Title III

PUBLIC AND PRIVATE

COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES Existing Library Service and American Library Association Standards BOOK COLLECTIONS

Source: U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare; Office of Education, Library Services Branch.

These 1960-61 estimates are based on 1959-60 data reported by 1,951 colleges and universities.

American Library Assoc. standards are in American Library and Book Trade Annual, 1961 (New York; R. R. Bowker Co.)

Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. You mean that makes it more palatable or less palatable?

Mr. COHEN. As a former teacher, I would say they are more useful as an instrument of teaching. There is no question in my mind that a textbook that uses more graphic material and that makes it easier for the students or more willing for the students to study their lessons, of course, has a great deal of value.

Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. I think it would be very important if possible to keep to prices of schoolbooks down-not to increase them.

To increase them by that amount sounds to me as if we should be doing something in this area. Perhaps we should investigate why the prices of science books have gone up so much.

Mr. COHEN. I can give you the figures here on science and technology. In science in 1953, they have gone up 31 percent; by 1956 they had gone up 53 percent; by 1958 they had gone up 65 percent; by 1960 in science they had gone up 85 percent from this base. In technology, it had come to 102 percent.

Here is another area I do not understand.

Agriculture by 1958 had gone up 115 percent. Business books had gone up 145 percent. Law books have gone up 65 percent. Medicine only 32 percent.

Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. It does not make sense to me. I am not quarreling with your figures. But it seems to me when I was studying in college we had no such thing as paperback books at all. I would think they ought to be cheaper, not twice as expensive.

Mr. COHEN. These are exclusive of paperbacks.

Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. As a practical matter, are we not dealing in large part in paperback books?

Mr. COHEN. Not for libraries, I would think. I do think for students there are a great deal more paperbacks that are used.

Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. Is it because there is a lessening demand for hard covers that the cost has gone up?

Mr. COHEN. That might be a factor.

Mr. BAILEY. Would the gentleman from New Jersey suggest that we invite representatives of two or three outstanding publishing companies to come in and tell us why?

Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. Mr. Chairman, I certainly would have no objection. It seems to be an unfortunate situation to have the prices of some of these books almost double in a period of 15 years at a time when the demand presumably is far greater.

Mr. COHEN. It is certainly one of the facts that we have to live with in this field.

Our major library needs today are not limited to rural areas, It is estimated that 120 million of our population have inadequate library services or none at all. One-half of those are in urban areas.

Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. You mention several times the estimates of need and estimates of what should be spent nationally if we are to provide ourselves with adequate libraries. I wonder what kind of basic research has been done in this area on which you are basing this estimate?

Mr. COHEN. In large part

Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. Is it HEW that is estimating?

Mr. COHEN. No. These estimates are largely based on the standards of the American Library Association. They are taking the standards that have been developed by the American Library Association, and applying them to the population of the United States as of June 30,

1961.

This particular chart represents the conclusion of using those kinds of standards. If you use those minimum adequate public library standards, they show what portion of the population, rural and urban, are covered by them, what are inadequate, and those in the darker color are those that have no service at all.

If you are interested in those standards, they are available in some detail as a result of the report of the Committee on Standards, I believe it is called, of the American Library Association.

(The above mentioned material follows:)

The standards of the American Library Association referred to here appear in "Public Library Service," a guide to evaluation, with minimum standards, published in 1956. Excerpts from the chapter on "Concept of Library Systems" follow:

Achieving standard library facilities presents special difficulties in small cities, scattered suburbs, towns, villages, and rural areas. Even with substantial financial effort, the small locality is often not able to raise enough money to buy the books needed and to employ the requisite professional personnel. For these reasons the many smaller libraries in the country have usually not approached the range and quality of service specified in national standards.

Yet the need for and ability to use library service, in variety and quality, are no less in the suburb and the country than in the city. The modern American, in large place or small, has wide interests and can use facts to improve his way of life. Similarly, the benefits to him and his children from the services of skilled librarians, who can anticipate and locate what he wants and who can guide him in using and interpreting resources, are no less than the benefits to his city cousin.

The problem is similar to that of the provision of school and hospital facilities. Ways have been found to bring such facilities for rural and smalltown people up to minimum standard. The organization of library resources, however, has continued to depend on small isolated units that have very little connection with more substantial resources in larger places.

Two clear and significant characteristics of present-day life open the way for a solution to the problem: modern transportation and communication, and cooperation among units and levels of government. Even as modern transportation and communication make it possible to bring people at a distance into good medical facilities or to bring special medical facilities out to them, so it is possible to go to or to bring out specialized library resources. Even as governmental units cooperate to improve school, road, and other services by joint effort, so the same cooperation can apply to library facilities.

Libraries working together, sharing their services and materials, can meet the full needs of their users. This cooperative approach on the part of libraries is the most important single recommendation of this document. Without joint action, most American libraries probably will never be able to come up to the standard necessary to meet the needs of their constituencies.

Dramatic evidence of the importance of joint action among smaller places in providing library service was obtained in preparing the supplement to this document, where costs to achieve standards are calculated. A library or a group of libraries serving 20.000 people requires almost twice as much per canita to achieve these minimum standards as a library serving 200.000 people, with the per capita cost for a library or library group serving 50.000 or 100,000 people falling somewhere between the two.

