College and Research Libraries


The Greening of the Library 

Surely it is possible for librarians to come to grips with the decade of the 
seventies! Now that we have caught our breath as we start the second h alf of the 
academic year, and now that we are indeed sure that we are well into the sev-
enties, academic librarians can be forgiven some self-questioning. One question 
which formerly served as a touchstone to the process was: Where is the com-
puter in my life? 

The glamorous sixties-compounded of one part computer manufacturers' hy-
perbole and one part systems analysts' jargon, mixed with two parts of our own 
fear and gee whiz incomprehension-have faded, but will there come about in 
the seventies a flinty-eyed realism, controlled and controllable aims, and more pre-
cise cost consciousness where computers are concerned? The conventional wisdom 
tells us that as we move into what Brzezinski has called the Technetronic Era, , 
we will surely shrug off our accumulated hangups from the nineteenth century; · 
we will master our computerized environment; we will neither fear nor adore the .·~ 
machine, we will use it. 

But what if the conventional wisdom is wrong, or even just wide of the m ark? 
What if neither the peculiar standpatism favored by the Nixon administration per-
sists, nor the total dissolution desired by the hairy Left really happens? What if 
people like Charles ("The Greening of America") Reich are right? What if the 
established consciousness is doomed?-that is, what if enough people get high 
on self-awareness, become sated with the shams of the political structures, refuse 
to tolerate the madness of the corporate state? What if the new consciousness, the 
new spirit, becomes old hat during the seventies? 

Then the librarian will not ask: Where is the computer in my life? Rather, he 
or she may well ask: Where is the love in my computerized library's life? The 
latter is not just a different question, but a different kind of question altogether, 
for its premise is something totally unsuspected by the hard-working drones in 
contemporary American libraries. Just as the "little old librarian" of recent memory 
w as written off because "she" could neither comprehend nor accept computer ma-
nipulation of library problems, so the "modern academic librarian" is in imminent 
peril of being ignored by the new spirit on the campus. 

That new spirit does not demand ever larger and larger libraries, ever larger and 
larger budgets, or ever larger and larger computers and computer products. 
Rather, that rapidly growing minority infected by the new spirit insists that the 
function of a library is to serve people as people-and not as "patrons," "clients," 
or (worse yet) as "mere numbers." The new spirit suggests that the purpose of the 
librarian is to help explain (with all the tools available) mankind to man and each 
man to himself. If the library and its librarians fend off the questioners and avoid 
confrontations with the new consciousness, then surely they will lose the opportu-
nity of coming close to the concerns of present day students. They will not touch 
reality and they will surely be forgotten. 

The solution to problems lies not in giving right or even "wrong" answers , but 
in asking relevant questions. 

w. H. WEBB 
/ 5 



NOW YOU CAN GET &rE EYRE 
ONTHESHE S 

AS FAST AS WINNIE THE POOH. 

After years of supplying LJ Cards for children's books, we've now 
grown to adults'. 

LJ catalog card sets are now available for all English language 
adult titles published from 1969 on. 

Our adult card sets are designed to accomplish the same thing as 
LJ processing kits for juvenile titles-namely, to get new acquisitions on 
the shelves while they're still new. 

So, as with all LJ Cards, we guarantee to fill your order within 10 
days after receiving it-provided, of course, the book has been published. 
If we fail, return the order and we'll return your money. (To make sure 
we don't have to return any money, we've recently increased our order-
handling staff by 250%. And our facilities by 300%.) 

You can order adult card sets three ways: with standard Library of 
Congress order slips; copies of multiple order forms; or any 3"by 5" slip 
listing author, title, publisher, date of publication, and edition. The price 
is $.35 per set. 

And no matter how you do it, you can now have what elementary 
and high school librarians have had for some time. 

An up-to-date reading room. Instead of just an up-to-date 
storage room. 

XEROX BiblioGraphies 
2500 Schu ster Drive, Cheverly, Md . 20781