College and Research Libraries By L O I S E. E N G L E M A N Junior College Library Section Meetings Lois E. Engleman is librarian of Frances Shimer Junior College, Mount Carroll, Illinois. Below she shows how junior col- lege librarians participated in the twenty- first annual meeting of the American As- sociation of Junior Colleges, held at the Stevens Hotel in Chicago, through sec- tional meetings Friday afternoon, Febru- ary 28, and Saturday morning, March I, 1941. BY A P P O I N T M E N T of Gladys Johnson, chairman of the Junior College Li- braries Division of the Association of Col- lege and Reference Librarians, Lois E. Engleman, librarian of Frances Shimer Junior College, served as chairman, and Maysel O ' H . Baker, librarian of La Salle- Peru Junior College, as secretary. In conformity to the general plan of the conference, the Friday session was de- voted to a consideration of the implications of terminal education for junior college libraries. T h e first part of the program was a symposium on "Achievements and Plans for Library Cooperation in the T e r m i n a l Education Program of the J u n - ior College." Dean C. C. Flint of Santa Ana J u n i o r College read the paper forwarded by W i n i f r e d E. Skinner, librarian, Pasadena Junior College. She reported that in ac- cordance with the underlying philosophy of Pasadena Junior College, no particular program for terminal courses as such, has been developed. " D e p a r t m e n t chairmen are responsible, under the curriculum co- ordinator, for the planning of courses, terminal and academic alike, in their re- spective fields." Allocation of library funds is determined by a committee which considers the "needs of various depart- ments, numbers of new courses, enrol- ment, and, sometimes, the timeliness of the subjects, and even the probable book production." T h e responsibility for or- dering books for courses, then, rests with the departments which offer the courses, the librarian assisting in keeping depart- ments informed of new books published, and occasionally of questioning the pur- chase of particular items. T h r o u g h the cooperation of the coordi- nator, the library has the assurance that no new course will be offered until necessary materials, including library books, are available, or money for their purchase is in sight. T h e library, from its share of the funds, purchases not only reference books and continuations, but those books which "are likely to be of general interest to students, both academic and terminal." Defense Aid at Weber Eva R. Browning, librarian of W e b e r College, Ogden, U t a h , described library cooperation particularly as it related to serving vocational and defense occupa- JUNE, 1941 241 tional groups. W h i l e "instructors teach academic courses with their vocational values in m i n d " and "instructors in voca- tional courses consciously seek every op- portunity to promote rounded cultural development," the institution recognizes the constant problem of avoiding a line of distinction between terminal and academic divisions. T h e enrollees of the vocational school and the industrial trainees, a more mature and serious group, as well as other stu- dents, have been introduced to library tools, resources, and methods. A chain of leads, originating on the bulletin boards of the vocational school, has proved stim- ulating in bringing readers to the library for suggested books, periodicals, and mis- cellaneous pamphlet material on occupa- tional and cultural subjects. Faculty members are informed of books and mate- rials available, and funds are being sought to make possible the purchase of new printed matter to aid in occupational train- ing and cultural development. Guidance at Bakersfield " A Study of the Individual Guidance of High School and J u n i o r College Stu- dents" was prepared and sent to the con- ference by Goldie B. Ingles, librarian, Bakersfield J u n i o r College. In her re- port she told of the evaluative study of guidance initiated at Bakersfield under the general direction of the Commission on T e r m i n a l Education of the American Association of J u n i o r Colleges, and fi- nanced by a grant from the General Education Board. T h e problem of edu- cational and vocational orientation of junior college terminal students is ac- knowledged to be particularly critical. T h e library cooperates by selecting and collecting career books, individual occupa- tional books, magazines such as Vocational Guidance, Vocational TrendsOccupa- tions, and Occupational Index. T h e libra- rian gives individual assistance, too. " T h e orientation class, a first-year required course for academic students, studies voca- tions one semester, and the social problems class, a first-year required course for termi- nal students, studies vocations the next se- mester." T h i s prevents overcrowding of the library and insures that each student is acquainted with the catalog, the Readers' Guide, and the occupational chart. As at- tention to guidance problems grows, the library hopes to continue its service to counselors and students. Los Angeles and San Francisco In a brief paper, Gladys Green introduced Los Angeles City College Li- brary, emphasizing the efforts of the li- brary staff to send out students bearing "pleasant associations with the printed page." M a r c u s Skarstedt summarized the ac- tivities of San Francisco J u n i o r College Library in a letter directed to the chair- man. M o s t of the 13,000 volumes in the library have been "chosen with the definite aim in view of augmenting and supporting actual instruction in the various depart- ments of the institution. T h e college at present offers a score or more of terminal or semi-professional curricula. Of course, the library seeks to make available to faculty and students the best available printed material in the field of each of these curricula. By 'best' we mean ( 1 ) up-to-date; ( 2 ) authoritative; ( 3 ) so written as to awaken a response in the mind of the average terminal student." T h e library f u r t h e r serves the instructional emphasis upon the use of periodical litera- ture and pamphlet material. 