THE COLLEGE LIBRARY AND RESEARCH WORK
There was published in 1912 a "Union List of Collections on European History in American Libraries, compiled for the Committee on Bibliography of the American Historical Association by E. C. Richardson, Chairman."
In the preface to this exceedingly valuable work occurs the following extract from the Report of the Committee, December, 1911:
"It is clear from this situation that no library is self-sufficient—even Harvard lacking 930 sets, and all but 12 lacking on the average of 2,153 out of 2,197 works. Even as good colleges as Amherst and Williams, having but 26 and 17 respectively, lack 2,171 and 2,180 respectively out of 2,197, while probably 700 of the 786 institutions doing work of college grade in the United States are worse off than these."
I need hardly say that this is merely a statement of fact and in no sense a criticism or arraignment of any library mentioned or implied. Furthermore, it is undoubtedly true that analysis and reflection will render this statement much less startling than it appears at first glance. Whether we can explain and account for it to our entire satisfaction is a question which seems to me rather doubtful. Let me quote a little more from this same source:
"The most significant fact of the statistics of last year remains, however, substantially unchanged—the fact that only ten or a dozen libraries have as many as 10 per cent of the collections, and that out of 786 institutions which profess to do work of college grade, only about fifty libraries have as much as 1 per cent. The actual situation is even much worse than appears from the figures, since two or three inexpensive volumes of illustrative source books for classroom use are in the list through inadvertence, and undoubtedly swell the record of the minor institutions. It is safe to say that a majority even of the institutions included in the Babcock list have less than one-tenth of 1 per cent of these sets, and yet these are titles which have been gathered from actual references and are the books which are liable to meet any men engaged in historical research at every turn."
If we assume that research work belongs only to the university—that it has no place in the college—we may dismiss these figures as possessing no significance for us, save as they throw some light on the inferior quality of the collections built up by most of our American libraries. If on the other hand we believe that the smaller institution should encourage its teachers to do research work, and should, so far as its resources allow, provide the facilities for such work, then I believe that a study of the conditions responsible for the situation set forth in the Committee's report cannot fail to be of some value. And while I hold no brief for the research worker I am strongly of the opinion that the college which does encourage original research can not but gain a higher quality of teaching, and at the same time acquire a collection of books which, if not notable, shall be at least thoroughly good.
It may be claimed, and in that case must be granted, that such a question as this is practically an academic one, and so pretty largely outside of the librarian's province. That is true, however, only so long as you leave the question unanswered—or answer it in the negative. An affirmative answer would bring the matter home directly to every college librarian in the country. The college which believes in research and encourages its faculty to do it, must have a librarian not only in sympathy with the movement, but one skillful in finding ways and means to make it a success, since in most cases the funds at our disposal for the purchase of books would seem to preclude the possibility of such a thing.
Before going further into the discussion of this phase of the question, let me return for a moment to the report from which I quoted. One or two conclusions may justly be drawn from the figures therein presented. In the first place I think we may safely infer that the situation as regards History, so strikingly set forth, is repeated, and probably in an even worse form, in all the other departments of knowledge. Certainly we should not expect a library which was so weak in the research material of History, to be any stronger in Philology or the Sciences, or in Philosophy and Economics.
The second conclusion follows naturally from this, that the average college library—for it is with the college library that this paper concerns itself—has built up its collection with practically no emphasis on the acquisition of such material.
To say that this general condition exists solely because of the lack of funds is to my mind neither a real explanation, nor a real excuse. It exists primarily because there has never been any pressure from members of the faculty to bring about a different condition.
If we seek a reason for it we shall find it in the fact that research work has by tacit consent been left almost entirely to the university. Its place there—its vital importance in the university scheme of work—has never been questioned. Making all allowance for the difference in conditions I still cannot see why a thing that is confessedly of so much benefit to the university should not also be of help to the college. At the risk of getting a little off the track, and for the sake of making what I mean as plain as possible, it seems necessary to devote some space to a definition of the term research work. I am writing, of course, from the standpoint of an outsider, who expresses a purely personal opinion on a subject which interests him. There can be no hard and fast definition of such a term as this—at least not from a librarian.
