let in a blast of cold, mountain air. There trained nor prepared to carry on these ac­ were no records to keep, no students to tivities are suddenly finding themselves in serve, the library opened late and closed the midst of this boiling cauldron, having to early, and all was serene along the banks spread themselves thin to meet demands for of the Old Buffalo. I suspect that stories their time, efforts, and abilities. Much trou­ of this kind could be told world without end ble comes from the fact that we do not have about every little college library across this enough time to do all the things which are land of ours. demanded of us. There are not enough staff Then something happened. Libraries have hours. By trying to do all the things which come alive, and the whole idea of libraries are asked of us, we find, unfortunately, that and librarianship has undergone a tremen­ much of our effort is in vain because we are dous change. The library, once the store­ trying to do too much, carry on too many house, has turned into the laboratory of activities, and operate in areas for which the whole college. The librarian now be­ we are not properly prepared. comes ex-officio a member of the faculty of each department, and he must of necessity Most assuredly something needs to be teach, instruct, and lead in the arts and sci­ done. After thirty years in active library ences. Every phase of library activity has in­ work (most of it spent in a small liberal creased a hundredfold. And herein we find arts college atmosphere) and in three library our dilemma. Librarians who are neither schools, I do not know the answer. Do you?

By KEYES D. METCALF Staff Participation in Library Management in a Large Research Library

H E THINGS THAT I SHALL HAVE TO SAY responsibility that he ought to accept as his. T will not be very profound; they may all In order to explain why I believe in staff seem obvious and routine, and the cliches participation, I am going to consider four will be plentiful, I fear. They will not, at major topics: (1) tl~e .effect of staff participa­ least, be quoted from other authors. For tion on staff members, (2) its effect on the better or worse, I have carefully avoided chief librarian, (3) its effect on the library, trying to bone up on the literature of the and, (4) its effect on the library profession. subject. Instead, I shall speak only from The first of these topics-the effect of staff first-hand knowledge accumulated during participation on staff members-particularly more than fifty years of experience in library appeals to me because I have always been work. interested in training young people for li­ Let me start by saying that I believe un­ brary work. I have always wished that I had hesitatingly and heartily in staff participa­ the ability to teach and that I could have tion in library management in large research done more to train the young men and libraries-in all libraries, for that matter. women who are to become leaders in the Staff participation, like other good things, next generation. It is pleasant now, in my can be misused; my belief in it does not latter days, to have an opportunity at Rut­ mean that I approve when it is made an gers to try my hand at it. excuse for laziness of the chief librarian, or My interest in the subject goes back to the when he tries, by means of it, to escape the time, fifty-one years ago last summer, when I made up my mind to become a librarian. Dr. Metcalf) retired director of the Har­ I was then spending a summer vacation from vard University Library) is at present) profes­ high school working as a hired man on an sor) Graduate School of Library Service) Rut­ Ohio farm. I knew that I had a lot to learn gers University. about libraries, and wondered how to go

N OVEMBER 1957 473 about learning. The next month-Septem­ that interest, though it was not until twenty ber, 1905-I was fortunate enough to get ' years later that I had another opportunity a job in a library, and I have stayed with to work on a plan. library work ever since. I was very fortunate When the Oberlin library moved into its indeed in 1905 because that first job of mine new building, I had a good deal to do with was under Azariah Smith Root, who, I still planning the move and carrying it out. The believe, was the greatest of American col­ excitement I experienced at that time in lege-as distinct from university-librarians. making the wheels go around in a library Azariah Root had a deep interest in li­ is responsible, I suppose, for the fact that brary training. Not long after I began work I headed toward the hard life of the library for him, he became chairman of the Amer­ administrator instead of down one of the ican Library Association committee that was paths that permit a librarian to spend his the forerunner of the Board of Education time in closer contact with the books that for Librarianship, and he later served as attracted him to the profession. The admin­ director of the Library School at the New istrator, unfortunately, finds himself dealing York Public Library. I do not know whether less with books themselves than with admin­ or not he had given any thought, at the istrative machinery for handling books. time I started work in the Oberlin College One more word about Oberlin may be Library, to the subject of staff participation added. In 