242 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES Advisory Committees R . M . Lightfoot, J r . , librarian of Scranton-Keystone J u n i o r College, pre- sented a summary of achievements and plans for library cooperation particularly as they center around the work of com- munity advisory committees. Present plans, though still incomplete, include four steps: ( I ) a day by day file of every stu- dent's reading, a summary of which will be added to the student's personnel rec- ords; ( 2 ) a careful check on all literature of the occupation for which the college offers terminal courses; the purchase of as much as possible; and the issue of an- notated bibliographies; ( 3 ) an especially strong effort to build up a knowledge of library procedures and develop the library habit in terminal students; ( 4 ) continu- ance of the custom of notifying faculty members of the appearance of new pe- riodical material of particular interest to them. Library Service Curriculum T h e major paper of the afternoon ses- sion, "Should the Junior College Attempt a T e r m i n a l Curriculum in Library Serv- ice?" was prepared by Helen F . Pierce, librarian, Modesto Junior College. Those who are responsible for curriculum planning and vocational guidance at the junior college level are looking about eagerly for new avenues into which they may direct their graduates. They advocate the introduction and development of semi-professional courses of a terminal nature in the fields where such curricula are feasible. This paper is devoted to evidence bearing on the question of whether the junior college should attempt a terminal semiprofessional curriculum in the library field. This problem involves many others to which no satisfactory solution has as yet been found. Among these are the following: W h a t are to be the criteria applied to a vocational curriculum before its adoption? W h a t is to be the philosophy of the junior college with respect to terminal education? What library positions are "semiprofes- sional" and what training produces the best personnel for such positions? According to American Junior Colleges, forty-seven schools now offer semiprofes- sional library training. However inquiries sent to the librarians of these schools1 reveal the fact that all but eight deny giving a library course with any vocational intent or objective. Of these eight schools, two give noncredit courses. T w o of the most am- bitious programs outlined are offered by small private denominational junior colleges. Neither of these had any students enrolled in library courses at the time of the Eells survey, however. The only large public junior college which reported having offered a terminal curricu- lum in library work was Los Angeles City College, one of the two schools where such courses have now been discontinued. T h e curriculum for clerical library aides was in- augurated there in September of 1937 after careful planning and adequate preparation. An elaborate selective procedure was set up to insure limiting enrollment to qualified students. A full-time teacher with a master's degree in library service as well as junior college library experience was added to the staff to conduct the courses. Ninety-eight girls were graduated from the curriculum in three years. Of these, nineteen are known at present to be employed as library clerks. Arguments against Vocational Library Courses The inadequacy of staff time and library resources in junior colleges are cited as two of the most urgent arguments against the introduction of vocational library courses. The median annual budget for junior college libraries reported in American Junior Col- leges, exclusive of salaries, was $600. It is held that most workers must think in terms of fields of work rather than specific 1 Replies w e r e received f r o m 80 per cent of t h o s e a d d r e s s e d . JUNE, 1941 243 jobs and that curricula should be planned to meet the demands of the former. On this account, and for the reasons that job place- ment possibilities seem slight in metropolitan areas where junior college libraries might be equipped to offer vocational library training, it is felt that the junior college should not attempt an entrance into this field. T h e library section meeting on M a r c h I, considered the implications of national defense for our field. In the absence of Carl H . Milam, Kathryn P. M i e r , assist- ant in the Public Libraries Division of the American Library Association, dis- cussed "National Defense and J u n i o r Col- lege Libraries." Miss M i e r first read " T h e Library—1941," a statement adopted by the A . L . A . Council at the December, 1940, conference; then related the activities of the Association and libraries to it. Among the projects under- taken, she called attention to the survey of library resources conducted under the chairmanship of Robert B. Downs, direc- tor of libraries, N e w York University, mentioning printed reports now available and others planned. She noted, also a study of defense activities of college and university libraries, undertaken by the A . C . R . L . under the chairmanship of Charles M o h r h a r d t , chief, technology de- partment, Detroit Public Library. Book Lists T h e second paper of the morning, on "Book Lists for Junior College T e r m i n a l Education Pertaining to National De- fense," was prepared and read by W a v e L . Noggle, librarian of the J u n i o r College of Virginia, M i n n . Recognizing that the librarian must consider the titles on any list in the light of, ( 1 ) present holdings; ( 2 ) new courses in the cur- riculum; ( 3 ) authoritativeness of the lists; and ( 4 ) purposes for which the lists were compiled, M r . Noggle limited his discussion to a consideration of the last two points. Four definitions of national defense were stated, and booklists representative of each type were discussed. T h e first defi- nition, that of "patriotism" in its narrow sense, was one which librarians were ad- vised to avoid. T h e so-called "poison" list of books, "Treason in the Textbooks," by O . K. Armstrong was cited as a typical example of this variety. A second defini- tion of national defense was "vocational education." T h e requirements of colleges cooperating with the government in the national defense program must be met in book lists in this group. T h o u g h some well-arranged lists are compiled and dis- tributed by publishers, librarians were urged to give preference to those compiled by government agencies, educational, and library organizations. Aeronautic Train- ing for National Defense, compiled by Paul H o w a r d , was cited as an example of the excellent lists available. T h e third definition was called "na- tional security" as defined in the act of 1916 which created the Council of Na- tional Defense. N o adequate buying list was cited. T h e last definition suggested was "total defense" which was held to include a study of long-term democracy and solidarity of our nation. T h e recent publications of the American Library As- sociation were held to be excellent for this group and "superior to others for use in any phase of national defense." M a r y Vick Burney, librarian, Univer- sity of Tennesseee Junior College, M a r - tin ; Robert H . Wilkins, librarian, Wood- row Wilson Junior College, Chicago; and T h e l m a Vogt T a y l o r , librarian, M o r g a n P a r k Junior College, Chicago, directed the discussion. 244 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES