EVA GOLDSCHMIDT Archibald MacLeish Librarian of Congress
When Archibald MacLeish became Librarian of Congress in 1939, the library profession obfected to the appointment of an untrained li brarian. Yet, tu'ithin five short years M acLeish infused new l'ife and spirit into the library. He introduced modern fiscal and administrative concepts, arranged for systematic surveys of the collections, defined goals and priorities for acquisitions and services, and initiated pro gressive personnel policies. But his most enduring contribution to American librarianship is his dynamic philosophy and his insistence that librarians be not mere keepers of books but active participants in the .education of the people in the values of their democratic heritage and the defense of intellectual freedom.
ARCHIBALD MAcLEISH will always be prints, and manuscripts running into the best known, no doubt, as a great poet millions. The Library of Congress clas and writer. But librarians will recall that sification scheme was devised, catalog just thirty years ago he was also ap ing practices became standardized, the pointed Librarian of Congress, a post he printed card service was inaugurated, held for five years. This paper will at the Union Catalog had its beginnings, tempt to review his half-decade of serv and in 1930 Congress authorized the ice in that position. construction of the Annex just across the street from the original building which I. A CoNTROVERSIAL APPOINTMENT had been completed in 1897.1 Thus, to To put the story in perspective, one use MacLeish's words, "the Library of must go back a little in the history of Congress in 1939 was not so much an the Library of Congress. From Civil organization in its own right but the War days to 1939 the library had been, lengthened shadow of a man."2 No won except for a short interval, under the der that the question of the succession direction of two men, Ainsworth Rand to the office of Librarian of Congress Spofford and Herbert Putnam. Under aroused unusual interest. Putnam's leadership (from 1899 to 1939) Already towards the end of 1937 the library had increased its holdings Herbert Putnam had indicated a desire from about a million to about six million to retire. The Executive Board of the volumes of books and pamphlets, not American Library Association promptly counting maps, newspapers, music, appointed a committee to advise Presi dent Roosevelt on the nomination of a
Miss Goldschmidt is Administrative As 1 Lucy Salamanca, Fortress of Freedom ( Philadel sistant to ·the Director, W aZter E. Meyer phia: J. B. Lippincott, 1942), p. 195-313. Research Institute of Law, Columbia Uni 2 Archibald MacLeish, "The Reorganization of the Library of Congress," reprint from Lib-rary Quarterly, versity. XIV (October 1944), 2. 12/ Archibald MacLeish, Librarian of Congress I 13 successor.3 Throughout 1938 and the made known his nomination of Mac spring of 1939 the committee sought in Leish to be Librarian of Congress. 7 An vain to obtain an interview with the immediate furore arose, both in Con President. As time elapsed and no nomi gress and among professional librarians. nation was forthcoming, the ALA inten Violent anti-New Dealers saw in the ap sified its campaign, and at the instiga pointment of this alleged pro-Commu tion of the Association's officers letters nist and fellow traveler one more bit of from librarians started to arrive in large evidence of "Communist influence on numbers at the White House and Con appointments emanating from the White gressional offices. 4 House."8 Librarians were outraged at Meanwhile, the man who spumed the nomination of a non-professional. this well-intentioned advice confessed The incumbent President of the ALA to his friend, Justice Felix Frankfurter, indignantly told the press that to ap that he had "had a bad time picking a point MacLeish as Librarian of Con librarian to succeed Putnam." He had, gress was about the same "as appointing he said, "been tempted to appoint a man Secretary of Agriculture, because Archibald MacLeish" and wondered he likes cut flowers on his dinner table."9 what Frankfurter thought. Admittedly, The general burden of the argument MacLeish was not a librarian, "nor a against MacLeish's appointment was special student of incunabula or ancient that "there is a great deal more to being manuscripts." Nevertheless, Roosevelt Librarian of Congress than possession of thought, "he has lots of qualifications an ignorance of the Dewey Decimal that said specialists have not."5 In reply system,"10 and that in appointing an Frankfurter not only warmly endorsed "untrained and unqualified person" the MacLeish's candidacy, but he also tried, President was coming "to the aid of the apparently successfully, to allay Roose enemy," just as the ALA was "beginning velt's misgivings regarding MacLeish's to win its nationwide battle" for recogni lack of professional training. "What is tion of librarianship as an established wanted in the directing head of a great profession.11 "Politicians, university au library," Frankfurter wrote, is "imagina thorities, and other appointers" would tive energy and vision." He should be "not be slow in taking the President's "a man who knows books, loves books, cue." More library positions were likely and makes books. If he has these three to be filled from outside the profes qualities, the craftsmanship of the li sion, 12 making it thereby "less attractive brary calling is an easily .acquired quali to ambitious and able recruits."13 A non ty."6 professional could not truly represent On J nne 6, 1939, President Roosevelt