1912, when Professor Root was in library management, but I do know that, preparing to take a sabbatical leave, he within four months, he permitted and, in­ found no one on his staff who was ready to deed, encouraged a high-school junior to accept responsibility for administering the participate in the administration of the library during his absence. Though I was library. He was not lazy, and he was cer­ then only in the midst of my training at tainly not trying to dodge responsibility; but library school, he decided that my six years he arranged for me, under close supervision, of ~xperience under him as a page had of course, to gather a group of boys of my given me administrative experience enough own age and to direct them in the task of to manage the library for eight months, and sewing, with shoestrings, great quantities of I took over the task. periodicals and newspapers into manila rope These are only personal reminiscences of bundles. · forty-five to fifty years ago, but I think they This was during the Christmas holidays of are relevant. Indeed, if it were not for these 1905. I was sure already that I wanted to experiences and the good I think they did make a career of library work, but I suppose me, I should not have been ready to accept I might have had at least occasional doubts this assignment and hope that I should have about the wisdom of my choice if it had not something to contribute. been for this early opportunity to take the \ It is my opinion, based on experience lead in accomplishing something in a library rather than theory, that staff participation, that seemed to be interesting and worth particularly if it involves taking responsi­ while. At the time, I should add, I had no bility, ought to begin very early in a library desire to become a library administrator. career. It is the best training for administra­ This is not an autobiography, and I shall tion that has yet been developed. Library not tell in detail of the opportunities that schools have been trying to teach adminis­ Azariah Root gave me to participate in li­ tration for many years, but I fear they have brary administration during the years that been unsuccessful on the whole because the followed at Oberlin. It may be worth point­ instruction has been too theoretical in na­ ing out, however, that my first exposure to ture. I believe that some of the graduate the problems of library architecture came schools in other fields, such as the Harvard while I was still in high school in 1906. Graduate School of Business Administration, Azariah Root was then at work on plans for are learning how to teach administration, the building that, v,rhen it opened in 1908, and, thanks in part to their example, our was the best college library building in the library schools are now moving in the right , country. He saw to it that I became inter­ direction. · ested in building planning, and I never lost It seems preferable to give administrative

474 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES training to students who have had some For further evidence based on my own practical library experience-administrative experience, I should like to turn back, this experience in libraries, if possible. The ad­ time, to the year 1914. I had then completed vanced seminar in library administration library school, served for eight months as that I had the good fortune to conduct at the responsible administrator of the Oberlin Rutgers last spring could not possibly have College Library, and had the benefit of par­ worked out as well as it did unless the par­ ticipation in administration for several years. ticipants had all come to it with a back­ I was in charge of the main book stack in ground of experience il). library administra­ the New York Public Library, with a large tion. staff made up of high-school boys who were My opinions on this subject can be sup­ there because a job was available, not be­ ported by examination of the early careers cause they had any idea of becoming librar­ of successful chief librarians in research ians. The New York Public Library did not libraries. I shall not attempt here to recite have a shelf list in those days, and it was a series of short biographies, but I suggest decided that one must be created. As you that you check on the background of a few can imagine, making a shelf list for a li­ such men. I think you will find that nearly brary of that size promised to be a consid­ all of them are librarians who had a chance erable task. It was assigned to me by Mr. to participate in administration while they Anderson and Mr. Lydenberg because I was were junior members of a library staff. More­ then directly in charge of a large percentage over, if you investigate successful library of the library's collections. administrators who are not trained librar­ They realized that a good deal of time ians, I think you will find that most of them had to be devoted to the relatively routine had good administrative experience before work of keeping the stack going, and that they came to their present positions. I ought to have someone under me in direct Further, I believe you will find that a re­ charge of the new shelf-list job. One day markably large percentage of the country's when I was talking with Mr. Lydenberg leading librarians obtained their adminis­ about selection of