I shall suppose then, that research work is of two kinds, both important, but one of them much more important than the other. The first and most common kind is that ordinarily done by the graduate student in the university. It is the gathering of material—the collection of information on some particular phase of some particular subject—and is not only of value in itself, but when taken together with the work done by other students along related lines becomes part of the structure on which scholarship is built. We may call it analytical research work. The other kind is that done by the man of clear vision and wide outlook, mature enough to see that the analytical work is merely material for a bigger thing—call it what you will—the man who can take the information others have collected and impart it in the form of culture. This is synthetic research work. Now the university has much of the former, some of the latter. The college has need only of the synthetic. If its place in the educational world is to be permanent, its contribution to education must be cultural. The type of teacher it needs, and I believe must have, is the man who has done, or is capable of doing, synthetic research work. In his hands teaching takes on a vitality, a spontaneity, a genuineness that no one else can give it. That the book collection of the average college would be sufficient for the needs of men like this is out of the question. There would inevitably arise a demand for the purchase of works of an entirely different kind—a demand that would have to be at least partially met. This demand would be for research material, by which I mean the results of research work, and the problem of such a college library would become a problem in discrimination—the decision as to what of this material it should try to obtain.
It ought not to be difficult to draw a clear distinction between analytical and synthetic research material. Illustrations of the first will readily occur to you, one as good as any being the usual thesis submitted for the doctor's degree. All "source" material is necessarily analytical—is the result of a careful, painstaking, often laborious search for information: information that may illuminate some dark corner of the field of knowledge. But it is never itself illumined by the spark of genius, nor wrought by the loving hand of the artist. It is merely the wood and the stone out of which a complete structure may some day arise.
Now how does the synthetic conception of research apply to History? A modern German writer has compressed the whole significance of it into a sentence: "The writing of History," he says, "is just as truly a will toward a picture as it is a knowledge of sources." In other words synthesis of the kind referred to is always the work of the artist, and in the nature of things becomes thereby a contribution to culture. Gibbon's "Decline and fall of the Roman empire," Lamprecht's "History of Germany," Rhodes' "History of the United States"—these are all synthetic: each one existed first as a picture in the mind of the artist, not merely as an array of sources from which the facts of history might be drawn.
"But," you say, "all libraries buy these books and others like them as a matter of course." Yes, we do, but I think the trouble is that we do not make books of this sort our standard, if indeed we have any standard beyond a favorable review or a request from a patron. It is no more true that the result of all synthetic research is cultural than that the result of all artistic endeavor is beautiful. Results here are just as uneven as anywhere else, with much that is good and perhaps even more that is bad, and it is when we come to discriminate that we are apt to go astray. Now a teacher such as I have in mind would keep abreast through the better periodicals of all that was being done in his particular line, and if facilities were furnished, would buy what he knew he needed—monographs, bibliographies, biographies, and some larger works—things that would not only give his teaching a vitality and freshness otherwise lacking, but would help to hasten the day when his own contribution to the world's culture should see the light.
Assuming, then, that a college accepts this view, and proposes to encourage its faculty to do research work, what are the practical ways in which the library can not only co-operate, but further such an undertaking? For I believe there are several. A preliminary statement as to the functions of the college library would seem to be essential. These have often been set forth for us in detail, and I shall only enumerate them here. The first and most important function is, of course, to meet the needs of the students and teachers as they arise in the regular college work. Along with this is the supplying of books for general reading, outside of the curriculum. Most of these books are bought for members of the faculty, who are thereby enabled to keep in touch with the latest developments in their own and other fields, and to avoid the possibility of mental stagnation from too close association with a particular subject. I believe much more might—and should—be done in the way of developing a taste for general reading on the part of the students, but that is another story.
Apart from these what are the functions of the college library? To be, so far as it can the centre of culture for the community in which it is located: to aid the local public library in its work with woman's clubs, and high school pupils: to lend books freely to other libraries. And in our own case there is the added opportunity of being of some assistance to another institution in the same town.
Now these things are all important, and the librarian who does not realize it, who fails to utilize to the utmost the possibilities they contain for intellectual and social betterment, is not worthy of his hire. But the point of view I take in this article compels me to consider them as secondary. The college library exists first of all to supply the book needs of its own students and faculty, and for nothing else. The expenditure of its funds, always insufficient, must be limited to this chief function. It is probable that all these other things I have enumerated can be done without any financial loss to the library, but where any of them means a diversion of library funds it becomes unjustifiable.
I said above that there are several practical ways in which a library—more properly, perhaps, a librarian—can not only co-operate, but further a movement to encourage research work on the part of members of the faculty. My remarks are of necessity limited to my observation of conditions in the institution with which I am connected, and are not to be considered general in their application. At the same time, I am inclined to think that these conditions are reproduced, at least to a certain extent, in most college libraries.
The assistance which the library can render must, of course, be very largely financial. Only by releasing funds from present uses, or by increasing these funds, can we hope to buy material of the kind referred to.
I am convinced, in the first place, that we can save money in the purchase of books, and this not through better discounts, or any choice of agents, but through more care in the selection of the books themselves. In other words, submit all lists of proposed purchases to a more rigid scrutiny. Make all titles answer such questions as "Is this book going to be of real value to this library?" "Is its usefulness to be more or less permanent, or merely temporary?" "Could not our need for it be met by borrowing from another library?"
In our own case, at least, I fear a number of books are recommended by professors or others, and bought by the library, which could not survive any such test. This naturally applies not so much to department books as to those of a general nature, for in the last analysis the teacher must be the judge of what he needs to help him in his work.
Secondly, we ought to save money—I think a considerable sum—on our periodicals. And here the saving effected by dropping some from the list is a double one; not only the subscription price, but the cost of binding. I realize that I am treading on dangerous ground in this matter, and that most professors would say to drop all the books if necessary, but none of the periodicals. And I could wish for enough space to elaborate my side of the question at some length, instead of touching on it only briefly. For I believe it to be of real importance—a thing that every college library must face and decide at some time or other. Here at Amherst we spent last year over 40 per cent of the income from our book funds on periodicals and their binding—a proportion which I cannot believe to be justified. Is there not such a thing as a "periodical" habit, into which all of us, librarians and professors alike, are apt to fall? We keep periodicals on our lists because they have always been there—were there before we came—although on reflection we are sure that no one ever uses them—not even the professor at whose instance they were ordered. In the first place, of course, he expects to use them, sometime if not now. Or he is sure that he ought to—that they would give him just the impetus he needs in his work. Or perhaps (and I should whisper this) he likes to have it known that the department is taking these things "couldn't get along without them." Now the periodical that cannot prove its right—in terms of usefulness—to be on the shelves of a college library has no place there. And the significance of this for us is the fact that in being there it is keeping something else out! What we spend for it, and for others like it, would enable us to make at least a beginning on the acquisition of our synthetic research material.
These are two of the ways in which it seems to me a librarian in sympathy with this movement could further it. Another, possibly worth mentioning, is to refrain from binding miscellaneous pamphlets and other unbound material, mostly presented to the library, and which we are apt to think may some day serve a purpose. Part of it may—most of it can well be thrown away and the binding money saved.
"But," you say, "even in the aggregate these things do not mean very much; perhaps one or two hundred dollars at the outside—one or two or three research collections a year for your library." No, they do not mean very much, by themselves, or in the purchasing power of money they are instrumental in saving. But they stand for something definite and logical; they are indicative of a determination on the part of an institution to get men of a certain type for its faculty, and to provide them with facilities for doing the broadest and biggest work possible. I may be mistaken, but I am inclined to think such an institution could find more money as it needed more. And the librarian skillful in discovering ways and means would not be contented with his yearly appropriations, but would succeed in interesting trustees and friends of the college to a point where interest would be translated into deeds.
Now there is, of course, another side to all this, and we should be short-sighted indeed not to recognize it. The college library which spent any considerable share of its funds for research material which really belongs only in the university library would have no means whatever of justifying itself—would be worse off than an institution which had no research material whatever. How may we guard against this danger? I must take it for granted that the sort of teacher I have been considering would choose his research material wisely and with the right perspective. In case he failed to do this I should expect the librarian to tell him so. And back of the librarian should be a real library committee; so constituted as to represent the different departments as fairly as possible; having charge of the allotment of book funds; advising and helping the librarian in the shaping of the library's policy; the court of last resort when an expensive and somewhat doubtful set was being considered—I can conceive of such a committee as being one of the greatest factors in the success of this whole undertaking. Let at least two types of teachers be selected for it. The one a man whose chief interest centers in the personal and human side of his students; who puts them first to the extent that his work is with them rather than with books or scholarly endeavor. The other the man I have defined as the synthetic research worker, broad in his sympathies toward his students, but a man who realizes both the need of the age for culture, and his own ability to contribute to it something worth while. By a fusion of such types as these the rights of all would be conserved—the needs of all met so far as possible.
Just a word more by way of summary and I shall be through.
I believe the book collection of the average college library is much below what it might be in point of quality. A possible way of changing this situation for the better is to encourage members of the faculty to do research work. This would also result in a higher standard of teaching—or so at least all the teachers with whom I have talked assure me. It is not necessary to assume that research is essential to scholarship, but merely that it adds something to a man's efficiency and power that can be gotten in no other way. The college librarian, if he cares to, can play an important part in bringing these things about.
You will doubtless find this scheme—represented here only in outline—rather idealistic, but so, I take it, are all educational schemes. I can only hope that you will find also some soundness in its theory—some small addition to the constructive criticism of a condition which I believe to be fundamentally wrong.
Miss MINNIE E. SEARS, head cataloger of the University of Minnesota library, presented a paper on