7 "Poet Named Librarian of Congress," Library Jour nal, LXIV (June 15, 1939), 508; "Nomination of Li 3 " MacLeish Appointment Protested," ALA Bulletin, brarian of Congress," Publishers Weekly, LXXXV XXIII (July 1939), 467. (June 10, 1939), 2ll6. 4 " Librarianship of Congress," Proceedings of the 8 "Panned Poet," Newsweek, XIII (June 19, 1939), 6lst Annual Conference of the American Library As 20. sociation, June 18-24, 1939, ALA Bulletin, XXXIII 9 "Library, Librarian," Time, XXXIII (June 19, ( October 15, 1939), 55-56. "MacLeish Nomination 1939), 18. Raises Controversy," Publishers' Weekly, CXXXV 10 Viola Mauseth, "MacLeish Appointment," Satur (June 17, 1939), 2159-60. day Review of Literature, XX (July I , 1939), 9. 5 Letter from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Justice Felix 11 Pelham Barr, "MacLeish Nomination Raises Con Frankfurter, May 3, 1939, reprinted in David C. troversy," Publishers Weekly, CXXXV (June 24, Mearns, "The Brush of the Comet, Archibald Mac 1939), 2219. Leish at the Library of Congress," Atlantic Monthly, 12 "Forgetting the Library of Congress," Book Life, CCXV (May 1965), 90. I (October 1939), 3-4. 6 Letter from F elix Frankfurter to Franklin D . Roo 13 Arundell Esdale, " Librarian of Congress," Library sevelt, May II, 1939, reprinted in Mearns, op. cit. Association Record, XLI ( August 1939 ), 430. 14 I College & Research Libraries • January 1969 the Library of Congress, which was "in He was a man of vision and .a humani a special sense . . . the representative tarian. 20 Librarians should welcome a and symbol of the whole body of Ameri man of MacLeish's character and talents can librarians," unless MacLeish's selec and not set up requirements so stringent tion implied that "the claim that librar that an able scholar and administrator ianship is a profession is all bunkum."14 could not readily join their ranks.21 Although the ALA claimed that in its The campaign against MacLeish's con opposition to MacLeish's appointment firmation shifted into high gear when it spoke for 90 per cent of American the ALA membership gathered in San librarians,15 the nomination was warm Francisco for its 61st annual conference ly defended by some leading librarians from June 18-24. The Executive Board, and non-librarians alike. The New York on June 18, sent a protest letter to Presi Times editorially endorsed the appoint dent Roosevelt and members of the Sen ment. The Staff Association of the New ate, asserting that confirmation of Mac York Public Library urged prompt Sen Leish would be "a calamity," because he atorial confirmation.16 Writing editorially "lacked the essential qualifications of a in the Saturday Review of Literature, librarian." Library services "would al Henry Seidel Canby dismissed the most certainly deteriorate under ama charges of MacLeish's pro-Communist teur leadership." Two members dele sympathies as "that familiar red her gated to represent the ALA at the hear ring." The real issue, as he saw it, was ing of the Senate Library Committee on whether the head of a great library June 21, 1938, soon reported back, how should be a specialist "in the technique ever, that the matter seemed practical of bookgetting and bookkeeping, or ly settled and that their strenuous pro should be an executive broadly trained testations appeared to be of no avail. who has demonstrated his scholarship, Indeed, the committee voted unani his ability to organize, and his capacity mously to recommend confirmation. for representing a great storehouse of This was the signal for further frantic intellectual energy."17 Other supporters activity by the ALA leadership, but of MacLeish unanimously cited his suc thanks to Ralph Munn, President-elect cessful career as lawyer, poet, writer, of the ALA, saner counsels prevailed in editor of Fortune magazine, and Cura the end. Speaking at the closing session tor of the Niemann Collection of Jour of the conference, he made it clear that nalism at Harvard University. Although he would do nothing further to oppose a poet, they said, he was not a dream MacLeish's confirmation. On the con er.18 "Far from moongazing," he was c'a trary, he would ask the Executive Board thoroughly practical workman of marked for authority to write to MacLeish (in executive ability and extraordinary ener the event of his confirmation), explain gy." Efficient and sensitive, he had the ing that opposition had not been based ability to inspire affection and confi on personal feeling but solely on the dence in all who worked with him.19
