College and Research Libraries WILLIAM DIX The Financing of the Research Library The following is a discussion paper presented to the National Com- mission on the Fin,ancing of Postsecondary Education by the Associ- ation of Research Libraries~ submitted August 1973. IN THE coMPLETION OF ITS MISSION the National Commission on the Financing of Postsecondary Education will be re- viewing a broad spectrum of fiscal re- quirements. The supporting role of li- braries may easily cause this sector of the total picture to be given minimal notice or even to be overlooked; yet the significance of the library's contribution to the educational and research processes and their substantial budgetary impact are so great as to warrant careful scru- tiny by the commission. In 1967 the American Council of Learned Societies published the follow- ing statement: "'Research libraries may be defined as institutions whose collec- tions are organized primarily to meet the needs of scholars and so to facilitate ef- fective action on the frontier of every field of knowledge, traditional and novel. . . . At their best they are notable for the variety and depth of their holdings and for the quality of research that they sup- port.''1 These relatively well-stocked libraries make an indispensable contribution to higher education and research in every section of the country and indeed in all parts of the world. The research library is typically a university library similar to the eighty-plus which are members of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL). Much of what we say applies also to certain major nonuniversity li- Dr. Dix is librarian at the Princeton Uni- versity Library, Princeton, New Jersey. 252/ braries which hold some of the world's greatest research collections, such as the New York Public Library and the Li- brary of Congress. The seventy-eight university libraries who were members of ARL in 1971-72 had in their collections from 700,000 (Rice) to 8, 700,000 volumes (Harvard). In 1971-72 they added to their collec- . tions from 34,000 (Howard) to 387,000 volumes (Harvard). Most of them main- tain as well large collections of manu- scripts, microforms, and other library materials not reflected in the count of printed books. These figures alone may serve to indicate that these libraries are quite different from most of the thou- sands of libraries which support the edu- cational activities of two-year colleges and even the best four-year liberal arts colleges . It is often said that universities exist for the preservation of knowledge, the transmission of knowledge, and the cre- ation of new knowledge. The university library is deeply involved in all three functions. Aside from oral tradition and the physical monuments of art and archi- tecture, libraries are essentially the sole repository of recorded civilization, and only the large research library performs the preservation function in anything like a comprehensive way. Collectively these libraries are the memory of man- kind, organized so that it may be drawn upon as needed today and in all of our tomorrows, whether man requires infor- mation recorded at the dawn of history or only yesterday. These libraries are essential also to the transmission of knowledge and the teach- ing function of the university. A simple skill, such as woodworking, may be passed on without recourse to the writ- ten word. More sophisticated disciplines (e.g., technology, science, philosophy, economics, literature), at least as essen- tial as simple skills to the advancement of civilization, are obviously built upon and transmitted to a considerable ex- tent through the intellectual discourse of books and serious journals. Even at the undergraduate level, education of any quality seems to require sending the student beyond the lecture-plus-single- textbook process to exploration among many printed or pictorial sources. Econ- omy alone prescribes that these sources be shared through a library. Graduate education demands much greater resources. Various studies indi- cate that graduate students use from three to five times as many books as un- dergraduates, as well as a far greater variety of books and other kinds of re- corded information. The kind of library we are discussing is likely to be found in the universities whose graduate and professional programs have been identi- fied in the American Council on Educa- tion (ACE) and other surveys as pos- sessing excellence. Indeed, in the 1966 ACE report, An Assessment of Quality in Graduate Educqtion, it was noted: "The library is the heart of the univer- sity; no other single non-human factor is as closely related to the quality of graduate education .... Institutions that are strong in all areas invariably have major national research libraries." While the market for Ph.D.'s in many fields may be temporarily glutted, the continuing health of much postsecondary education will obviously require contin- ued doctoral training of quality, if only to provide competent staffing for thou- sands of colleges and universities. It is interesting to note that the seventy- eight universities which were members Financing the Research Library I 253 of the Association of Research Libraries in 1971-72 produced 23,885 or 69 per- cent of the estimated 34,600 doctoral degrees (excluding law and medicine) awarded that year in the U.S. and Can- ada. This is another way of saying that a great deal of graduate education is concentrated in a relatively few large universities, as it should be in terms of the economics of the situation. The third function of the university, the creation of new knowledge, is shared with other institutions, such as the gov- ernment or industrial laboratory, for ex- ample, but it is clear that it is a major function and the element which