MIDCONTINENT PERSPECTIVES Midwest Research Institute Kansas City, Missouri

November 10, 1987

Louis E. Martin Director, Linda Hall Library Kansas City, Missouri

Research Libraries In The Information Age

I’m delighted to be here because it is always a pleasure to talk about research libraries in general and Linda Hall Library in particular. Although most of us have some familiarity with libraries, few people deal with them extensively. Their impact in our daily lives simply isn’t very great, and when we talk about “research libraries,” there is a minimum of general knowledge abroad. Today I’d like to comment on the research library in the information age, using Linda Hall Library as an example of the reference and research library, and allow my comments to illustrate the main points I wish to make about the present and the future of research libraries in general. A brief introduction to the Linda Hall Library, therefore, would appear in order. In all probability, Charles Kimball could provide a lengthier and more accurate summary of the institution than I can, since I’ve been here just a little over two years. I might add, parenthetically, that my average tenure at my former places of employment has been six to seven years. It seems to take about that length of time for an employer to find out what you’re really doing. Then it’s time to pack off to another organization. Given my present age, I just might live to retirement at Linda Hall. Dr. Kimball is entirely accurate in characterizing Linda Hall as an independent, privately supported reference and research library. It had its beginnings in the trusts established in 1941 by Herbert F. Hall, who wished that a library be established for the people of Kansas City and the region. He did not specify, however, what kind of library should be established. He simply put into place a board of trustees and left that decision up to them. It proved a very wise move on Mr. Hall’s part. Led by Paul Bartlett, Sr., the board of trustees worked for over three years to determine what type of library would serve Kansas City most effectively. They employed consultants from around the country who made studies and tested the neighborhood to see what would be the most useful type of library. From their studies, their recommendations, and the deliberations of the board came the decision to establish a library freely open to the public in the fields of science and technology. I agree with Dr. Kimball that the then recent formation of Midwest Research Institute was a factor in that decision. One can’t run a research institute without having a good deal of scientific and technical information at hand.

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Linda Hall was not seen, however, as a facility to serve only Kansas City or its near environs. It was to be the repository of scientific and technical information for the entire “Southwest,” as this area of the country was then called. The library got under way with the appointment of Joseph Shipman as the first librarian in 1945. One year later, the board of trustees approved the purchase of the library of the American Academy of Arts and Science in Boston. That purchase immediately established the bona fides of Linda Hall as a scientific and technical library of the very first rank, because it brought to this city very long and complete runs of the transactions of the early scientific societies. But what do we mean when we refer to Linda Hall as a reference and research library? What, pray tell, do the terms mean? A “reference library” is generally defined as a library which does not lend books to individuals. It isn’t a “circulating library” such as your friendly, neighborhood public library is. We ask the reader either to come and use our materials on site or to arrange a loan of the materials or purchase photocopies of journal articles through the good offices of another library. The advantage of being a reference library, my friends, is that one usually has the materials patrons need when the patrons need them. After one looks in the card catalog – and we still have a card catalog and will for a while yet – and determines that a particular title is listed there, one will find it to be available more than 80 percent of the time. Libraries that loan materials to individuals are at the mercy of the borrowers, and the loss rate, unfortunately, is rather high. If you want to be a research library, you should be a reference library. But what is a “research library”? The term “research” is used often and loosely. After all, most of us have been researchers at one time or another, in that we’ve tried to find information about things. But the term used in conjunction with a library is to denote an institution like Linda Hall that buys material for the long term. It is not for nothing that research libraries have been called the collective memory of mankind. We hope that most of what we purchase will be useful currently and in the future. Current popularity is not our sole criterion for a given purchase. Consequently, when Linda Hall makes a commitment to purchase a book or journal, it is making a commitment for a very long time indeed. And that has serious consequences for the resources it will need in the future. A good example of the utility of a research library came to mind this morning when I heard from a colleague that our very own Kansas Citian, Richard Rhodes – you may have read his recent