College and Research Libraries LLOYD W. GRIFFIN and JACK A. CLARKE Orientation and Instruction of Graduate Students in the Use of the University Library: A Survey A recent questionnaire on instruction of graduate students in the use of the university library~ submitted to twenty-three large university libraries (and returned by twenty), brings up to date a similar survey reported in CRL in 1958. The problem appears perennial and as yet unsolved, though libraries are giving orientation lectures and tours, providing graduate and faculty manuals, utilizing bibliographers and subiect specialists to consult with graduate students or even to conduct formal bibliographic courses, and developing imaginative programs employing new equipment and techniques to interpret the library to this segment of its public. Hope for the future lies in increased com- munication between teacher and librarian-and programs good enough to be appreciated for their practical utility by graduate stu- dents. THE GROWTH ~ SIZE AND COMPLEXITY of research libraries and of new graduate programs seems to require some sort of special instruction for graduate students who must use research collections in- tensively. In many universities, rising backlogs of uncataloged materials and tight budgets have forced librarians to adopt a policy of partial cataloging and classification for certain categories of research materials. There are "special" collections hidden from the public in . most large library systems, as well as lo- cal variations in filing or shelving that often confuse students, librarians, and Lloyd W. Griffin is associate professor and director for reference services, Me- morial Library, University of Wisconsin- Madison. Jack A. Clarke is a professor in the Library School, University of Wisconsin- Madison. faculty alike. Explaining these arcane mysteries to beginning graduate students poses a major problem to the adminis- trators and reference personnel of these libraries. Traditionally, library orientation has focused on the assumed needs of fresh- men, and the literature of librarianship still reflects this emphasis.1 Most schools once offered, and many continue to of- fer, a brief tour of the library building supplemented by an introductory lec- ture or two during orientation week or the first week of classes. A few large universities and some small colleges offer bibliography courses or seminars as elec- tives for junior and senior students pur- suing honors work. More recently, teach- ing machines, audiovisual aids, and pro- grammed texts have been developed to teach basic library skills at a time and in a place more convenient to students~ I 467 468 I College & Research Libraries • November 1972 Other librarians have experimented with closed-circuit television programs and have prepared "do-it-yourself" tour guides that are available at the refer- ence desks throughout the academic year. These guides usually build on the printed handouts prepared for under- graduates. Still other librarians are cur- rently involved in developing computer- assisted courses which will provide an overview of the entire library system for undergraduates. No one appears sat- isfied, however, that we have solved this problem of orientation at the under- graduate level, although a good start has been made on many smaller and medi- um-sized campuses. As a matter of fact, it appears that the larger and more com- plex a library system becomes, the less the campus as a whole is prepared, or can afford, to do, in order to interpret that system to its users, graduate or un- dergraduate. Ten years ago we reported in these pages a survey of large university li- braries in which we attempted to ascer- tain how reference librarians were ap- proaching this perennial problem. 2 We learned then that most librarians in re- search libraries were genuinely con- cerned about the lack of orientation for entering graduate students, but a clear majority of our respondents dis- claimed formal responsibility for in- struction of students at this level. They preferred to rely on occasional lectures, guided tours, and personal appoint- ments with subject specialists to provide the level of bibliographic sophistication needed for graduate study. The best hope for orientation and instruction of graduate students by the library staff, they reported, seemed to lie in closer co- operation with the teaching faculty. Only an interested faculty could con- vince graduate students of the value of personal appointments with the library~ s subject specialists and reference li- brarians. To examine recent developments in this area, the authors compiled a ques- tionnaire consisting of two general questions divided into seven parts which could be mailed with a covering letter or used as the basis for an oral inter- view. 3 We wanted to know how many of these large libraries offered separate pro- visions for orienting graduate and un- dergraduate students in library use and whether their present practices differed from those of the past. We also asked if their libraries had any local peculiari- ties that might require a special orienta- tion for graduate students. The re- sponse to our survey was gratifying; twenty librarians out of twenty-three ( 87 percent) in large university libraries returned our questionnaire, often ac- companying it with detailed comments and pertinent printed materials.4 A few respondents also advised us to contact other libraries which they believed to have excellent orientation programs. To supplement this data, we also inter- viewed eleven additional people in :five of these Hbraries w4o have a responsi- bility for teaching library usage. We wanted to ascertain first what li- brarians are doing currently to orient graduate students in the use of the re- search library and how this differs from past practices. Four libraries replied flat- ly that they accepted no formal respon- sibility for teaching library use to grad- uate students because this was handled adequately by the teaching faculty. 