College and Research Libraries


548 I College & Research Libraries • November 1977 

Ladd, Boyd. National Inventory of Libra-
ry Needs, 1975. Resources Needed for 
Public and Academic Libraries and Pub-
lic School Library/Media Centers. A 
Study Submitted by Boyd Ladd to the N a-
tiona! Commission on Libraries and Infor-
mation Science, March 1977. Washing-
ton: Govt. Print. Off., 1977. 275p. $3.60. 
LC 77-8216. 
What an infuriating grab bag of a vol-

ume this is! If only it had been called "A 
Source Book of Resource Data Collected 
by LIBGIS" or some such title rather than 
National Inventory of Library Needs; the 
one title so modest, the other so certain, so 
sure. 

The book . is a compilation of public li-
braries', school library I media centers', and 
academic libraries' data reported in the 
1974 and 1975 LIBGIS surveys to the Na-
tional Center for Education Statistics. The 
data are then compared with standards "to 
the degree that professional deliberation 
has provided some consensus on the levels 
'needed.'" Then projections of ·"need" are 
made. 

To concentrate on academic libraries: 
Did you know that a one-time expenditure 
of $1.5 billion would buy us all the books 
we are missing and that we would only also 
have to increase our annual expenditure by 
about a third, from $300 million to $400 
million a year, and we could keep steady? 
Yet did you also know that, in total, collec-
tions in academic libraries are 99 percent 
"adequate" but that two-year colleges are 50 
percent "adequate" and public four-year col-
leges are exactly 100 percent "adequate"; 
that private universities are 177 percent 
"adequate," while public universities are 
only 111 percent adequate? What a mistake 
to qualify an absolute term like "adequate," 
and what nonsense the results! 

What I've tried to illustrate in the above 
examples is the wisdom of a comment made 
by Boyd Ladd, the compiler, in his preface: 
"Interpretive analysis has intentionally been 
limited, in the expectation that many analy-
ses will and should be made from different 
philosophic stances." 

Now, therefore, my philosophic stance> 
again concentrating on academic libraries: 

1. The data, inasmuch as we have 
learned to count things consistently, 
are fine. Mr. Ladd's compilations and 

tables are excellent, diligent, and 
comprehensive. 

2. The data are not strong enough to 
withstand the analysis thrust upon 
them, and the misinterpretations that 
are bound to follow when budget offi-
cers get their hands on them. 

3. The standards are wrong and, in some 
cases, have been specifically discredit-
ed. Current knowledge and the re-
sults of work, such as the Pittsburgh 
work on collection use, the "inventory 
law," and so on, have not yet been in-
corporated into "official" standards. 

4. The standards and the data must be 
improved before such analyses can be 
made. 

5. The standards are. all input standards. 
What ·is needed is a performance stan-
dard, the technique for the attainment 

. of which will vary from library to li-
brary. That is, some will need to in-
vest in collections, others in interli-
brary loan, others in on-line retrieval, 
others in student instruction, and so 
on. 

6. I propose the following performance 
standard: 90 percent of all requests 
made of the library satisfied within 
forty-eight hours. 

In fairness, I have to say that both Al 
Trezza in his foreword and Ladd in his 
preface recognize the shortcomings and 
weaknesses. They rightly see the work as 
being stimulative of further work, particu-
larly in the essential field of user studies. 
As Trezza says in his foreword: 

The extensive data will no doubt sug-
gest some relationships and interpretations 
not expected, and lead to some hypotheses 
which challenge the conventional wisdom 
in our profession. Resulting questions are 
expected to stimulate further analysis lead-
ing to a better understanding of the re-
sources appropriate to effective library and 
information services. 

This compilation is probably the most 
important book of the year. We should all 
buy it, read it, understand it; and then sit 
down and have a good long think.-Glyn 
T. Evans, Director of Library Services, 
State University of New York, Albany. 

McCullough, Kathleen; Posey, Edwin D.; 
and Pickett, Doyle C. Approval Plans 
and Academic Libr·aries: An lnterpre-