article in Harpers – had won the National Book Award for his book The Making of the Atomic Bomb, a remarkable tome for those who have had the tenacity to get through its 800-plus pages. Richard Rhodes is fond of saying, “I could not have written The Making of the Atomic Bomb without the materials in the Linda Hall Library.” That statement basically defines a research library. A scholar and investigator can find a great deal about a given subject, perhaps not everything needed – even Mr. Rhodes used many libraries – but a great deal of what is needed to further a given research project. By its very nature, Linda Hall Library and research libraries in general will not be utilized by hordes of people, simply because we’re not in the business of providing only what is needed at the moment or what is most popular. On the other hand, we must be useful to our community if we are to continue living at all. We must be able to help the Midwest Research Institute and other organizations here and afar in their efforts to advance pure and applied science. One may © MRI, 2000 Louis E. Martin, November 10, 1987 Page 3 find in Linda Hall, therefore, a full treatment of the topics dealing with subatomic physics. You also will find, however, books of diagrams on how to repair a television set. We are indeed an institution with many functions. It is somewhat surprising, therefore, the number of people who have lived in and around Kansas City for a good long time who have heard the name, Linda Hall Library, and who might even have a vague idea of where it’s located, but who have no idea what it is. It is always a pleasure to enlighten those individuals by explaining that we are an independent reference and research library and one of the finest of its kind in the world. Certainly, we are the only library of our kind in this country now that the John Crerar Library in Chicago has become part and parcel of the University of Chicago. We remain totally unaffiliated, and we are happy in that state because it allows our board of trustees, working with the staff, to determine the information needs that we can supply which will best serve the needs of our neighbors near and far. Like other research libraries, Linda Hall is the repository of many books and journals not found in many other places. One of the reasons for this is the early purchase of the collection of the American Academy, which I mentioned before. Further, we emphasize journal literature because it is vitally important to science and technology, more so than in other disciplines. Our large collection of domestic and international journals accounts for the fact that in 1986 our interlibrary loan staff handled 70,000 requests for information, largely from journals, from other libraries around this country and around the world. That one statistic is good evidence of the mission of a research library: to serve serious scholars wherever they may be. There are a few other statistics about the research library community that might be a bit of a surprise to people who don’t pay much attention to library matters. I had to worry about such things between 1968 and 1972 when I was a staff member of the Association of Research Libraries. This association is comprised of 118 libraries in the United States and Canada who are pretentious enough to call themselves research institutions. The vast majority are libraries serving major universities. The University of Missouri-Columbia is a member of the association, as is the University of Kansas. During the last fiscal year for which statistics are available, 1986, those 118 libraries possessed an aggregate of almost 322 million volumes. They purchased in that one year about 1.5 million journals. They housed over 233 million units of microforms. They employed 41,000 people, and they spent $362 million for books and journals. Total expenditures for the entire community approached $1.5 billion. Collectively, then, research libraries are no small undertaking. Let me turn for a moment now to another phrase in the title of my remarks, “information age.” The term, along with its companion, “information society,” has become a cliché. But, worn smooth from usage or not, it does accurately reflect the world in which we and research libraries live. The information age is characterized by the fact that a greater percentage of people in the civilian work force are involved in creating, disseminating, and organizing information than ever before. If the statistics are accurate – and they certainly should be since they come from a book written by a Harvardian – in the year 1800 two-tenths of one percent of the American civilian labor force was involved in activity that was in some way connected with information. That percentage represented 1.5 million people. In 1984, the most recent year for which we have figures, the two-tenths of one percent had risen to 46.6 percent, or about 95 million people engaged in manipulating information in one © MRI, 2000 Louis E. Martin, November 10, 1987 Page 4 way or another. This dramatic increase has been due, partially, to the fact that our economy has moved from one of agriculture and manufacturing to a service economy with a voracious appetite for information. Worldwide economic competition also puts a premium on the latest information. The demand for information is everywhere, and as a result, it has become a very salable commodity. A week doesn’t go by that we don’t receive marketing