19 "Librarianship of Congress," ALA Bulletin, 14 L. Stanley Jast, "Library and the Community," XXXIII (October 15, 1939), 50. ibid., 431. 20 John T. Vance, "Discussion on MacLeish at the 15 "Librarianship of Congress," ALA Bulletin, 34th Annual Meeting of American Association of Law XXXIII (October 15, 1939), 49. Libraries," Law Library Journal, XXXII (September 16 " MacLeish Nomination Raises Controversy," op. 1939), 338-39. cit. 21 "Archibald MacLeish," Wilson Library Bulletin, 11 Editorial, Saturday Review of Literature, XX XIV (September 1939), 57. Clarence S. Paine, "Look (June 17, 1939), 8. ing Forward," ibid. (October 1939), 138. L. M. Ran 18 John Chamberlain, "Archibald MacLeish," Satur ey, "The MacLeish Case," Library Journal, LXIV (July day Review of Literature, XX (June 24, 1939), 10-11. 1939), 522. Archibald M acLeish, Librarian of Congress I 15
ground of lack of training, and that II. REoRGANIZATION OF THE LIBRARY having fought and lost-the ALA would OF CoNGREss not "sulk like spoiled children."22 When The task which the new librarian as th~ Senate confirmed MacLeish's ap sumed officially on October 1, 1939, was pOintment on June 29 by a vote of sixty staggering.26 The problems Herbert Put four to eight,23 Mr. Munn kept his word nam left for his successor to cope with and offered the new librarian the ALA's were as vast, many, and varied as had "complete and most friendly coopera been his achievements. A committee of tion." MacLeish promptly and gracious outside library experts27 conducted a ly accepted the proffered olive branch. 24 thorough administrative survey and re It is perhaps idle to speculate why ported that the Library of Congress had President Roosevelt and members of the "in all probability the largest and most Senate so completely ignored the diffuse span of control to be found in spokesmen of the library profession. any American library." Below the two There is some indication that the very top administrative officers, the Librarian vehemence of its campaign created the and the Chief Assistant Librarian were impression that the ALA was a self thirty-five separate administrative' units seeking pressure group, which had over all reporting directly to the chief. "Small played its hand. It was said that the wonder," the committee stated "that the ALA had recommended the appoint li.brar~ is o~te~ described as ; group of me~t. of its ~wn secretary to the library hbranes within a library. It is in effect position, while this same secretary was a loose federation of principalities each sending letters to librarians urging them with strongly developed tradition's and to protest the appointment of MacLeish with administrative and technical idio- a circumstance which Senator Barkely: . "28 N head of the Library Committee, felt syncr~sies. . o c~ntral control along functional hnes existed. Eight distinct Senators had "a right to consider" in de divisions, offices, or services, for exam termining "the weight to be given to the ple, maintained accounting records, and protest."25 For the ALA leaders, on the ~o less than ten divisions were engaged other hand, appointment of a non-pro In the processing of books, without any fessional added insult to the injury of central supervision over their respective being consistently ignored. Had Presi activities. dent Roosevelt taken them into his con fidence, they might not have reacted as
26 vehemently as they did to MacLeish's • This ~ection of the paper is based on the follow mg m~ten~ls: U.S. Library of Congress, Statement of nomination. The entire episode at best the Ltbranan of. G_ongress in Support of the Supple is a study in poor public relatio~s. ' ~nentary Approprwtwn for the Fiscal Year 1941 (wash mgton: Government Printing Office, I942); U.S. Li brary of Congress, Annual Report of the Librarian of Congress for the Fiscal Year Ended 1940 (Washington· 22 "Librarianship of Congress " ALA Bulletin Government Printing Office, 1941); Ibid., Annual Re~ XXXIII (October 15, I939) 47-48 49-5I 55-58' ~arts for 194f, 1~~2 , 1943, 1944 ( 1942-1945); Arch 62-63. ' ' ' ' Ibald MacLe~:h, ~he Reorganization of the Library 23 "New Librarian of Congress," Library Journal of Congress, repnnt from Library Quarterly XIV LXIV (July 1939), 546. ' (October 1944), 1-37; Luther H. Evans Confidential 24 Ralph Munn and Archibald MacLeish "Let Us Reports to the Libr~rian, 9 vols., unpublished. As the All Cooperate," Library Journal LXIV (August 1939) above _sources contam a great deal of overlapping in 570. ' ' f?rmatwn, references are given only for exact quota 25 Qu~ted from Congressional Record, June 21, 1939; tions. 27 cf. Manon C. Manley, "Letter to the Editor" Wilson • The so-called "Librarian's Committee" appointed Library Bu_lletin, XIV (September 1939), 74-75. Two Apnl 10, 1940. It_ co~sisted of Professor Carleton B. representa_hves sent by the ALA to the hearing of the Joeckel of the Umvers1ty of Chicago Library School· Senate ~1brary Committee on June 21, 1939, took Paul North Rice of the New York Public Library· and ~rea~ pams to deny that the ALA's protest was the Dr. Andrew D.