a person for this assign­ trative experience in a relatively small num­ ment, he smiled and said he did not care ber of libraries, and that these are libraries what the person did-if he or she wanted to with a librarian who, in addition to skill go down to the basement, lean back in a of his own in administration, had an inter­ chair, and use the furnace door for a foot­ est in building up a staff on which there rest, that would be all right as long as it were able administrators. The way to do this produced results. I was a very serious young is to give members of the staff an oppor­ man at the time, and found it hard to tunity to take part in administration. understand an attitude toward library ad­ A census of successful library administra­ ministration that seemed entirely new to me. tors would enumerate many who worked But it made a lasting impression, and I came with Edwin Hatfield Anderson and Harry to realize that successful administration is Miller Lydenberg at the New York Public not necessarily a simple matter of hard work Library, and many more who worked with by the administrator himself; other things William Warner Bishop at the University may be involved. By talking over an admin­ of Michigan. It would reveal a much smaller istrative problem with me, Harry Lydenberg number who came during the same period had taught me something and had greatly from the staff of the Library of Congress, stimulated my interest in library adminis­ though this staff was much larger than the tration. As. one result, a considerably larger staff at Michigan or the New York Public proportion of my time was spent, thereafter, Library. This certainly does not mean that in talking over administrative problems with Herbert Putnam was not a great librarian. other members of the staff of my own age But Anderson, Lydenberg, and Bishop be­ and rank. In this, you may be sure, we were lieved in staff participation in library man­ all encouraged by those to whom we re­ agement, and were successful in encouraging ported. it. Putnam, whatever his convictions, did At about this same time I was appointed ~ ot accomplish nearly as much in this field. to a committee to deal with policy problems

IVOVEMBER 1957 475 in the field of the library's cataloging. This discussion groups, and special luncheons, group was not asked to make final decisions; and by their work on staff information bul­ it was expected to study the subject and letins and in library association business, report to Mr. Anderson and Mr Lydenberg. they give material aid to the librarian in The assignment was interesting and instruc­ the accomplishment of his task, and the tive. I am convinced that committees of benefits are felt throughout the library in this kind are one of the most desirable various direct and indirect ways, including means of ensuring staff participation in some of which the librarian may be totally library administration. The results are bene­ unaware. ficial, both to the chief librarian and to Staff participation in the management of members of the staff at all levels. a large library benefits the head librarian by To summarize what has been said of the keeping him in touch with his staff, and by effect on staff members of participation in helping to make his decisions and policies library management, it is highly desirable effective; it also has a tutorial result. It is because it is the best method yet discovered a means of developing lieutenants who can for interesting capable young librarians in administer departments or divisions of the administration and training them for it. library. Just one example may illustrate this It seems to me that such participation has process. Edward Freehafer was given train­ an equally desirable effect on the chief li­ ing at the New York Public Library refer­ brarians. One of the great dangers of admin­ ence desk and in other sections of the li­ istrative work in a library is its tendency to brary; he was then taken into the office of separate the librarian from those who are the director as general assistant and given working with him. Responsibility belongs five years of assisting management. This was to the man at the top, and he must accept the foundation that, followed by other as­ it. This responsibility cannot really be signments and further participation in the shared with members of the staff, and cannot administrative process, prepared this able fail to isolate the chief librarian in some man to direct the entire system. measure, but he is lost unless close contact To continue the account of my own expe­ and ready communication with the staff can rience, I remained at New York Public un­ be maintained. til I was forty-eight. Except for two years I recall a conversation of twenty years as acting librarian at Oberlin, I had never ago with one of our best-known librarians. had an independent library position, yet I He said, ''I'm too busy because my library is suppose I had had as much library admin­ a little too large for one man to administer, istrative experience as anyone of my age, but not large enough to be a two-man job. because those for whom I worked had been I can't afford to hire a first-class assistant be­ men who realized the importance of staff cause there isn't enough work for two ad­ participation in management. I then became ministrators:" librarian