information from people who have information to sell. The economy has become so highly specialized that there’s a publication for everything. The real proof of that is in your mailbox. When you combine the changed character of our economy and the high degree of specialization that now obtains in the fields most important to us, science and technology, you have a combination which results in the production of so much information and data that the imagination is staggered. The other day I came across a good example of this. The American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia is the oldest truly scientific society in the United States. It was founded in 1769, and Ben Franklin was one of its early supporters. Every scientific society publishes its transactions as a means of disseminating to the society members and the public at large its latest scientific and technical findings. There was a lapse of seven years between Volumes 2 and 3 of the Transactions of the society. Each of the two volumes contained approximately 350 pages. Consider the difference today. To take just one example in one discipline, in 1986 one of the leading journals in physics, the Physical Review, published over 25,000 pages. Another good example is the enormous amount of data gleaned from the U.S. Census. In my second job as a librarian, at the University of Rochester – in the early 1960s – the census information had already grown so massive that libraries could no longer handle it individually. They formed a consortium to process the data to make them usable, especially to the social scientists. The situation is even more extreme today. On university campuses centers are often set up just to handle census data. Another small example is worth noting. On the shelves of the Linda Hall Library is a very interesting dictionary, The Dictionary of Acronyms, Initialisms, and Abbreviations. It takes three volumes to list the 420,000 items worldwide that are known by their abbreviations and their initials. For better or worse, we are in an information age. Along with the seemingly endless amount of information and data, we are faced with unprecedented costs of publications, cost increases which don’t stem just from the number of titles we try to purchase and make available. Research libraries, by their very nature, deal with the most expensive kind of information. When a library like the Linda Hall Library is in the fields of science and technology, it is at the point of the problem. I won’t bore you with a good many statistics, but one or two are revealing. We subscribe to a series of publications called Surface Science. In 1985 that series cost us a total of $1500 for the year. That was two years ago. This year that cost is slightly in excess of $3000, an increase of over 100 percent. Other publications are equally priced. There are several reasons for these increases. The devalued dollar is surely part of it, as is the fact that publishers have a monopoly on the information they purvey. In spite of the difficulties research libraries face, they are at the threshold of a new information age. In fact, they already have partly entered it. The technology, basically computer and telecommunications technology, that has played a major role in developing this flood of information promises to effect the first revolution in the dissemination of information since © MRI, 2000 Louis E. Martin, November 10, 1987 Page 5

Gutenberg in the 15th century. There is no doubt that the key to our information age is the computer. The computer allows us to do mundane, but very important, daily chores in the library in an entirely new way. Almost all of the cataloging done in the Linda Hall Library is performed via telecommunication links with a computer data base in Dublin, Ohio, which stores the information on millions of cataloging records from libraries around the country. This means we can obtain the information necessary to make our catalog cards very rapidly and make those cards available to our users in a fraction of the time heretofore possible. That data base in Ohio belongs to an organization referred to by its initials – nothing unusual there – OCLC, the Online Computer Library Center. It provides information through approximately 8000 terminals across the country. Almost 5000 libraries now query that huge data base. By doing so, they can provide their constituencies, their faculties, their students, and the men and women on the street, with the information necessary for them to secure the information they need in better-than-timely fashion. The importance of a link between a library and that data base can be seen in the fact that in 1986/87 just under 23 million books were cataloged and made available to the public through the use of that system. Further, the interlibrary loan subsystem made possible over 3 million borrowing and lending transactions among libraries. It is not an exaggeration to say that, because of computer technology and organizations such as OCLC, we provide an extraordinary level of service, one that simply wasn’t heard of 15 to 20 years ago. The promise of the future, then, is indeed extraordinary for bringing people, such as this audience, the faculties of the universities, their students, and independent research scholars, such as Richard Rhodes, into conjunction with the information they need with a speed and effectiveness no one would have dreamed of a short time ago. The computer and the