This fundamental weakness in its or library is not maintaining its proper po ganization was reflected in the state of the sition in respect to the completeness or library at the time MacLeish took office. the quality of its holdings, which are There was an arrearage of about one marked by important deficiencies." and one-half million unprocessed books These deficiencies were particularly and pamphlets, and this arrearage was glaring in the principal European litera growing at the rate of about thirty thou tures, in general history other than sand items per year. In December of American, in education, anthropology, 1939, 66,000 books and pamphlets were and most technology. In fact, the library backed up in the Cataloging Division, had no considered acquisitions program some 20,000 volumes were awaiting clas at all, but "depended rather on the ac sification in the Classification Division, tivities of sellers in offering materials and twenty truckloads of law books than on its own activity as a buyer in were to be labelled and marked. The deciding what materials it needed and Gift Section had 20,000 unacknowledged seeking them out."30 Of forty important and unprocessed books. It took an aver subject areas, only twelve received rela age of forty-two days from the receipt tively adequate attention from library of materials until they were ready for staff or consultants, thirteen were par the shelves. Recommendations for pur tially provided for, and with respect to chase of current materials, except for fifteen there was no provision at all for rush orders, waited an average of three initiation of orders. More than half of weeks before orders were placed by the the purchase recommendations for 1939 Order Division. Items selected from were made by the Library's Card Di dealers' lists were delayed up to five vision on the basis of recommendations months. Insistence on full cataloging of outside libraries placing orders for treatment and classification meant low cards. The collections had never been output per worker and correspondingly systematically surveyed to ascertain high processing costs. Output per assist gaps or needs. ant in the Cataloging Division for 1938- Reader and reference services were 39 was only four hundred titles per scattered unsystematically among the li year, or one and one-half per working brary's numerous departments and di day! The Accessions Department had visions. Much time was lost, especially an arrearage of 2,000 unpaid bills total in the Accessions Department and the ling about $70,000. Binding arrears ex Reading Room, in answering inquiries ceeded 370,000 volumes. The Card Di and in rendering services which ought vision reported 15,000 delayed titles. to have been performed by a central There was no proper inventory of the reference division. The legislative ref library's holdings. An inventory taken erence service in particular was under from 1928-1934 had revealed over 170, staffed and inadequate. While some sub 000 missing items. ject divisions were serviced by scholars As to the quality of the collections, familiar with their fields, there were they were found to be strong or even many important areas in which no mem outstanding in a good many areas, such ber of the library staff had more than a as American history, library science, superficial knowledge of the subject economics, political science, medicine, matter. incunabula, fine arts, aeronautics, orien talia, music, Hebrew literature, and Rus sian materials. Nevertheless, a Commit 29 The committee consisted of library staff, but drew tee on Acquisitions appointed in No on the advice of specialists from other libraries in formulating its report and recommendations. Ibid., p. 5. 29 vember of 1939 concluded that "the 30 Ibid. Archibald M acLeish, Librarian of Congress I 17
Another major area where action was Law Library and the Copyright Office desperately called for was the staffing were retained as separate entities. All of the library. Lack of space before the other organizational units were grouped completion of the Annex in 1939 and in into three departments: The Processing adequate appropriations meant that Department, the Administrative Depart year by year work loads had kept in ment, and the Reference Department. 32 creasing while staff numbers had re The Processing Department was de mained stationary. Accessions, for ex signed to bring together under central ample, had increased eightfold without control all operations necessary to pre a corresponding increase in staff. Sal pare newly acquired materials for the aries were substandard not only in com shelves. The Administrative Department parison to other professions, but also in absorbed mainly what might be termed comparison to those of librarians in "housekeeping" functions and fiscal mat larger colleges and universities. The ters. It adopted modern procedures and staff, therefore, was either underquali accounting methods, with control prop fied, or where qualified, grossly under erly divided between allotting, paying, paid. MacLeish noted in his 1940 Annual and accounting officers. Personnel mat Report, for example, that one-third of ters also came under its jurisdiction. those working in the Processing Division The Reference Department, contrary had not completed college; less than to the other departments, which were one-fourth had a bachelor's degree in formed from the outset along functional library science, and only 6 per cent had lines, was initially an agglomeration of advanced degrees in library science. On divisions and sections that did not read the other hand, fifty-six holders of JD's, ily fit into the other departments. The PhD's, or MA's were employed at sal excessive span of control from which the aries of less than $1,980 per year! library as a whole had suffered was In trying to deal with these manifold therefore in large part transferred to the problems, he did not, MacLeish empha Reference Department. Not until 1944 sized, deliberately set out to reorganize were the twenty-four administrative the Library of Congress. However, he units which reported directly to the Di soon found that dealing with one prob ector of the Reference Department re lem had effects on related problems duced to fourteen, reporting through and that "eventually it would prove three Assistant Directors. simpler to change several things than to One important change affecting the change one."31 If not the intent, at any Reference Department, which took rate the result of MacLeish's activity place before its internal reorganization, from 1939 to 1944 was a complete re was the establishment of the Acquisi organization of the library's administra tions Department in 1943. Until that tive framework, an evaluation and defi Department was established, the opera nition of its policies as to acquisitions tions relating to acquisitions were di and services, and constructive innova vided between the Reference Depart tions in personnel practices. It is impos ment responsible for book selection and sible within the scope of this paper to the Processing Department, which pur- do more than give a very sketchy out line of the major changes brought about. 