of Hanard College and director This man had isolated himself from his of the Harvard University Library, a posi­ staff; he was not administering his library tion for which I should have been com­ satisfactorily, and I happen to know that it pletely unprepared if it had not been for was a great relief to all concerned when he these years of participation in management. retired. His successor, one of our best univer­ I have spoken of the chief librarian's sity librarians, has found that administering need to maintain close contact and ready that library is not just a one-man or man­ communication with the staff; one rna jor and-a-half job; it is a four-man job, and reason for regarding this as highly important there are now at least four first-rate adminis­ is that he will learn from his staff if he will trators on the staff. One result of this is listen. Several minds ought to be better than that the library's reputation has improved one; the stimulation that comes from explo­ almost unbelievably dl!ring the past twenty ration of new ideas and possibilities is pleas­ years. urable as well as useful. There is a tendency Staff members may play a rna jor role in in­ for the chief administrator to get into a rut. tralibrary communication-an especially im­ This is one of the greatest dangers he runs, portant aspect of administration. By their and nothing is more likely to shake him participation in ad hoc committees, staff out of it than new ideas, including both

476 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES those that will come to him from members help, to associates at the New York Public of his staff and those that he will develop Library-to Frank Waite, Charles McCombs, for himself as a result of intellectual contact Paul North Rice, Rollin Sawyer, Mary Kit­ with others . . Heavy responsibilities tend to zinger, Minnie Sears, Robert Henderson, make a man conservative, and stimulation and others of my own generation; and to should always be welcomed. Quincy Mumford, Edward Freehafer, Wyllis A related point may be suggested here. Wright, Charles Gosnell, Robert Downs, and Many capable young men and women who Andrew Osborn, to mention only a few enter library work and have a leaning to­ from the next generation. ward administration are inclined to accept I should like to add that the process con­ a head librarianship in a small institution tinued after I went to Harvard, where I where there may be no assistants on the staff was similarly indebted to Andrew Osborn, of a calibre to provide intellectual stimula­ Fred Kilgour, Reuben Peiss, Phil McNiff, tion. The temptation may be particularly Ed Williams, Elmer Grieder, Hugh Mont­ strong because such a position is likely to gomery, Sue Haskins, Doug Bryant, Bill offer a higher salary than could otherwise Jackson, Bill Cottrell, Dave Weber, and be obtained immediately after completion of many others. There are more names that library school. But the unfortunate result, in could be added to the list, both at the New some cases, is that the young librarian rap­ York Public Library and at Harvard, and idly gets into a rut and never gets out of it. I hope I shall be forgiven by those who have I was fortunate because the first World War been omitted here. prevented me from settling down in a small The good effects of staff participation in college library where I should not have had management on those who participate and the stimulation that carne from working with on the chief librarians who encourage them a considerable number of young librarians to do so have. been considered; but libraries of my own age. Work in a small library of may not be run entirely for the benefit of my own would have meant missing a great those who work in them, and one would deal. hesitate to recommend the practice if it had To return to the needs of the chief admin­ harmful effects on the library itself. Can we, istrator-it is of the greatest value to him to to paraphrase a pronouncement attributed have others working closely with him on li­ to the Secretary of Defense, assert that what brary problems, particularly when these are is good for the librarian is good for his not merely "yes" men. No matter how much library? I think it- is, provided, as I have natural administrative ability a chief librar­ indicated already, that the chief librarian ian may have, and no matter how good his does not try to escape responsibility in the judgment, he will be at a disadvantage if he process. He must not blame his staff if it cannot consult with members of his staff gives him bad advice and he takes it; he who can propose alternative methods and must not blame them when things go wrong, plans. By consultation, of course, I mean full and take the credit when they go well. But discussion-not the practice that has been it seems evident to me that anything that described as calling for a vote by saying, makes the chief administrator a better li­ "All opposed say 'I resign.' " brarian s·hould benefit his library also. I have freely made use of suggestions by As an example from my own experience, librarians who worked for me and with me, I can cite the Lamont undergraduate library and I am well aware that this contributed at Harvard, which is generally regarded, I immeasurably to whatever success I had as believe, as a successful innovation and