The organization of the library reflects that 
structure. Where better than in the Library-
College can we try out the notion that 
there might be some merit in relating the 
two?" 

In the 1960's Robert Jordan has gathered 
together many librarians who feel that there 
is a teaching function to librarianship. He 
asserts that librarians have an "unique mis-
sion as the guardians of general education," 
and calls for more courage and self-confi-
dence ("The Library-College—a Proposal, 
1962"). 

If there was a neglected topic of discus-
sion at Jamestown, it was, perhaps, the 
"Training and Orientation" of librarians. 
John Harvey's paper suggests that superior 
colleges, presumably ones where independ-
ent study takes place, are the best place to 
recruit a library-college faculty; Dan Sillers' 
report on personnel calls for a faculty of 
bibliographical experts. For our own train-
ing and orientation we librarians need a 
library-college.—Charlotte Fletcher, St. 
John's College. 

A Critical Survey of University Libraries 
and Librarianship in Great Britain. By 
Harrison Bryan. Adelaide: Libraries 
Board of S. Australia, 1966. iii, 255p. 
$2. 
Although it bears a 1966 imprint date, 

this Critical Survey was presented for the 
Diploma of the Library Association of Aus-

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