32 The Processing Department was initially under the direction of L. Quincy Mumford of the New York The first important step was to reduce Public Library, which had granted him a year's leave the excessive span of administrative con of absence, and later under Herman H. Henkle. The Administrative Department was headed by Verner W. trol to manageable proportions. The Clapp; and the Chief Assistant Librarian, Luther H . Evans, took charge of the Reference Department, with David C. Mearns serving as Reference Librarian re 31 Ibid., p . :2. sponsible for book selection. 18 I College & Research Libraries • January 1969 chased and accessioned new material. relevant to the controversial issues con To provide centralized control over all fronting the American people?34 acquisitions policies and procedures, the To answer these questions a series of new department took over book selec meetings was held with the library's tion from the Reference Department principal officers during the summer of and the Accession Division from the 1940. "They were not," MacLeish noted, Processing Department. At the same "the most successful meetings I recall," time the Administrative Department as a number of his "elder colleagues was abolished and its functions trans thought the Library of Congress was too ferred to the office of the Chief Assistant big and too old ... to ask itself what it Librarian, who had until that time was doing and why."35 Eventually, how doubled as Director of the Reference ever, "Canons of Service" were adopted Department. He now relinquished that which-while they failed to answer directorship to the Reference Librarian. some of the more philosophical questions The organization as it evolved, there as to the nature and role of the library fore, consisted of the Chief Assistant Li established these basic policies and pri brarian as executive officer in charge of orities as to service: library-wide administrative services, 1) The Library of Congress undertakes while the library's three main functions for Members of Congress all research and of acquisitions, processing, and reference reference projects required by Members of were performed through the three cor Congress in connection with the perform responding departments.33 ance of their legislative duties. Returning to acquisitions, the matter 2) The Libraty of Congress undertakes of book selection was of constant con for Officers and Departments of Govern cern to MacLeish. The report of the ment research projects which can be ex Committee on Acquisitions regarding ecuted by reference to its collections and the deficiencies in the library's holdings which the Departments' own staff cannot has already been noted. To devise cri perform. teria for book selection, it was necessary 3) The reference staff and facilities of the Library of Congress are available to to define the library's basic objectives members of the public, universities, learn and policies. There had always been a ed societies and other libraries requiring certain ambiguity as to the library's role. services which the Library is equipped to Were its duties limited to serving the give and which can be given without in needs of the members of Congress, since terference with services to Congress and Congress had established and directly other Government Departments. controlled the library? Had the library The relative emphasis as regards serv any responsibility to perform services ice to Congress, the Government and for other departments and agencies of the public contained in the "Canons of government? Or was the Library of Con Service" is reflected in the "Canons of gress a national library in the broadest Selection" which were adopted as broad sense designed to serve the needs of guidelines for the library's purchases. American scholarship at large? More They provide: over, how active should the library be in making "any part of the printed rec 1 ) The Library of Congress should pos ord available to society?" Was it enough sess all bibliothecal materials necessary to to "drop a book into a reader's hand," Congress and to the Officers of Govern or should the library take the initiative ment of the United States in the perform- in making materials available that were 34 M ac~eish, " The Reorganization of the Library of 33 Cf. Annual Report of the Librarian of Congress Congress," p. 23. for the Fiscal Year Ended 1943, p. 15. a;; Ibid, p. 17. Archibald MacLeish, Librarian of Congress I 19 ance of their duties, unless other govern present difficulties "to those who love to ment libraries adequately cover particular reduce organization to charts and fields. graphs, but it has the great counter 2) The Library of Congress should pos balancing advantage that it works."36 sess all books and other materials which This remark typifies MacLeish's dy express and record the life and achieve namic approach, which in the field of ments of the people of the United States, with the exception of official records de personnel administration led to particu posited in the National Archives and with larly fruitful results. As soon as he took emphasis on materials of national rather office, MacLeish tried to obtain salary than local significance. increases for the staff and was able to 3) The Library of Congress should pos obtain .a supplemental appropriation sess the material parts of the records of from Congress. A survey of library po other societies, past and present, and sitions (the first in eighteen years) un should accumulate full and representative dertaken by the Civil Service Commis collections of the written records of those sion from 1941 to 1943 resulted in there societies and peoples whose experience is classification of many positions to higher of most immediate concern to the people grades. But much more, MacLeish of the United States. urged, had to be done to erase the dis Application of these "Canons" in prac crepancy between library salaries and tice presented problems. In 1940 book those obtainable for other work of pro selection responsibilities were central fessional caliber. There was no reason, ized in the Reference Department. A he insisted, why librarians' salaries schedule of allotments by subject fields should be less than those of lawyers, was prepared. The sums allotted were economists, or other professionals, if determined on the basis of known de salaries were "to be determined upon ficiencies in the collections, expected .ac the basis of the difficulty and responsi quisitions from sources other than pur bility of the work done."37 chase, the extent of literary production It would be wrong to assume that in the field, and the relative importance MacLeish, by reducing the organization of the subject to the library in