a well­ an administrator. I h ad good library school planned building. I am perfectly ready to training, but Azariah Root, Edwin Hatfield claim some credit for the original idea; but, Anderson, and Harry Miller Lydenberg in developing the plans I had the help and taught me more than the school did because advice of Phil McNiff and Andrew Osborn they encouraged me to take part in the ad­ and Ed Williams and Frank Jones, to name ministration of their libraries. I hope that only a few of the chief assistants, and, if I I contributed something to them in return; had not had this help and advice, Lamont I know, at least, that I am indebted more might well have remained a good idea that than I can say, for ideas, stimulation, and never achieved satisfactory material form. lVOVEMBER 1957 477 Clarence Francis of General Foods is librarian whose duties, opportunities, and quoted as saying, "Younger executives come responsibilities go beyond handing a re­ to me with what they think are new ideas. served book over a desk. (This, by the way, Out of my experience I could tell them why is the strongest argument I know against . their ideas will not succeed. Instead of talk­ separate undergraduate libraries, which tend ing them out of their ideas, I have suggested to make it even more likely than it would that they be tried out in test areas in order otherwise be that students will come into to minimize losses. The joke of it is that half contact with only routine library work.) the time these youthful ideas, which I might If the situation is to be improved, much have nipped in the bud, turn out either of the job will have to be done by those pro­ to be successful or to lead to other ideas that fessional assistants who come in contact are successful." Libraries, like great corpo­ with undergraduates most frequently. If rations, ought to welcome youthful ideas. these assistants have an opportunity to deal If this is enough to show that institutions with library administrative problems through as well as individuals benefit from staff par­ consultation and discussion with their supe­ ticipation in management, one more point riors, through committee assignments, dis­ remains to be considered. What about the cussion groups, or in other ways, many of profession? The answer may seem self-evi­ them may develop an interest in library ad­ dent, if you agree with me thus far, but a ministration and an enthusiasm that will be few words about how the profession benefits communicated to the students with whom may be desirable. they deal. We need to attract only a rela­ I have already confessed my doubts re­ tively small number of well qualified recruits garding the effectiveness of the adminis­ to meet the profession's needs. If we could trative training that our library schools have been able to give. I am convinced that, at succeed only in attracting to librarianship a best, their training needs to be supple­ larger percentage of those who work for us mented by practical training on the job. as student assistants, it would help signifi­ Good administrators are surely good for the cantly. profession, and staff participation is an in­ As one final point-though this, too, dispensable method of producing them. might be taken for granted-it ·can be Another point involves recruiting. Perhaps argued that, if libraries operate more suc­ the greatest failure of librarianship today is cessfully because of staff participation in the fact that it is failing to attract a suffi­ management, this in itself is good for the cient number of really capable men and profession. What is good for libraries is good women; some of us would be glad to have for the profession of ljbrarianship. them come into the profession with or with­ As you were warned at the outset, this has out library-school training if they were of been pretty obvious and routine-so much high enough quality. This failure is the so that it might be described simply as com­ more discouraging because our academic mon sense. But common sense ought not to libraries are integral parts of our colleges be despised by the administrator, for it is and universities, and-if propinquity means the most important element in successful anything, as it does in so many areas of administration. I remember that, at the ded­ life-it would seem that no other profession ication of this library, John Buchan said, except college teaching would have as good "A sense of humor consists chiefly of a sense an opportunity as we have to recruit under­ of proportion." So does common sense, if graduates. Some of us blame our failure on I am not mistaken. A library administrator low salaries, but I cannot think that this is needs, above all else, a sense of proportion. the only factor or -even the most important It is my contention that the best way to one. develop such a sense is long practical expe­ We are to be blamed most of all, I think, rience by participation in administration, for permitting most of our college students and that the best insurance against loss of to go through their four years-years dur­ that sense of proportion is continued intel­ ing which they are deciding what profes­ lectual give-and-take between the chief ad­ sion to enter-without ever encountering a ministrator and members of his staff.

478 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES