In some cases where the library building has been presented as a gift or as a memorial, trouble has arisen from the proverbial difficulty about examining too closely into the lines of the proposed gift. Notable illustrations of this are found in the libraries of Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania and the late but not lamented library of Leland Stanford University. The Columbia University Library, the gift of ex-President Low in memory of his father, was designed by McKim, Mead & White after the plan of the head of the firm, the late Mr. Charles F. McKim. Some of you may be familiar with the story of the visitor to Mr. McKim's studio asking how he was getting on with the plans for the new library. "Oh, everything is going lovely," said he. "You see there on the wall the outline of the facade and the layout of the building. I have worked up all the details of the reading room and the large dome—but I don't know where to put the darned books."
"Today," wrote President Harper, "the chief building in the college, the building in which is taken the most pride, is the library. With the stack for storage purposes, the reading room for reference books, the offices for delivery, the rooms for seminary purposes, it is the center of educational activity. The staff of assistants is often larger than the entire faculty of the same institution thirty years ago."
The importance of the university library in the educational work of the institution is being recognized more fully each year. "Much of the usefulness and attractiveness of the university for its students," said President Eliot in his annual report for 1905-06, "depends on the size of the library, on the promptness with which it obtains the newest interesting books, and on the efficiency and liberality of its administration. Any need of the library is therefore a need of the whole university."
The second paper was then read by Mr. WILLARD AUSTEN, assistant librarian of Cornell University. His paper, an abstract of which follows, was entitled
RIGHTS OF THE USERS OF A COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY LIBRARY AND HOW TO PRESERVE THEM
The problem of administering a college or university library with due regard to the rights of all the users is far from simple. A college or university community is not a democracy, where all have equal rights. The natural division into two great classes, the mature teacher and the immature student is the first apparent cause for the modification of privileges. The need of materials for teaching as opposed to the needs of the student suggests other modifications. The need for books of research at home or in the laboratory that may also be wanted for general reading, introduces a third factor that may disturb any set of rules that may be framed.
Any reader should be allowed to use any book in the library when and where it is most convenient to do so, so far as this can be done and preserve the rights of other users and preserve valuable materials not easily replaced for future generations of users. The ability to shift any book from the place where it is little needed to the place where it is much needed, at a moment's notice, is the ideal.
Users may be roughly grouped as follows:
1. Instructors of all grades, those whose need for books is primarily for teaching.