formal and informal networks of libraries it serves also will significantly increase our ability to preserve the millions of titles on our shelves that are deteriorating because of chemical reactions resulting in paper acidity. Perhaps the chief danger to our historical and literary heritage is this paper erosion, which goes on unseen and often unnoted. It is a quiet, but deadly, menace caused by the manufacturing process in paper which became common in the latter part of the last century, when high-speed presses came into vogue to satisfy the ever-increasing need of a burgeoning population for information. The paper was treated so that it would accept ink much more quickly and firmly, but that process brings about the chemical reaction I just referred to as paper erosion. There is no doubt that a national effort has to be mounted to cure that problem. Again, we look to a new technology as a possible savior, this time to optical disks. One of them the size of a phonograph record can store up to 60,000 pages of information on one side. Although we are not sure at this point of the life of these disks, we do know that material is easily transferable at a very modest cost. It could be that libraries like Linda Hall will be able to save the content of their old journals that now are growing more and more brittle by the day. The optical disk technology and other mass deacidification processes are promising indeed. Some day in the not-too-distant future, Linda Hall Library and its colleagues will be able to provide information services that are both comprehensive and convenient. Either in the comfort of one’s home or in the comfort of the library, one will be able to have access to the © MRI, 2000 Louis E. Martin, November 10, 1987 Page 6 ever-growing number of information data bases springing up on an almost daily basis. At last count there were approximately 3500 data bases being marketed in this country. It is possible to get data on just about anything, whether needed or not. McGraw-Hill, a well-known publisher, for example, has gotten into the information game, as have most of our major publishers. McGraw-Hill provides a new service – largely for the corporate world – centered on a data base that is updated every 15 minutes with new economic information which might be useful to somebody. Does all of this mean that the book will be only a curiosity a short time from now? The answer to that is an emphatic NO. There is more interest in the book as an artifact now than at any time in its history. The book itself is a remarkable piece of technology and will continue to serve us well for many, many years. We are finding, however, that certain kinds of information, which are now staples in libraries like Linda Hall, are going to be made available in a more efficient and effective machine-readable form. They will be accessed through a terminal, many times by the library patron himself, but often with the help of a librarian. Good examples of this kind of information are statistical compilations, yearbooks, abstracts, and indexes. This brave new world, however, will be slow in coming unless the cost involved can be moderated or libraries become immensely richer than they now are, or ever have been. To my final point. There are some futurists who have said that the electronic revolution is going to lead to the kind of interaction between research scholar and information that will eliminate the need for the middleman. “Middleman” is spelled 1-i-b-r-a-r-y. The contention is that we have entered an age which will see people like you sitting comfortably in your home at what often is referred to as an electronic workstation. We shall be so sophisticated in our use of files of information that we will be able to procure the information we need with our version of what the personal computer will look like in 10 years. We will be able to hop from one data base to another. “Gateway” technology will make that possible. We shall have vast storage capabilities for the information, and we shall be able to call it up whenever we need it and manipulate it any way we want. The research scholar will have attained the heavenly city. Now, I tend to think that is not going to take place as quickly as the futurist think. The principal reason for my opinion is that our need for information and our ability to process it is limited. Another reason is that the research libraries of this country have proven themselves to be a very effective infrastructure for our information needs. As such, they will continue to play a vital role in bringing researchers into contact with data and information. They have the physical facilities; they have the collections; and, above all, libraries like Linda Hall have the most important element: the people – people trained in the management of information who are committed to the concept of service. These libraries don’t exist for themselves or for profit. They exist to further individual, local, regional, national, and international needs for information. Without this commitment to service, I don’t think the possibilities of the new technology will be realized. In closing, I wish to emphasize how pleased we are to welcome visitors. We have the best tour guide staff one can imagine. They’re enthusiastic about where they work and enjoy telling people about the singularity of the Linda Hall Library. When any of you wish to know what a research library really looks like – and by the way, what a beautiful library building looks like, what beautiful grounds look like, and what an effective staff looks like – simply drop in to the Linda Hall Library. © MRI, 2000 Louis E. Martin, November 10, 1987 Page 7

Thank you.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS QUESTION: You haven’t mentioned the large number of languages which you deal with. Joe Shipman indicated some time ago that the multitude of languages presents a problem. How do you handle that situation? ANSWER: With difficulty, I assure you. That is a good question because one of the salient characteristics of a research library is that materials collected are in a multiple language font, as it were. One of the most important aspects of Linda Hall is the presence of a significant number of foreign language journals. Collecting these materials began with the purchase of the American Academy of Arts and Science collection in 1947. It had a large exchange program with learned societies around the world. In effect, these exchange programs said, “You send us your publication and we’ll send you ours.” Exchange was a vital way of transmitting information in those early days. In purchasing the Academy collection, we inherited a good many foreign language materials and agreed to continue the exchange program started by the Academy. We are particularly strong in Japanese and Russian language titles. This partly reflects the interest of previous directors. I might add as an aside that many times the interests of the head librarians determine the size and character of research collections. We do have a fair number of staff with language proficiencies. We also rely on standard schemes of transliteration. Further, it is true that staff who work with materials in specific languages repeatedly develop what we call a bibliographic proficiency with the language. One can begin to ferret out quite accurately titles, publishers, and other publication information. As to how many languages are represented in Linda Hall, I’m guessing, but I’ll say approximately 40. I see a member of our staff, Mr. Peterson, is signaling 39. QUESTION: May I follow up on the first question? Did you ever have a special relationship with the Russians? I seem to recall that you were bringing in Russian language information long before it came to be seen as in the national interest. ANSWER: You are quite right. One of my predecessors, Thomas Gillies, expanded the number of Russian titles coming in to the Library, but he was building on a program that went as far back as the bringing of the Academy collection to Linda Hall. We are, indeed, very strong in Russian language materials, but this does bring some problems with it. We have a very large Russian book collection, and we are now trying to decide whether it is worth the money and effort to catalog the collection and make it available. These are books I’m referring to, not journals, and we all know that the life blood of scientific and technical information is the journal literature. We haven’t made that decision yet, by the way. QUESTION: Do you rely heavily in your current acquisitions program on microfilm and microfiche? ANSWER: The answer very simply is No. There are, of course, certain kinds of material which can be procured only in microformat. Much report literature, such as that from the © MRI, 2000 Louis E. Martin, November 10, 1987 Page 8

National Technical Information Service, can only be had in that form. When that’s the case, we do purchase it. In general, however, the materials we select to purchase are not on film unless the cost difference between the paper copy and the film copy is so great that prudence dictates the microformat. I will add that we have increased our purchases recently, to some degree, of journals on microfilm. QUESTION: What is the chief source of the revenues that pay for the operation of the library? ANSWER: We previously alluded to the trusts set up to run the library. These trusts totaled approximately $6 million when given. Over the years, the board of trustees, with the more than able assistance of a staff member of the library, have managed through wise investments to pay for the annual operations of the library almost totally from dividend income. I know of no other library that can say that. I learned that fact when I was being interviewed for the director’s post. At that time I thought that there might be a little exaggeration involved. You see, I came from a university environment where red ink is very prevalent. But the statement has proven true. A relatively small amount of money comes from our document delivery service. That is the only other significant source of funds that we have. It is interesting to note that we have never had a grant from any agency, including within the federal government. When I first arrived, I thought it might be a good idea to request what we call a Title II-C award from the Office of Education. Money under that title allows research libraries to do many good things. I was met, however, by a certain amount of skepticism on the part of some board members who weren’t sure that was a wise thing to do. After all, if one does take money from the federal government, one, to some extent, is beholden to use it in a certain way. No doubt of that. The funding of the library is a singular achievement. How much longer we can continue to do the job expected of us with only dividend income is a very good question. QUESTION: How could a research scholar, for example a member of the UMKC faculty, find out whether that information he needs actually exists? Or, even before that, how could he determine that he needs a particular kind of information? ANSWER: Over the years, the research libraries have built very useful and really quite remarkable collections of bibliographic information, the kind of information which tells the research scholar what books and journals exist on just about every imaginable subject. Our bibliographic collection is very extensive, certainly as good as any I’ve seen in major universities. Let me cite an example of how sophisticated the bibliographic information is today. The Institute for Scientific Information publishes the Science Citation Index. They also publish, by the way, a Social Science Citation Index and a Humanities Citation Index. These are rather remarkable books. They list in a variety of ways the available information in different scientific disciplines. Not only can you find the information if you know the author or the title, you can find all kinds of other information on your topic in the listings of the articles cited in someone else’s research. The theory is that the more someone is quoted, the more valuable the information is. © MRI, 2000 Louis E. Martin, November 10, 1987 Page 9

The biggest asset the researcher has is the staff of the library. Research libraries always are staff-intensive. Linda Hall is perhaps the most staff-intensive library I’ve ever seen. Staff knowledge of the collection is critical to giving our scholar the proper direction. This puts me in mind of something that I should have pointed out in the body of my remarks, and that is, that it is increasingly difficult for staff to master the number and complexity of scientific and technical publications with which they are faced. A good example of the complexity of today’s scientific publications is a book we refer to as Beilstein, the handbook of organic chemistry. Its organization is so complex that only a highly trained person can use it or instruct someone else in its use. Even students majoring in chemistry often can’t find the material they need in it. They usually have to ask a faculty member to lead them through the maze. A corollary to this question of knowing all there is to know, and to leading people to what they need, is the question of how to select titles from this vast store of publications. We find it harder and harder to decide between A and B, a choice made necessary by funding limitations. It is, perhaps, ironic that precisely at a time when our ability to provide bibliographic access to the titles needed is greater than ever, we at the same time have less ability to judge from among the many publications, that is, which is best for a stated purpose. When a relatively few titles were being published in this country and worldwide, one could find bookmen, within libraries and without, who were excellent judges of the quality of the publications they saw. The sheer weight of numbers today, however, and the complexity of science and technology make that an extremely difficult, if not hopeless, task. The bibliographic apparatus is there, however, and the computer is making it ever more useful. QUESTION: How will Linda Hall Library accommodate the continuing growth of its collections and services? ANSWER: That question is so relevant to our present activity I could almost think it was planted. It is a very good question because a characteristic of research libraries is that they grow and grow and grow, at times to the consternation of the authorities who must fund them. Some months ago, the board of trustees asked me to look into the possibility of developing a long- range plan for the facilities of Linda Hall Library, both the buildings and the grounds. To that end, we asked a facilities planning consultant, J. E. Robinson from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to take a good long look at Linda Hall and give us his recommendations for options for the future. What should we look like 20 years from now? Based partly on his report, we shall try to determine, in a very preliminary fashion, where expansion should take place in the future, what it should look like, how we should relate to the buildings of the university, and whether we should continue to emphasize the arboretum quality of our grounds. Even though we are relatively comfortable with regard to space at the moment, planning for the future must begin now. QUESTION: How many of the requests for information you receive in any one year come from persons and institutions in the Kansas City area? ANSWER: I have never seen a statistic which gives a good answer to that question, but I’ll try to give a good guess. We loan 10,000 to 12,000 titles each year to the libraries of the Kansas Regents University. We also supply the University of Missouri-Kansas City with a large © MRI, 2000 Louis E. Martin, November 10, 1987 Page 10 number of books and journals. On the other hand, most of our requests for photocopies come from abroad. Given all this, I expect that about 30 percent of all our requests could be considered local. Let me add here that, even though Linda Hall Library is important on the national and international information scene, we still view the Kansas City metropolitan area and the four- state region as the area to which we have the greatest commitment. There are no plans whatsoever to change that