'We encourage individual faculty people to take care of this, within the context of their own seminars or courses," one li- brarian replied. A fifth library offers oc- casional lectures and tours of its depart- ments "on the request of the instruc- tional faculty." Still another library re- plied that they have no formal program for library instruction of graduates or un.dergraduates but that they expect to institute one in the near future. Iron- ically, this library had made an identical response to this question ten years earli- er. Three other libraries stated that the undergraduate tours and orientation session held during the first week of each semester seemed to serve the needs of graduate students as well. Another librarian reported that his building was so well planned that students had no difficulty in locating materials. Seven out of nineteen libraries an- swering this first question reported ex- panding programs tailored to the needs of beginning graduate students and transfer students from other institu- tions. celt's a much more complicated bibliographical world" one librarian ex- plained. «These days, there aren't many faculty members who can give sound courses in bibliography. They've lost touch, it's gotten so big and confusing." In his view librarians must begin to fill this need. Cornell advertises, at · the be- ginning of each term, the availability of orientation sessions. «We schedule groups that come in and give them an orientation to almost any depth they choose. We start out just leading a group through the building, then we be- come increasingly sophisticated, and we finally end up with that handful who get almost individual tutoring." At Yale a general library tour by the reference staff is offered to all incoming graduate students early in the academic year. It differs from those tours traditionally provided for freshmen «in degree only." This physical orientation, which concentrates upon services and locations of materials within the system, is sup- plemented by bibliographic tours, last- ing one to two hours, on specific aca- demic subjects. The students are then shown relevant bibliographic and refer- ence tools and are supplied with printed lists of major information sources in their fields of interest. When the Uni- versity of Chicago moved into its new Joseph Regenstein Library ·in the late summer of 1970, it was decided to con- duct subject orientation programs for graduate students in anthropology, geog- raphy, political science, business, social- Orientation and Instruction I 469 ogy, philosophy, education, and library science. "Each session was conducted in the library near the specialized refer- ence tools by the bibliographers and ref- erence personnel responsible for that particular discipline. . . . Our purpose in this program was two-fold: ( 1) to make the student aware of the major reference works in his field and their lo- cation in the new building, and ( 2) to. introduce the student to the library staff members specialized in his subject area." These sessions proved so helpful to stu- dents and faculty alike that they will be scheduled again next year and expanded into other disciplines. Several libraries have prepared print- ed guides for graduate students which are intended to supplement the formal sessions and the handouts given to un- derclassmen. Typically, these guides fea- ture detailed information about the lo- cal library and its collections, including its membership in such cooperative· ven- tures as the Hampshire Inter-Library Center or the Center for Research Li- braries. The student is always encour- aged in these guides to look beyond the resources on his own campus for impor- tant but little-known materials in other collections that might be obtained through interlibrary loan. Instructions are also provided for securing copies of master's theses and doctoral dissertations necessary for their research. Plans are being developed at the University of Washington "for a library guide (in- cluding specialized information for graduate students) to be mailed to all graduate students just before the fall quarter." The State University of Iowa has compiled a particularly attractive and well-organized handbook for gradu- ate students and members of the facul- ty. It contains a section on the special services that its library staff provides as well as information on the liberal lend- ing regulations for this level group. A similar publication~ prepared by the ref- erence staff at the University of Massa- 470 I College & Research Libraries • November 1972 chusetts, identifies special materials in their library and informs students How to Use Libraries Outside the University for Serials and Rare Sets. This hand- book is distributed at a series of three informational forums for graduate stu- dents and undergraduate majors in the social sciences and the humanities which are offered at two different ·times in or- der to include as many students as pos- sible. Ohio State sent us a nicely printed Library Handbook for Faculty and Graduate Students which describes the general library and its collections, the departmental libraries, and, most impor- tantly, the services available through the consultant for library research and lec- turer in bibliography, who provides class lectures on research materials for new graduate students. She also holds per- sonal conferences with graduate stu- dents at all levels, advises them as to the special resources in their fields, and sug- gests bibliographic works "which list materials not included in the card cata- log." A record card is kept of each stu- dent conference, and it is filed by in- structional department with the stu- dent's research interests, the scope or limitations of his study, and his work- ing languages all duly noted down. Coming at the beginning of a student's dissertation work, this bibliographical orientation, can save him as much as two months time, the library staff as- serts. Still other libraries (notably Iowa and Wisconsin) have issued mimeo- graphed lists of reference books and bibliographic aids in their libraries that the librarians hope will prove useful to graduate students. Wisconsin has also prepared maps showing the location of the subject bibliographers and describ- ing their special collections. Two other libraries (Columbia and Illinois) will prepare additional subject bibliogra- phies in a variety of fields on the re- quest of the graduate faculty. It should be noted, however, that many other ref- erence departments issue book lists on specific subjects that fit the needs of both undergraduate and graduate stu- dents. Northwestern University, for ex- ample, has recently inaugurated a quar- terly series of brief informational notes on reference materials and selective checklists of new titles, divided on sub- ject lines, which certainly falls within this category. The University of Cali- fornia at Berkeley has prepared a series of Library Orientation Leaflets that cover such diverse topics as lending rules, ethnic materials, and microcopy collections. Varying widely in format, these leaflets contain a great deal