Libraries are, therefore, urged to band together formally or informally, in groups called systems. In such systems, already well established and successful in large cities and populous counties, large and small libraries in natural areas work together to make a wider range of library materials and services readily available to all residents. The systems, in turn, reach out to a wider world, drawing on even greater and more specialized resources offered by State and

Federal agencies. In a well-organized structure of library service, the reader in smaller and more remote places will have access not only to all books and materials in his region, but beyond that to the resources of the State and Nation. The development of systems of libraries does not weaken or eliminate the small community library. On the contrary, it offers that library and its users greatly expanded resources and services. Library materials and services that today may seem unattainable could be available in each local community in the foreseeable future. The advantage is similar to that gained by a small independent radio or television station that uses some of the programs of a large network. Library systems come into existence and are financed in a variety of ways. In larger cities and in counties with a single library serving the whole area, the central agency, the branches, and other means of extension naturally form a legally unified structure of service. Almost the same degree of unity is achieved where unserved districts, or districts with small libraries, decide to affiliate with a nearby center. Local library boards of trustees must be created or retained in such plans, with certain defined powers remaining in the locality, or the local board may contract with the center for service. Joint action without any legal change or contract is another possibility, if careful agreements are entered into by the several legally separate libraries in a region to achieve the service characteristics of a single system. In sparsely settled areas of considerable extent, without an existing city or other library to serve as the center of the system, it may be more feasible and economical to utilized some type of State-administered and State-financed center.

A constructive attitude on the part of those responsible for local libraries leads to consideration of the various alternatives and selection of the most beneficial, rather than to rejection of cooperative action because some alternatives pose serious problems. Each time officials of a small library fail to reach out to joint action with other libraries, readers in the locality suffer.

Backing up the library system, and in close working relation with it, are resources and agencies at the State level. Here, too, is a reservoir of opportunity for the local information seeker. At this level also are the means for statewide library development. Chief among the State organizations is the State library agency. It is to be expressly understood that these standards, when applicable, apply to the State library agency, which is part of the total structure of public library service.

Supplementing State agency facilities are the resources in other State offices and in State colleges and universities. Also part of the grand network are bibliographic centers which are found in some States or regional groups of States.

Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. Thank you.

Mr. COHEN. Incidentally, we are submitting to you a series of our publications on library services for the use of the committee which contain the background of these standards and provisions so that you can go into them yourselves.

We have a series of these reports on public library services which we will make available to the committee.

Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. Is it material using what the American Library Association has been doing?

Mr. COHEN. Yes; they go into those standards and they also go into the standards that the States have used.

The States generally have developed standards and some States have picked the American Library Association standards and other States have developed their own standards.

I cannot give you the exact figure offhand, but both of those are included in the reports that we are submitting to you.

To be genuinely effective, assistance for libraries should be structured to permit the development of library systems in which the resources of large urban libraries are utilized for a whole network of libraries. The continuing trend toward urbanization, the growing social and economic problems of our cities, and the increased demands

of individuals for convenient access to knowledge make it desirable that public libraries be improved in all areas.

Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. I am not sure I understand this—

to be genuinely effective, assistance for libraries should be structured to permit the development of library systems in which the resources of large urban libraries are utilized for a whole network of libraries.

Do you mean an interstate system of libraries?

Mr. COHEN. I really meant there that in any large metropolitan area there should be, and I think this has been the recommendation of the American Library Association, that the libraries should not be isolated but they should be brought together under one system_in_a large metropolitan area in order that books can be exchanged. If you live in a suburban area and you want a book that is not immediately available, why, if you put in your request it can be brought from the central library the next day or at a convenient time to you. The various considerations about cataloging and supervision of personnel can be made for a large group of people and by a large group of prefessional people.

Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. Is your theory that they should be run by the State? Should the State set up standards?

Mr. COHEN. No.

Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. What does it mean?

Mr. COHEN. It means that the city or the large metropolitan area should have this coordinated network of libraries, that they should not be isolated, independent libraries.

Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. How are we going to prevent it from being isolated? Who does the coordinating?

Mr. COHEN. In this case it will be the city or the county.

Dr. McMurrin will develop the needs of our school libraries in some detail. I should simply like to note that there is a very grave situation in our public schools and in colleges and universities with regard to inadequate or nonexistent libraries. This situation, to say the least, adversely affects the quality of instruction and limits the educational opportunity of every American schoolchild.

Unfortunately, as is so often the case in such things, those children who most need school libraries are most often the ones who do not have them. I should particularly like to point out that about twothirds of all the elementary schools in the country are without libraries and many college libraries are inadequate.

Inadequate school libraries place additional, and often very severe, burdens on the public libraries. This is occurring in libraries all over the country at the same time that community use of libraries is growing and the demands for new and varied types of information, materials, and services are increasing. Any assistance afforded school libraries would therefore be a direct benefit to local public libraries, as well as a fundamental contribution to excellence in our schools.

As I have indicated, the kinds of use being made of the modern public library are many and complex. Librarians of high professional competence are required and are needed in increasing numbers to provide a wide range of services in an effective and efficient manner. Professional librarians are employed in schools, colleges, industries, professional and technical organizations, foundations, and Government, as well as in the public libraries. But there is today a