most ob- viously distinguishes the university from the college, the vocational institution, and other types of postsecondary educa- tional institutions. It is equally clear that most research demands major library resources. In nearly all fields new knowl- edge is developed only after a careful sifting of what is already known, and work in the field or the laboratory is interspersed with work in the library. In some fields the books in the library are themselves the sole material of research. The point which we wish to emphasize is that the three functions of the uni- versity are inseparable and the library is essential to all three. That it exists to support the university is only part of the ecological balance, for it can be said also that the university exists in part to support the library. These relationships have an important bearing upon any discussion of the financing of research libraries and of postsecondary education. The university library and, even more, the independent research library have important relations outside the univer- sity. Almost all of them, under a variety of arrangements, provide important re- sources to industrial research laborator- ies, government agencies, independent scholars, and the whole range of organi- zations and activities that comprise the web of American society. These libraries are collectively the capstone of the pyra- 254 I College & Research Libraries • July 197 4 mid of information resources. Together they constitute a single na- tional resource of great importance. In- creasingly and of necessity they are shar- ing and pooling their resources, for no library can have everything. It has been estimated that by 197 4-75 the magnitude of loans of materials that will be made by academic libraries to other libraries would approximate 2,600,000, at an esti- mated cost on the order of $12.1 million. Typically the university library lends to other smaller libraries four or five times as much as it borrows. A variety of devices, national and re- gional, has been developed by librarians for bringing the combined collections of the research libraries under bibliographic control, for telling where a particular book may be obtained. The National Union Catalog, Pre-1956 Imprints, now being published in an estimated 600 large volumes, supplements the ongoing current record by indicating holdings, mostly monographic, reported over the past seventy years of more than 800 li- braries throughout North America. The NUC is one of the keys to that vast na- tional resource represented by the com- bined collections of libraries. ( Inciden- tally, with some 300 volumes already published: through the letter M, the project is facing serious financial prob- lems.) The rapidly developing computer- based technology will almost certainly provide the basis for bibliographic con- trol in the future through a national li- brary communication network. Librarians have for years bee_!! think- ing of the total research library collec- tions of the country as a single national resource. In 1940 Julian P. Boyd, then librarian of Princeton University, stated the issue succinctly: "The fallacy of an impossible completeness in any one li- brary should be abandoned in theory and practice; librarians should now think in terms of completeness for the library resources of the whole country." Soon after, Dr. Boyd was one of the leaders in proposing and developing the Farm- ington Plan, under which some fifty li- braries have accepted responsibility for specific fields and geographic areas in an attempt to bring to the country at least one copy of each book of potential research interest from about 150 coun- tries and territories. This program is now being phased out and the National Program for Acquisi- tions and Cataloging of the Library of Congress, authorized by Title 11-C of the Higher Education Act of 1965, is beginning to achieve the objective of the Farmington Plan. NPAC, or the "shared cataloging" program, had its inception in the recognition of the substantial econo- mies which could be realized if each book could be cataloged once only and the cataloging copy made available promptly to all other libraries acquiring the same book. Its import has been tre- mendous, even though NPAC has never been fully funded by the Congress. One more example among many may be cited to suggest the way in which libraries are sharing their resources and serving students and scholars by draw- ing upon collective strength. The Center for Research Libraries in Chicago, which had its origin in 1951, is an independent "library's library," supported by its more than 100 institutional members. Its func- tion is to collect and make available im- portant but seldom-used materials so that each individual library will not have to preserve such things as newspaper files, which are essential but not called for frequently. Currently, with the aid of a grant from the Carnegie Corpora- tion, the center is conducting a pilot program of subscribing to several thou- sand seldom-used journals in the hope that individual member libraries may find it possible to rely on the center for these titles and thus increase their avail- able resources and stabilize the heavy load of carrying individual subscriptions. •• One model for such an activity is the highly successful National Lending Li- brary for Science and Technology in En- gland, supported by the British govern- ment as a national resource. Many other examples could be cited. However, it should already be clear that the university libraries and a few rather similar national and independent re- search libraries constitute a major na- tional resource, a de facto network cre- ating a vast pool of recorded knowledge and information essential to higher edu- cation and to the advancement of