of val- uable information on this complex sys- tem. A major development in research li- braries during the last decade has been the addition to their staff of subject and area studies bibliographers. These spe- cialist librarians usually possess exten- sive substantive knowledge and a com- mand of several foreign languages as well. Although their primary responsi- bility lies in collection building, they al- so participate in bibliographic and ori- entation programs for faculty, gradu- ate students, and often for undergrad- uates as well. At UCLA the bibliogra- phers play a considerable role in gradu- ate education, "particularly at the point where a graduate student is beginning to think about a dissertation." At Wis- consin most of the ten bibliographers address seminar groups, and/ or advise graduate students on bibliographic problems connected with their research. Eleven other libraries also reported that their bibliographers addressed classes or seminars regularly on the invitation of the instructional faculty. In some schools the bibliographers are members of the subject department and attend departmental meetings. Unfortunately, the bibliographers in several institutions reported that their offices were often '1ocated in out of the way places" and students did not readily find them. Their services were not as much used by graduate students as might have been expected. At Chicago, Wisconsin, Harvard, and Columbia, a few specialists give whole courses in the bibliography and research methods of the various area studies, mu- sic, the fine arts, agriculture, etc. The li- brarian for economics and government at Indiana offers an upper level course entitled "Bibliography of Political Sci- ence" which "is designed to give stu- dents an introduction to library research tools in political science and related so- cial sciences." Students are required to evaluate their experience with these tools, reporting "on the success or fail- ure of their efforts." Two other head li- brarians reported that their bibliogra- phers would soon offer substantive or bibliographical courses for area special- ists. In eleven responding libraries, the curators of rare books and other special collections also work very closely with graduate students and faculty members. Through lectures, exhibits, and tours they make these materials known to in- terested students and faculty. All but two responding librarians ad- mitted that their libraries had signifi- cant local peculiarities that might con- fuse graduate students and present problems of access. These included spe- cial or departmental collections which are not listed in the card catalog, a dual classification system, segregation of over- and undersized books, and storage areas for little-used materials. Yet a clear majority of the librarians answer- ing this question (fifteen out of twen- ty) remarked that their provisions for orienting graduate students seemed suf- ficient and that they did not consider orientation to be a problem in their li- brary. One department head stated that his ''building was organized in a way that makes it easy to use, and the quali- ty of the reference staff was excellent.,, Three librarians admitted that their Orientation and Instruction I 471 orientation programs were simply not reaching enough graduate students, al- though they were all publicized on de- partmental bulletin boards and in stu- dent newspapers. They attributed this student indifference to a lack of concern and cooperation from the teaching fac- ulty. It is significant, however, that whenever we conducted several inter- views in the same library (five times) we found that staff members had a dim- mer view of the quality of bibliograph- ic services provided than the director or one of his associates had expressed. One reference librarian admitted candidly that very little was done or could be done for graduate students because of the limited staff available and their heavy workload. Still another librarian noted that orientation for graduate stu- dents only works well for small groups of seven or eight students (ten is a max- imum). In her view, an all-inclusive program for graduate students was too time-consuming and too expensive for most libraries. It is a curious paradox that instruc- tion in library use, which so many li- brarians regard as one of the highest forms of library service, remains so ill- defined and poorly organized. The teaching function is claimed to be im- portant in determining our status, but we appear to take this responsibility lightly or even to neglect it. True, a good share of the blame must also rest with those faculty members who regard anything above a minimal level of li- brary service as "spoonfeeding,, their students. Our survey presents some evi- dence that communication between teachers and librarians about library use is steadily improving, but librarians still spend more time explaining the "what and how'' of their operations to stu- dents and faculty than "the reason why." The best hope for the future seems to lie in the imaginative programs utilizing new equipment and tech- niques, which are being developed at a 472 I College & Research Libraries • November 1972 few colleges and universities to bridge this gap in library service. As provision is made for these programs and they be- come operational, as the library is tied in more closely with the research and in- structional programs of the faculty, and as graduate students become con- vinced of the practical utility of in- struction in the use of the library, per- haps we can do more adequately what is necessary to interpret our collections and services to our patrons at this and all other levels. REFERENCES 1. The most complete bibliography on this sub- ject was compiled by Allan Mirwis of In- diana University. Academic Library Instruc- tion: A Bibliography 1960-1970. (Bloom- ington, Indiana: Indiana University Library, 1971) $1. 2. Lloyd W. Griffin and Jack A. Clarke, "Ori- entation and Instruction of the Graduate Student by University Libraries: A Survey," CRL, 19, no. 6 (Nov. 1958): p.451-54. 3. We would like to acknowledge our thanks to Charles Helzer, a doctoral student at the University of Wisconsin, for his assistance in developing the questionnaire. 4. Libraries participating in the survey were: California at Berkeley, California at Los Angeles, Chicago, Columbia, Cornell, Har- vard, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minne- sota, Northwestern, Ohio State, University of Washington, Wisconsin at Madison, Wiscon- sin at Milwaukee, and Yale.