accord al span of control in such a way that in ance with the "Canons of Selection." stead of some fifty persons only a hand With the aid of a grant from the Carne ful reported to him directly, cut him gie Corporation a number of fellowships self off from meaningful contact with all were established. The fellows, subject but the top echelon of the library's staff. specialists in their fields, as well as as Quite the contrary. His deliberate pol sociate fellows from the library staff and icy was the greatest possible involve other government organizations, under ment of staff at all levels in the decision took systematic surveys of the library's making process. "Administrative machin collections and made purchase recom ery," he said in commenting upon the Inendations. After the transfer in 1943 effects of the reorganization, "is not ma of book selection to the Acquisitions De chinery but peoole, and 'administrative partment, the library continued to make channels' are not channels but human use of its subject specialists in whatever relationships. . . . The moment 'chan department they might be working. nels' dominate communications or ad- However, for their recommendations , ministr.ative charts tyrannize over ad they were made "officially answerable" ministrative action, the official joints con- to the Director of Acquisitions, even though in other respects they were an 36 Annual Report of the Librarian of Congress fo·r swerable to other directors. As M.ac . . . 1944, p . 13. 37 Annual Report of the Librarian of Congress for Leish remarked, this arrangement might .. . 1943, p. 74 . 20 I College & Research Libraries • January 1969 geal and the institution hardens." He In fact, he encouraged the1n "as valu stressed that any member of the staff able instruments of good administra who wanted to see him could do so "re tion."42 In cooperation with the library gardless of blueprints," and that any unions promotion policies and grievance piece of library business which could procedures were evolved which went not "accommodate itself to channels" far to resolve the many conflicts and would get done "regardless of chan problems which are bound to arise in an nels."38 institution in a state of transition and Staff involvement, however, was not under wartime strains. merely fortuitous. "The most effective At the unions' suggestion, a Staff Ad single administrative unit in the library," visory Committee was set up in 1942, according to MacLeish, was the Librar composed of eight members, two each ian's Conference, composed of the top chosen by the unions and four by the eight administrators, which met daily librarian, which served as a channel for with MacLeish and made it possible to employee proposals and criticisms. arrive at policy decisions rapidly and Through various sub-committees the "with a minimum of office memoran Staff Advisory Committee involved a da."39 These daily discussions not only large number of staff members in its ac assured a hearing for all points of view, tivities. they also kept the library's top officers For technical matters MacLeish drew informed of each other's activities. This on the library's professional personnel. enabled MacLeish to shift personnel The Professional Library Association, es from department to department as the tablished in the spring of 1943, met need arose. This "administrative inter once a month to consider problems of changeability," as he called it, was not bibliographic control and adequate only desirable in itself, MacLeish scholarly services.43 thought, but was designed to "insure the All these measures were part of a gen Library of Congress against the academ eral pattern which MacLeish called ic isolationism which has had such harm "government by discussion." Not every ful effects in American universities, and one approved of it, he admitted. "Men through the universities on American of certain temperaments find talk an education."40 noying-particularly talk in public en The interests of the staff as a whole terprise. Talk, they say, wastes time ... were represented by the unions, 41 which but talk, kept within proper limits, can MacLeish did not hesitate to recognize. save time also and can gain what time alone might lose." The gain he had in mind was that of giving "an increasing as Ibid, p. 16. 39 Ibid., p. 15-16. As originally constituted, the Li numher of men and women the sense brarian's Conference consisted of Luther H. Evans, Chief Assistant Librarian; Edgar F. Rogers, Executive of participating creatively and respon Assistant to Dr. Evans and Director of Personnel; Da sibly in a work which all of them may vid C. Mearns, Director of the Reference Department; Hennan H. Henkle, Director of the Processing De feel proud to share." This, if nothing partment; Verner W. Clapp, Director of the Acquisi else, he believed, justified the policies tions Department; Ernest S. Griffith, Director of the Legislative Reference Service; Clement L. Bouve, Reg inaugurated during his five years as Li ister of Copyrights; and Eldon R. James, Law Li brarian of Congress.44 brarian, who succeeded John T. Vance upon the lat ter's death on April II, 1943. Below the top level Archibald MacLeish' s accomplishments other departmental and interdepartmental committees operated to promote administrative coherence and uni fonnity of policies. 42 MacLeish, "The Reorganization of the Library of 40 MacLeish, "The Reorganization of the Library of Congress," p. 34. Congress," p. 34. 43 All members of the staff grade sub-professional 5 4~ Local I of the United Federation of Workers of and up were expected to attend these meetings. America and Local 626 of the National Federation of .44 MacLeish, "The Reorganization of the Library of Federal Employees. Congress," p. 34-35. I Archibald MacLeish, Librarian of Congress I 21 as Librarian of Congress would have At the same time that the most val been remarkable under any circum uable materials were removed for safe stances. They are all the more remark keeping twenty-four hour service for able if we take into account that he members of Congress and Government operated under wartime strains and officers was initiated, and the library stresses. One particularly serious conse was called upon to perform for defense quence of the war was an acute shortage agencies an array of emergency tasks of trained personnel and a staff turnover too numerous to recount here. 48 In every at times as high as 150 per cent per detail of its operation during these criti year. The library lost employees not on cal years of MacLeish' s leadership the ly to the armed services but to other library demonstrated that "no library's government agencies and private busi resources can ever be too complete for ness because its salaries were not com the necessities of a great industrial state petitive, despite MacLeish's efforts to engaged in war, which involves all its have library positions upgraded and facilities, all its