learn- ing without which modem society could not exist. This network has evolved un- systematically and without adequate planning and its links are at present quite imperfect, but we are beginning to see the emergence of a coherent, inte- grated whole. Its viability will depend upon a judicious balance between centers of local excellence, immediately acces- sible to users, and a variety of central- ized cooperative . activities, integrated through a computer-based system of bib- liographic control. In all of these developments and ac- tivities the objective has been to provide what users need at a cost which is bear- able, for a large university library is an expensive proposition. In 1971-72 the seventy-eight libraries upon which we have been concentrating spent a total of more than $76 millio:r for the pur- chase of books, periodicals, and other materials. Since the associated staff costs of acquiring, orgmizing, preserving, and interpreting large library collections tend to be about tWice the amount spent for purchases, total -library expenditures of these seventy-eight libraries in 1971-72 were $260.5 million, not including great capital expenditures for housing library collections and operations. It may be easier to comprehend what has happened if one looks at the actual dollar expenditures of a single university library. For the Princeton University Li- Financing the Research Library f 255 brary, actual annual expenditures over the past twenty-five years increased as follows: 1947-48 1972-73 Books, periodicals, and binding $100,000 $1,400,000 Salaries and wages 190,000 2,400,000 Total library expenditures 317,000 4,100,000 It should be noted that Princeton's is an old and stable library, in an institution which has not seen the enormous growth of the great state universities. The li- brary's rate of growth has been one of the slowest among ARL libraries, and it is not one of the largest in the group. In 1972 it was eighteenth in the number of volumes held among U.S. and Ca- nadian university libraries. Costs of this magnitude are impres- sive and alarming, but their significance lies more in the rate of growth which they represent. Statistics are available for fifty-eight university libraries which have been members of the ARL through- out the period 1950--196.9. For these li- braries the average annual rate of growth was 10.5 ·percent over the twenty-year period. It should be underscored that this rate of growth represents an annual compounding, and that the power of compounding is such that at this rate a variable _doubles in size in less than seven years and in two decades gr6ws to about eight times its original size. ·The principal causes of this growth in costs include not only general infla- tion and higher salaries but also several special library factors: 1. The increase in university enroll- ments (probably less significant than the other factors). 2. The expansion in the scope of teach- ing and research programs. 3. The rapid increase in the worldwide production of recorded knowledge. For example, in 1947, 7,8a7 new hard-cover books were published in the United States; in 1972, 26,865. To maintain the same relative sam- 256 I College & Research Libraries • July 1974 ple of this information, without re- gard to new fields of study, libraries must increase acquisitions propor- tionately. 4. An increase in the unit cost of pub- lications considerably in excess of general commodity indices for the period. For example, note the fol- lowing average list prices of U.S. publications: 1947 1972 New hard-cover books (per volume) $3.62 $12.99 Periodicals (annual subscription) 3.59 13.23 We suggest that in the light of this evidence the financial problems of the university libraries and the related non- university general research librarie~ merit the attention of the National Commis- sion on the Financing of Postsecondary Education. While these libraries occupy numerically a small portion of the broad spectrum of educational ·activities to which the commission must address it- self, this is a particularly significant seg- ment. Libraries of this type are an ab- solutely essential element in a very sub- stantial amount of undergraduate col- legiate education. Perhaps more impor- tant, they are even more essentia!to the advanced and professional education and research upon which the nation depends. One cannot conceive of a modern so- ciety without the steady infusion of high- ly skilled manpower and creative think- ing which -only the university can pro- vide, and one cannot conceive of a uni- versity of quality -without library sup- port of equal quality. Beyond formal academic walls, these libraries collec- tively are a single national resource of recorded knowledge organized for use, the collective ·memory of mankind, con- stantly being applied to improving the quality of life today and tomorrow. We recognize that this very involve- ment of the research library with so many aspects of education, with a com- plex blend of teaching and research, makes it difficult to develop a single satis- factory plan for financing libraries. Uni- versity libraries have been supported by a variety of federal, state, and private funds. They have received a share of the general funds of their parent insti- tutions, whether derived from state legis- latures, endowment income, tuition, sponsored research overhead, or annual gifts from alumni. Some have separately endowed funds, and most receive direct gifts and grants from individuals, foun- dations, and corporations for specified activities. They have received categor- ical assistance directly from the federal government, such as the grants for ac- quisitions under Title II-A of the Higher Education Act of 1965, or as part of fed- eral support of specific programs, such as