Encyclopaedia of Academic Library System 297

Encyclopaedia of Academic Library System 297 Encyclopaedia of Academic Library System Madan Mohan Sinha Contents Preface (vii) 1. Introduction 1 2. General Introduction to the Library 21 3. Academic Libraries 53 4. Academic Library Materials Expenditures 83 5. Preparation of Books for Use 131 6. Classification of Library Books 153 7. Resource Sharing in Libraries and Networking 237 8. College Libraries 279 Bibliography 289 Index 294 Preface The basic function of the academic library is to aid the institution in carrying out its program. Each kind of academic library—junior college, college, and university—in addition to the characteristics which it shares with all academic libraries, serves certain purposes and has certain features and problems peculiarly its own, which grow out of the particular character and scope of its parent institution. In general the name “college” is given to an institution of higher learning which offers a four-year curriculum leading to a bachelor’s degree in arts and science; requires graduation from an accredited secondary school or its equivalent for admission; and is not divided into separate schools and faculties. This definition does not cover the wide variation among colleges as to control, purposes, programs, and size. There are liberal arts colleges, amnay of which emphasize specialization is given fields rather than liberal education; colleges for the preparation of teachers, and technical and agricultural colleges. Some colleges offer a fifth year leading to the master’s degree; some call themselves universities before they have developed a sufficient number of professional schools or faculties with the quality of advanced teaching and study to merit the title. Colleges may be under state, municipal, or denominational control; or they may be privately endowed and controlled. Enrollments range from fewer than 500 students to more than 10,000. At the turn of the century, college libraries entered upon a period of growth and expanded rapidly after World War I. In most cases their major concern was to acquire and to preserve materials rather than to major concern was to acquire and to preserve materials rather than to encourage and facilitate their use since at that time, the textbook was the chief method of instruction. As more general and specialized knowledge became available, dissatisfaction with the textbook as the core of the teaching process became widespread, and increasingly, in the thirties, the college library was give the requirement and the opportunity to select and evaluate learning materials to support the teaching program and to aid students in their use. The role of the library, as an essential part of the educational program of the parent institution, has included “collecting the records of civilization (viii) and documentation of scientific pursuit,” and providing programs which teach users how to retrieve and interpret these records and documents. The library’s collection should include all types and forms of recorded information, including print materials in all formats, audio and visual materials, sound recordings, computer materials, graphics, microforms, machine-readable reports, government documents, archival materials, and the equipment needed to utilize these materials. The collection should be selected and development on the basis of the institution’s educational philosophy and objectives, the extent an nature of the curriculum, the methods of instruction, the size and nature of the student body, the size of the faculty and their needs for research materials, and the range of services required by the library’s users. The library should make materials easily accessible physically through open shelves or other efficient means, and bibliographically through catalogues, bibliographies, and indexes; given special assistance in the use of specific materials as well as formal instruction in library resources and use; borrow needed materials on interlibrary loans from other libraries; make database searching available; and provide adequate and comfortable physical facilities for study. In order to be able to offer such a program of service, the staff of professional librarians must be educated in library and information science with a degree from an ALA-accredited program and have some subject specialization as well as language proficiency. They must keep up with trends in higher education, curriculum developments, methods of teaching, and new materials and sources in order to be able to participate actively in the instructional program of the college. The college library is organized and administered by the director or chief librarians. The organization should be suitable to the needs and programmes of the institution and should encourage the fullest and most effective use of the library’s resources. Theoretically, the size of the professional staff will be determined by the type of organization within the library, the college enrolment, the size and character of the collection, the teaching methods in use, the number of hours the library is open, the arrangement of the building, the range of services, and the amount of funding. The present publication has been designed to approach this subject in a simple and lucid style. The method of presentation is very clear and lucid, which can be easily followed by the students. —Author Introduction 1 1 Introduction Academic libraries have a close relationship with learning and research and have influenced these things as well. Their history is one of evolution and change that parallels the history of their parent institutions. Leaders and innovators championed features of libraries that are now taken for granted. Responsiveness to student and faculty needs, quality of service, and resilience have been hallmarks of academic libraries in the US. A chronological review of the literature demonstrates these characteristics. This paper is divided into the major periods of the history of US academic libraries: the Colonial period, the Nineteenth Century, and the Twentieth Century. Included in this review of the literature are journal articles, books, and dissertations published between 1980 and 2003 that discuss historical aspects of the library in four-year colleges and universities in the United States. Histories of individual libraries are usually omitted. Histories of libraries in two-year colleges, architectural history, conference proceedings, and editorials have not been included; nor have publications on specialized libraries in academic institutions such as medical, law, or music, or research collections that are not a part of an academic institution (Library of Congress, Centre for Research Libraries). Citations were identified by exhaustive searching of the Library Literature, ERIC, America History and Life, Digital Dissertations, and WorldCat databases. Bibliographies of those citations were reviewed to identify additional sources. Key authors were identified and author searches were then performed in the databases listed. Mirror of Higher Education That the history of academic libraries mirrors the development of higher education implies a process of growth, assimilation, and diversification (Shiflett 1994). The role of the library has evolved as the 2 Encyclopaedia of Academic Library System priorities of the institutions have evolved. At the same time, academic librarianship has developed into a distinct profession with its own set of ideals, objectives, and commitments within the academic community (Wiegand 1983). Shiflett’s work on the origins of academic librarianship is a classic and an excellent summary of the literature and research on this topic that was published before 1980. He states that it is necessary to understand the history of American higher education to truly comprehend American academic librarianship. The library “prospered or suffered in proportion to its value to the college” (Shiflett 1981) and the status of the librarian was directly related to the library’s place in the college. He concludes that academic librarianship has failed to become fully defined because it lacks a body of theory and research (Shiflett 1981). Libraries “can be viewed as information systems that both reflect and influence, and even help to create, paradigms and authority, for they set limits in various ways on the ideas and information available to users” (Dain 1990). Due to a process called transparency, in which an entity is taken for granted and not well understood, the contexts and institutional structures of libraries are for the most part explored only in the library literature by librarian-historians. It is a disturbing indicator of the relative invisibility of libraries in higher education that there are few articles or books about them in the literature of that discipline. Their role in acquiring and producing knowledge within intellectual, institutional, and social contexts needs to be developed with a research base and disseminated in the literature of disciplines that are related to and affected by them. Colonial Libraries Until the American Revolution, most books were imported from England. Local presses produced materials such as pamphlets, school texts, newspapers and business or legal forms. From 1639 to 1776, they produced about 60 books per year. After 1776, there was an increase in publications produced in America. An 1804 catalogue listed 1, 338 American publications in print (Hanson 1989). When John Harvard donated approximately 300 of his books to Harvard University, he created the first academic

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