Maine Alumnus, Volume 21, Number 6, March 1940
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The University of Maine DigitalCommons@UMaine University of Maine Alumni Magazines University of Maine Publications 3-1940 Maine Alumnus, Volume 21, Number 6, March 1940 General Alumni Association, University of Maine Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/alumni_magazines Part of the Higher Education Commons, and the History Commons Recommended Citation General Alumni Association, University of Maine, "Maine Alumnus, Volume 21, Number 6, March 1940" (1940). University of Maine Alumni Magazines. 227. https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/alumni_magazines/227 This publication is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@UMaine. It has been accepted for inclusion in University of Maine Alumni Magazines by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@UMaine. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ' I I r t b a r g a in fav o r it e LA “is an advantageous transact*) A bargain "says the dictionary, is like that. 4 trouble TelephoneTelephone serviceservice is like that. steps and trouble. A d v a n t ab g e c e a ou s u e s of home. Helps Stands0stan d uin s touch with relatives relatives -----and friends. at low costlow cost. keepkeep in touch real bargain should — at 11 of this as a real bargain telephone. And does all of this reach for the Pennies buy wings w hen SY ST EM Vol. 21, No 6 THE MAINE ALUMNUS March, 1940 Published monthly, from October to June inclusive, by the University of Maine General Alumni Association Business office. Room 414, 6 State St , Bangor, Maine, or The Maine Alumnus, University of Maine, Orono, Maine Subscription price, $2 00 per year, included in annual alumni dues of $3 00 National Advertising representatives The Graduate Group, Inc , 30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York City, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, and San Francisco Member American Alumni Council. Entered as second class matter at the Post Office at Bangor, Maine, under act of March 3, 1870 services Rendered arriet converse Fernald, a graduate of the University in 1884, later graduated in the first class of the first professional library school in the country, the School of HLibrary Economy of Columbia. She studied there under Melvil Dewey, an early authority on library classification and one of the really great names in the history of Library economy. Miss Fernald then served as Assistant Librarian of the Maine State College from 1888 to 1890 and Librarian from 1890 to 1897. With the completion of Coburn Hall in 1888, the library of the college was moved from its cramped quarters in the old Chemistry Laboratory to a new and more fitting location in the new building. Under Professor George H. Hamlin as Librarian, Miss Fernald began the duties which HARRIET C. FERNALD, ’84 she rendered over a period of nine years. Her services in arranging, classifying, and cataloging the volumes of the college library ultimately resulted in a system, which, in its essentials, was the forerunner of the modern, efficient, and serviceable catalog index used today. The careful work of her busy pen laid the foundations of our present Library system and some of her records are still in use at the present time. Any recognition of the part which the University Library has had in reflecting and at the same time contributing to the development and progress of the University should pay due tribute to the vital Coburn Hall years and to alumna Harriet Fernald, first profes sional, full-time librarian of the college. From her training, ability, and interest resulted the system which rendered the library a truly useful tool. Boasting the grand total of 5,215 books and pamphlets, the college library, on taking up itsnew quarters inCoburn Hall, faced a period of growth and development equalled only by the college itself.What part Miss Fernald played in this significant period remains clearly evident in the records of the Library. In 1890, she assumed full responsibility as Librarian over a collection of more than 6,000 volumes. At the completion of her period of service in 1897, the y e a r which the Maine State College became the University of Maine, more than 10,000 books, carefully arranged and properly classified, crowded the shelves in Coburn Hall. Much of the usefulness of a university library either in 1890 or 1940 depends upon the availability of the volumes on its shelves. Mere storage of books, a static accumulation of un used volumes, is in no real sense a library and con tributes nothing to the life and development of the in stitution. Thus, for services ren dered in the first perma nent classification of the University Library, alumna Harriet C. Fernald, ’84, takes her place in the list of those who have contrib uted to the progress and development of the Uni versity of Maine. COBURN HALL Home of the Library from 1888 to 1906. MAIN READING ROOM Such study room facilities as the Reading Room pictured above will provide excellent opportunities for research, study, and reference reading in the new Library in contrast to the crowded, inadequate conditions of today THE LIBRARY OF TOMORROW HE new library building at the Uni search information, special collections, and reasonable future needs of a universi versity, announced as the Seventy- and exhibits ty the size of Maine. In addition, the T fifth Anniversary gift of alumni, Such facilities will make it possible architects’ plans are so drawn that addi faculty, students, and friends for which for the University library, perhaps for tional stack space can be made available already more than $50,000 has been the first time in its entire history, to have for another 100,000 volumes without pledged, will be in truth “The Library of on its shelves truly adequate information additional construction, while even further Tomorrow.” Projected to replace the for the many varied interests which go room can be obtained by additions to the present Library which the inevitable to make up the fabric of a university. building if required in the future progress of more than thirty years has The proper administration of a large rendered utterly inadequate for our needs, Book Stacks library is a matter requiring efficient the new building, when made possible by A library serves a dual purpose—it is planning, adequate space, and proper alumni contributions, will stand as one at once a work-shop for the educational equipment Today the activities of cata of the most attractive and at the same process and an efficiently classified store loguing, indexing, repairing, and desk time one of the most soundly planned room of human wisdom Thus the book service in the present building are crowd structures projected on the campus in the shelves and stacks of a library which ed into an area much too small for effi entire history of the University Par house its collection of knowledge are ciency The librarian’s office is filled ticular care will be taken that not only likewise of great importance. The present with book shelves, the large number of the present needs and requirements be library building was constructed to reserved books crowds the circulation provided for but particularly that the contain a maximum of about 60,000 vol desk area, while other service operations probable developments of years ahead umes without crowding, today its stacks must be performed in any space which will be foreseen and met are filled, incidental shelves have been happens to be unoccupied placed in every conceivable location, and Reading Rooms excess books have had to be stored in Services The most obvious and perhaps the most basements of other buildings More than Perhaps one of the greatest, if unseen, serious problem which has come to face 130,000 items are listed in our library improvements resulting from the con the administration of the present library catalog today. For a University the struction of the new library building will is the lack of adequate reading room size of ours, this is a number by no means be provision for really adequate super space Since its construction in 1906, excessive, it would, in fact, be regarded vision and service. With a staff hardly the library building has, of course, had by some institutions as inadequate When greater than those required today, the to house a continually growing collection one considers the variety of subject mat new building of five times the area and of volumes, these have inevitably en ter, the number of courses and depart capacity of the present building can be croached on space originally designed as ments, and the varied interests of differ efficiently and effectively administered. student study rooms At the same time ent students and faculty members to Desk service of all kinds will be facili the inevitable march of progress has which the library must serve as a useful tated ; at the same time valuable service brought an increasing number of stu tool at the University, the number of of other kinds will be available Book dents to Maine with the addition of new books required for sufficient facilities be lists, indexes, bibliographies, the many courses, new departments, and the de comes apparent With every new course ways in which library information can velopment of all departments resulting adopted by the University through educa supplement the educational process can from sound educational demand The tional demand, a whole new field of be made available in really efficient result is that for more students there information must be added to the library manner is less study area in