the NDEA foreign language centers. Some charge nominal fees for certain kinds of services, such as service to in- dustry. We trust that all of these kinds of support will continue. We urge, how- ever, that special attention be paid to li- brary problems as new patterns of uni- versity financing emerge. There have been discussions of gen- eral institutional support, by which fed- eral aid would come to the institution in a lump sum, to be distributed by the institution according to its own needs. If the library were merely a service agency, bounded by . the specific needs of specific classroom activities, merely placing books on reserve for assigned reading, such a program might be fairly effective. But the university library has a multitude of other functions and rela- tionships not · bounded by the walls of a single institution. Furthermore, while in- stitutional autonomy may be generally a worthy objective, in the case of the university library it runs directly counter not only to quality of service, for no li- brary can have everything, but also to sensible economy, for it is becoming in- creasingly clear that one of the most promising means of slowing the growth I I of library costs is the sharing of resources arnong institutions. There have been discussions of stu- dent support, by which much of the funding of institutions might come from tuition grants from the government which the student might bring with him to the institution of his choice. This plan bas the great merit of encouraging free choice. Yet university library costs are related much less directly to numbers of students than they are to factors such as the number of fields offered, the na- ture of each field, the quality of the col- lections, and above all the research ele- 111ent. For adequate university libtary ;f support to be derived entirely in this '1 way the student grants would have to be j ~ quite large indeed. Furthermore, it 1·, ' would be difficult to adapt this method of funding to the highly desirable sup- port of the great independent research libraries which are an important element of the single national resource which has been described. We believe, therefore, that some form I• of categorical aid is probably essential for university and research libraries. For too long the aid which they need has tended to slip away because through the multiplicity of their involvements this ·, aid has always seemed to be someone else's business. They . need direct and ·~ massive support as libraries, or rather as . ~ elements of a single national interrelated network of libraries, an essential national resource. ~~. We believe further that, while grants to individual libraries are useful and wel- come, they are not necessarily the most \ economical and rational way of solving ~ the problem of the rapid exponential 1 growth of university library costs. Per-... I haps the most effective kind of assist- ance is massive aid applied centrally to hatever operations facilitate sharing, and thus relieve individual institutional funds to do what must be done locally. A variety of opportunities at the federal ! I Financing the Research Library I 251 level suggest themselves: • Legislation already exists which has done much and could do much more if fully funded under existing authoriza- tion and under increased authorization. The shared cataloging program of the Library of Congress (NPAC) has saved university libraries millions of dollars in cataloging costs and could save millions more if adequately funded and expand- ed. • The distribution of machine-read- able catalog copy on computer tapes (MARC) could be quickly extended to additional categories of books and made a free service to libraries by appropriate action of the Congress. • The development of the national computer network could be accelerated by the substantial investment of federal funds in developing a series of related networks, perhaps along the lines of the Ohio College Library Center or other tested model, which would as a federal service provide individual cataloging from MARC tapes and from pooled original cataloging to the major libraries of the country. • The staff costs of acquisitions and cataloging consume as much as one third of the annual budgets of university li- braries. By applying federal funds cen- trally for programs such as those out- lined above, substantial savings for in- dividual libraries might be achieved. • In a quite different area, the crea- tion and operation at federal expense of one or perhaps several special libraries to which research libraries could turn with confidence for the loan of journal articles, on the model of the British Na- tional Lending Library for Science and Technology, would provide for access by individual libraries to tens of thou- sands of scholarly journals which might otherwise be unavailable to them. We have attempted to identify the nature and functions of the large uni- versity and research library, to indicate - - l -· 258 I College & Researcli Libraries • July 1974 the special role these libraries play in postsecondary education and the life of the country as a unified national re- source, to suggest the formidable costs and the rapid exponential growth in- volved, to discuss alternative forms of financial support, and to suggest ex- amples of centralized federal assistance which might be given. We would be happy to elaborate any of these points with members of the commission or its staff and to help develop specific legis- lative proposals. We are grateful for the opportunity to present these views. REFERENCE 1. On Research Libraries; Statement and Rec. ommendations of the Committee on Re. search Libraries of the American Council of Learned Societies, Submitted to National Advisory Commission on Libraries, No. vember 1967.