manpower .and all its salaries increased. knowledge."4 9 MacLeish did not wait until the III. A POET's PHILOSOPHY OF United States entered the war to take measures to protect the library's collec LmRARIANSHIP tions. Already in 1940 he ordered .a sur It is impossible to evaluate MacLeish's vey to ascertain which materials should record as librarian without saying some be removed to places of safety in case thing about the philosophy and spirit of danger, and which would be required underlying all his actions. In exquisite for the continuance of essential services. and poetic prose he defined the role he Suitable locations were explored and de believed librarians must play in a time tailed plans for evacuation drawn up. when the nation's democratic heritage The library was, therefore, in a position was threatened by aggression abroad on December 7, 1941, to take immediate and obscurantism at home. He dis action.46 Many hundreds of boxes of dained a narrow professionalism. Noting valuable materials were shipped to that no generally accepted definition of places of comparative security. Irre the librarian's role had yet been found, placeable treasures, such as the Decla he deplored that some of those who had ration of Independence and the Con tried to put librarianship on a profession stitution, were stored at the United al basis, "began not with the inward States Bullion Depository at Fort Knox. function of librarianship but with the There they remained until after the outward furniture of professionalism Normandy invasion of 1944, when it was the professional schools, the professional considered safe to return them to the terms, and the professional privileges." Library of Congress.4 7 To arrive at a meaningful definition, he believed, called for a reconsideration,
45 During part of his term of office as Librarian of "which cuts beneath all this to the es Congress he served also as head of the Office of Facts 50 and Figures (October 1941-May 1942) and as As sentials of our work and our lives." sistant Director of OWl (June 1942-February 1943). Cf. "Biographical Sketch," Library Journal, XIV ( Oc tober 1944), 350. 46 MacLeish, " The Library of Congress Protects Its 4S MacLeish, " The Library of Congress and National Collections," ALA Bulletin, XXXVI ( February 1942), Defense," Massachusetts Library A ssociation Bulletin, 74-75, 144. XXXI (June 1941 ) , 38. 47 Annual Report of the Librarian of Congress for 49 MacLeish, "The Library and The Nation," Books . . . 1944, p. 27. Facilities were made available by the and Libraries in Wartime, ed. by Pierce Butler ( Uni University of Virginia at Charlottesville, Va.; Washing versity of Chicago Press, 1945), p.144. ton and Lee University, and the Virginia Military In 50 MacLeish, " The Librarian and the Democratic stitute in Lexington, Va.; and Denison University in Process ," ALA Bulletin, XXXIV (June 1940 ), 385-388, Granville, Ohio. 421-422. 22 I C allege & Research Libraries • I anuary 1969
To MacLeish there was an important "to educate all people of this country to distinction between books as "physical the value of the democratic tradition objects, made of certain physical ma they have inherited to prevent some of terials in a physical shape," and the "in the people from destroying that tradi tellectual object made of all materials tion for all." And the burden of this or of no materials and standing in as education, as MacLeish saw it, must fall many shapes as there are forms and on American libraries as the only institu balances and structures in men's minds." tions suited to the task. The librarian who saw his role merely He stressed over and over again that as that of keeper and dispenser of phys librarians could fulfill this task only by ical books, was ".a sort of checkboy in a positive approach. It was not enough, the parcel room of culture." His duty he said, for them to "secure books intel was "to receive the priceless packages ligently and to make them readily avail confided to him by the past and to re able to the inquirers." They must learn deliver them to the future against the how to get readers for their books.52 proper stub." It was enough for him to They must "become active and not pas be "reliable, orderly, and industrious," sive agents of the democratic process,"53 .and "to devise infallible and complicat and must use "every means at their dis ed ticket systems to find the parcels on posal to bring to the people of this coun the shelves." Beyond that, all he had to try a disinterested, informed account of do was wait for the claimants. the means of education at their disposi If, on the other hand, the librarian tion." The people, he believed, had "as was the keeper of the intellectual book, much a right to know from public serv he could not be "neutral, passive, and ants what books .are pertinent to their negative." His profession "must become self-government as to know from public instead the .affirmative and advocating servants what jellies they should con profession of the attorney for a cause." serve, what seed they should plant or To MacLeish it was clear which con what hen mash will produce eggs."54 ception librarians must choose and what MacLeish took issue with those who the cause was which must enlist their viewed libraries as "cultural luxuries." energies. As he put it, the choice was The war, he contended, had amply determined by "the nature of the times." demonstrated that libraries were "a vital A generation or two earlier a passive necessity to a nation." He condemned role might have sufficed. But in 19-39 those who thought "the only duty of a and in the years to follow, Ameri librarian is to thicken the indifferent ca's democratic institutions and values walls of his library until it becomes a were endangered by the onslaughts of kind of bombproof shelter for intellec fascism. 51 Fascism sought to destroy tual irresponsibility in which no echo of Western culture; it was the enemy of all the agony of mankind can ever pene civilized values, of the life of the mind, trate."55 He chided the scholarly com and of the freedom of the intellect. The munity for its intellectual isolationism danger was not only fascism abroad, but and warned that armed victory would fascism at home, bred by the discontent of the "intellectually and culturally dis possessed" lower middle class. The only 52 MacLeish, "Libraries in the Contemporary Crisis," Library Journal, LXIV (November 15, 1939), 879- alternative to fascism was an attempt 82. 53 MacLeish, "The Librarian and the Democratic Process," ALA Bulletin, XXXIV (June 1940), 387. 51 MacLeish, " Of the Librarian's Profession," Books, 54 MacLeish , "The Obligations of Libraries in a Libraries, Librarians, ed. by J, D. Marshall et al. D emocracy," Wilson Library Bulletin, XIV (April (Hamden, Conn.: Shoe String Press, 1955 ), p. 264- 1940), 560. 71. 