emphasis. Its importance was illustrated recently by a remark made by a visiting librarian from Kansas State University. In a discussion of our planning study, she stated that Kansas State relies heavily on Linda Hall for technical and scientific materials. In fact, she said that we are considered a branch of their own library. Well, I wouldn’t put it quite that way, but the importance of our collections to that institution is not in doubt. Another point in our relationship to nearby institutions is that we do try, in an informal manner, not to duplicate the collection strengths of one another. Linda Hall will not purchase some titles in natural science and ornithology, for example, because the University of Kansas is very strong in those subjects. Conversely, K.U. libraries need not buy some things in physics, astronomy, or mineralogy because they know where to find this material and supply it to their faculty and students with only a day or two wait. QUESTION: How large is the staff of Linda Hall Library? ANSWER: In full-time equivalents, about 63, of which 21 are professional librarians, that is, individuals with professional credentials. We do not foresee any significant growth in staff size or major growth in service programs. Given the economic situation, this is not really the time to be expanding our mission. We shall try, however, to increase the number of educational programs for the community. This year we instituted the Francis W. Bartlett Lectures which we hope will be given on an annual basis. We shall bring to the library other people versed in science and technology who will be of interest to the community. QUESTION: Has the initial investment portfolio grown sufficiently to handle your operations today? ANSWER: I am happy to say it has. We are facing the day, perhaps soon, when our income will be totally used by necessary expenses. That will be a new situation for Linda Hall, but it is probably around the corner. We have been well served, however, in that, because of wise investments, the portfolio has grown sufficiently to take care of increased costs, which have been especially heavy over the last 10 years. Nevertheless, we are faced with a great deal of hard thinking in the next few years if we are to determine what are the most effective and expeditious programs of collections and services. At this point, however, the answer to your question is an emphatic Yes, praise be! I’d like to thank Dr. Kimball for giving me the opportunity to claim your attention this afternoon. As I said earlier, spreading the word about Linda Hall Library is a chore dear to all of us, and I would welcome the opportunity in the future to put a gloss on what has been said here today. DR. KIMBALL: I would like to emphasize that the audience should take seriously Louis Martin’s invitation to visit the library. It is a beautiful place to see, and there’s much to be gained by spending an hour there. © MRI, 2000 Louis E. Martin, November 10, 1987 Page 11

LOUIS E. MARTIN became Director of Linda Hall Library a little over two years ago. His distinguished career spans thirty years as a professional librarian. He served productive tours of duty at major libraries and esteemed institutions in Detroit, Michigan; Rochester, New York; and Washington, D.C. Most recently, he was the Chief Librarian of Cornell University libraries. Earlier, he was the Librarian of Harvard College, which means he was in charge of about two-thirds of the University’s library facilities. In Washington, D.C., he was Associate Executive Director of the Association of Research Libraries. Martin was born in Detroit, Michigan, in 1928, and is a graduate of both the University of Detroit and the University of Michigan, with degrees in Library Science.

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MIDCONTINENT PERSPECTIVES was a lecture series sponsored by the Midwest Research Institute as a public service to the midcontinent region. Its purpose was to present new viewpoints on economic, political, social, and scientific issues that affect the Midwest and the nation. Midcontinent Perspectives was financed by the Kimball Fund, named for Charles N. Kimball, President of MRI from 1950 to 1975, Chairman of its Board of Trustees from 1975 to 1979, and President Emeritus until his death in 1994. Initiated in 1970, the Fund has been supported by annual contributions from individuals, corporations, and foundations. Today it is the primary source of endowment income for MRI. It provides “front-end” money to start high- quality projects that might generate future research contracts of importance. It also funds public- interest projects focusing on civic or regional matters of interest. Initiated in 1974 and continuing until 1994, the sessions of the Midcontinent Perspectives were arranged and convened by Dr. Kimball at four- to six-week intervals. Attendance was by invitation, and the audience consisted of leaders in the Kansas City metropolitan area. The lectures, in monograph form, were later distributed to several thousand individuals and institutions throughout the country who were interested in MRI and in the topics addressed. The Western Historical Manuscript Collection-Kansas City, in cooperation with MRI, has reissued the Midcontinent Perspectives Lectures in electronic format in order to make the valuable information which they contain newly accessible and to honor the creator of the series, Dr. Charles N. Kimball.