The first was by CLARENCE S. HEAN, librarian of the college of
agriculture of the University of Wisconsin, on the type
=(a) Agricultural College and Experiment Station Libraries Combined and
Separate from the University Library but under its Control.=
Mr. Hean said in part:
The administrative officers of the University of Wisconsin believe
thoroughly in the theory that teaching and research should go hand in
hand. That theory practically applied in our college of agriculture
and agricultural experiment station virtually combines the two
organizations into one.
This agricultural department of the university is housed in a group
of buildings at the extreme western end of the campus. The general
university library is situated at the extreme eastern end, a full half
mile away. It therefore seemed advisable to establish a departmental
library for the convenience of our agricultural workers.
In our college the funds received from the United States are not nearly
sufficient to finance all of the station work, or research work as
we call it. The budget is made up by adding together the income from
all sources and apportioning this whole amount among the departments
according to their needs and talents. Orders may then be issued by
each department, subject to the dean's approval, to the extent of its
allotment. When bills are received the head of the department marks
with an "R" all items ordered for research (i. e. station) work. The
bookkeeper enters items so marked against United States funds until
they are exhausted. The library being a department of the college its
funds are treated in this same manner. This marking of research items
in the bills with an "R" is the only distinction ever made between
books purchased for station or for college purposes.
All of the books purchased are classified, cataloged and filed as one
collection. It is understood throughout the college that books for the
Adams or Hatch investigations are to be purchased by the library. Such
books when received are given the right of way in all library processes
and forwarded immediately to the investigator who requested them.
The selection of books rests with the library committee. This committee
consists of five members of the faculty appointed by the dean for a
term of one year, and the librarian, an ex officio member. The chairman
of the committee has been reappointed for many consecutive terms.
The other members are rotated among the different departments. Lists
of books for consideration at their monthly meetings are made up by
the librarian. Any member of the faculty, or student either for that
matter, may recommend books to go on the list.
The selections having been made, the list is forwarded to the
university librarian. It is then checked with the university catalog.
Items already available anywhere on the campus are reported back for
further consideration. If it is the judgment of the committee that an
additional copy is needed in our library it is so ordered, but all
needless duplication is avoided. The actual order is made out by the
university librarian who has at hand the bibliographical data for such
work.
The books are received, accessioned and plated at the general library.
They are then forwarded to our college library to be classified and
cataloged. All our books are permitted to circulate not only among
the students and professors of our own college but among those of any
college of the university. In return the same privilege is granted to
us by the other colleges. Having a well developed delivery system and
a liberal loaning policy, we encourage the policy of a strong central
library.
The next paper, prepared by ASA DON DICKINSON, librarian State college
of Washington, treated type
=(b) The experiment station library separate from the college library
but under its control.=
Mr. Dickinson said in part:
In the state college of Washington, the experiment station library
is said to be separate from the college, but under its control. Our
college library building occupies a central position on the campus,
not over two hundred yards from the offices of most of the members of
the station staff. Part of the lowest tier of the college library book
stack is set aside for the accommodation of the station library, the
point of division being marked by a gate. A specially designated member
of the college library staff acts as station librarian, under the
direction of the college librarian. Her salary is paid largely but not
wholly out of the station funds. Her duties as station librarian occupy
about one-third of her time, but these duties have precedence over her
college library work. In the absence of the station librarian, members
of the station staff are served by the college library staff.
Our station library is made up almost entirely (1) of publications of
the U. S. Department of agriculture; (2) of publications of the state
experiment stations, and departments of agriculture and horticulture;
(3) of the agricultural, horticultural and kindred periodicals. The
college library contains duplicate collections of the first two classes
of material. The third class in our experience is relatively of less
importance, as it consists chiefly of the popular "farm-papers." The
station library, like the college library, has its own card-catalog of
U. S. Department of agriculture publications, and its own card-index of
experiment station literature.
Students and practitioners of the science of agriculture seem to be
specially fortunate in that so much of the valuable material on their
subject is published and freely distributed by the federal and state
governments. There is perhaps no other science in which the unofficial
literature is so relatively unimportant. It is true, the technical
journals of the allied sciences contain much that is of value to the
experiment station worker. But so far as my experience goes, the use of
this is not constant and continuous, as is the case with governmental
material. Let us have separate and distinct sets of state and federal
"Bulletins," for our college workers and for our station workers, as
both classes need to refer to them so frequently. But is not this going
far enough? Is it not the wisest policy to confine our station library
collection principally to these well-thumbed publications, and to place
the less constantly used and more expensive unofficial material in the
college library, where it can be of service to a larger public?
MISS MARGARET HUTCHINS, of the reference department of the University
of Illinois library described type
=(c) Experiment station library consolidated with the university
library.=
Until 1897 the library of the Illinois experiment station and the
university library were separately housed, cared for and supported. In
that year the state erected a library building for the university and
in it the experiment station deposited its collection of nearly five
thousand titles. From that time the station ceased buying books from
the Hatch fund, with the possible exception of a very few books for
laboratory equipment, and it has never bought any from the Adams fund.
The books deposited by the experiment station in the university library
were classified and cataloged and became a part of the library. The
only difference in treatment from books otherwise acquired was that
the experiment station books were accessioned separately so that it
would be possible to take them out of the library again if desired. All
books and periodicals bought or exchanged for the experiment station
since 1897 have been dealt with like those bought or exchanged for the
university. The questions of administration come therefore for the most
part under the general library policy.
Books are purchased for the university either out of the legislative
appropriation for the library or the appropriations for the university
and its different colleges and departments of investigation.
=1. Library funds.=
The library funds are assigned to the various departments in the
colleges of the university by a committee on the apportionment of
library funds, consisting of the president, the librarian and the
deans of the colleges, who act on the recommendations of a senate
library committee. This is composed of the president and the librarian
and seven members representing the following interests; Agriculture,
Engineering, Science, Graduate school, Library, The languages,
literature and arts, and The philosophical and social sciences. Besides
preparing for the first mentioned committee on apportionment, detailed
estimates of the library needs of the various colleges, schools and
departments, the library committee acts as an advisory board to the
librarian in matters of library administration and policy. The college
of agriculture, which in Illinois is of course intimately connected
with the agricultural experiment station, receives its share of the
library funds for the purchase of books selected by its professors and
investigators.
=2. Maintenance Funds, called Equipment funds in the Library to
distinguish from Library funds.=
Books are also purchased out of the legislative appropriations for the
support of certain colleges and out of allotments made by the trustees
from the general university funds for colleges not specifically
provided for by the legislature. In the case of agricultural books
these funds have the two purposes: the maintenance fund for the
college of agriculture and the experiment station and, second, the
appropriations for special departments of investigation in the
experiment station.
The general policy of the faculty of the college of agriculture (or the
staff of the experiment station) as to purchase of books out of these
two different funds for college and experiment station is to buy books
for special investigations out of station funds unless they clearly
would be of use also to the students and instructors of the college
at large. Books needed by the special investigator and the college
in general at the same time are duplicated. When books are no longer
needed in the laboratory or office for the special work for which they
were bought, they are returned for general circulation to the main
library by whose staff they were ordered and cataloged. Books already
in the library, whether bought out of library funds or equipment funds
for any college may be sent to a laboratory, office, or reading room
from the main library unless they are needed for reference or class use
in the main library or any branch of it.
Exchange.
The library and experiment station also work together in the matter of
exchanges. The library exchange assistant arranges for the exchange of
experiment station publications the same as for other publications of
the university, while the station attends to the actual mailing of its
publications, as it has better facilities for this than the library.
In this way the library receives from the exchange of the agricultural
experiment station publications alone between four and five hundred
publications, of which more than one-half are from foreign countries,
seventy agricultural periodicals and the publications of ninety learned
societies being obtained in addition to the publications of state
universities and stations and universities and libraries all over the
world. Besides these, the library receives by the exchange of other
University of Illinois publications many hundred more publications,
some of which are of interest to agricultural scientists and economists.
=Advantages of the Consolidation of Station and University Libraries=