55 MacLeish, "The Library and the Nation," p. 146. Archibald M acLeish, Librarian of Congress I 23 be meaningless if the "battles of beliefs" pensive machinery was needed to es were lost, "if the confidence of men in tablish such a worldwide system. A net learning, in reason, and in truth were work of regional union catalogs with an broken and replaced by trust in force international clearing house exercising and ignorance and superstition."56 central control could operate effective As the war progressed and the Nazi ly, he believed, by drawing on the ex danger receded, MacLeish's thinking perience with interlibrary loans within shifted increasingly from national surviv national boundaries and by making the al and the preservation of democracy at greatest possible use of modern photo home to the needs of the world at large. graphic devices, air transport, etc. Even The Nazis, he said, had paid uncon tually this might lead to a division of scious tribute to the libraries of the responsibility, on an international scale, world, because in destroying them they for the acquisition of the ever growing had made it clear that their "anti-cul Hood of printed materials. Such a sys ture" could only exist in "a desert of ig tem would be of tremendous importance norance and apathy" where libraries not only to libraries and librarians but and learning had been extinguished. At "to the understanding of each other of the end of the war many areas of the peoples who must understand each oth world would be left without library fa er if they are going to live together in cilities and one of the urgent needs of peace."58 liberated peoples would be the restora During the fifties, when McCarthyism tion of libraries. This, however, would was_ at its peak and librarians through be difficult, if not impossible, because out the country were under pressure "a great collection of books is always from self-appointed censors, MacLeish and necessarily unique." No amount of .again raised his voice on behalf of in effort and money could procure many of tellectual freedom. Speaking at the ded the older materials. If they existed at ication of the Carleton College library all, they existed only in other libraries on September 22, 1956, he noted that where they were not for sale. The only "a surprising proportion of our people practicable solution of library reconstruc are today engaged in activities, such as tion in occupied Europe and Asia, Mac the attempted suppression of books and Leish urged, was "to enable the scholars opinions by boycott and by economic of these areas to draw upon the re pressure of various kinds." Librarians sources of the great libraries in other had a clear duty to resist such pressures. parts of the world which still possess Their "criterion of choice" must be "a their collections." He envisioned a sys disinterested completeness within the tem of world circulation of library ma limits of a practical relevance." As "trus terials, based on "the principle that the tee of the printed record of his civiliza world's great libraries hold books in tion," a librarian could not but "regard their possession as trustees, not for the any exclusion from his collection of a people of their immediate neighbor relevant book or class of books as a hood, nor even for the people of their falsification of the record and a breach particular countries, but for the entire of the trust." It was the basic assump generation of living men."57 tion of all self-government that people He did not think that large or ex- are capable of examining the evidence for themselves and coming to their own 56 MacLeish, " The Attack on the Scholar's World," conclusions. Any effort to withhold, sup Saturday Review of Literature, XXV (July 18, 1942), 5. press or censor books did violence to 57 MacLeish, " Intellectual Needs of Liberated Peo ples," New Zealand Libraries, VII ( October 1944 ), 58 MacLeish, "The Library and the Nation," p. 152- 164-66. 54. 24 I College & Research Libraries • ]arnuary 1969 that basic democratic assumption. Every ians who knew MacLeish best and who librarian "worthy of the name" belonged had seen him in .action that it is doubt among the champions of the cause of ful that anyone else could have ac free inquiry. "And as long as the fight to complished as much as he did in five subvert freedom continues, libraries years.61 More recently, David C. must be strongpoints of defense."59 Mearns, who had served under Mac MacLeish's plea for librarians to assert Leish as Director of the Reference De their influence on behalf of liberty, rea partment, paid him a belated tribute. son, and the functioning of the demo "It can be confidently, .and even judicial cratic process, free from intimidation by ly declared," he wrote, "that his mistakes extremists .and fanatics of whatever va were few, whereas his attainments were riety, certainly has not lost its relevance many, were great and are enduring." in our own troubled times. MacLeish had "brought pace, style, taste, sagacity, and grace to his librar IV. CoNcLusroN ianship. . . . But most important," Very little has been written about Mearns considered, "he instilled a sud MacLeish's role as librarian since he left den sense of contemporaneity and an the Library of Congress towards the end awareness of .a world beyond the book stacks."62 of 1944 to become Assistant Secretary of State. The only account of the reorgani In closing one cannot do better than zation of the Library of Congress was to quote from the statement transmitted written by MacLeish himself in 1944 for to MacLeish by the staff of the Library of Congress on the occasion of his leave Library Quarterly. Scattered comments 63 by his colleagues, however, indicate that taking. In their farewell his colleagues they were impressed by his perform expressed ance. His successor, Dr. Luther Evans, ... their warm and enduring affection for briefly reviewed the highlights of Mac a friend; . . . their admiration for an in Leish' s administration in his first Annual spiring administrator; their continuing loy Report to Congress and concluded that alty to the sustained and penetrating vision "the outstanding characteristic of that which has given new meaning to librarian brilliant episode is not the fact that so ship, to the high purpose, to the relentless much was consummated in so short a drive towards accomplishment, and to the integral humanism of his insistence upon time, but rather that there is now so lit the participation of libraries in the proc 60 tle to repent." Another leading librar esses of democracy and civilization and in ian wrote at about the same time that it the liberation of the human spirit. . . . • • was the considered judgment of librar- 61 Keyes D . Metcalf, "Editorial Forum," Library 59 MacLeish, "A Tower Which Will Not Yield," ALA Journal, LXX (March 1, 1945), 213. Bulletin, L (No vern ber 1956), 649-54. 63 Mearns, op. cit., p. 90-92. oo Annual Report of the Librarian of Congress for 63 Annual Report of the Librarian of Congress for . . . 1945, p. 13. ... 1945, p. 11-12•