While the government passed the regulations it neglected to provide sufficient appropriations to carry them out, the result being that the union catalog referred to was begun at only two universities, Berlin and Bonn, and at the former lack of help soon caused a considerable accumulation of arrears. The experience gained showed that, an indication in the catalog of the general library, that a given book can be found in a department is of little value. The general library has not on that account been able to dispense with the purchase of a copy, the distance to the departmental library and the difficulty of securing access making it necessary to duplicate. Occasionally a student has been referred to a departmental library, but it has not happened frequently enough to warrant the extra expenditure, or the duplication of catalogs. It has on the other hand proved of great assistance to the departmental library, and in Bonn its continuance is strongly urged by the departments. The same holds true of Berlin, although instances have been recorded where a department has refused to accept the catalog prepared by the general library.
In other respects the departments have neglected to follow the regulations. It has been said, for instance, that instead of turning duplicates over to the university library certain departments have disposed of them through exchange or have sold them outright to book dealers.
In his report before the Versammlung Deutscher Bibliothekare, 1896, Dr. Naetebus gives an excellent survey of the departmental libraries of the Prussian universities, reporting in all on 367 different collections. A perusal of his report and of the discussion which followed shows that the problem in Prussia is in most respects similar to our own.
In the Zentralblatt für Bibliothekswesen, 1909, p. 103, et seq., Dr. Erman criticizes the regulations of 1891 for not specifying or providing means for enforcing them. Incidentally he says with reference to the development of the departmental libraries, that while the original plan had been to make the books most urgently needed by students in seminars and laboratories more convenient of access than was possible in the overworked and overcrowded university libraries, various circumstances had co-operated towards gradually making these collections more comprehensive than they were intended to be, to include in fact almost all the literature in a given field or in related and overlapping fields of knowledge, thus making the departmental libraries quite independent of the university library. While the original plan had seemed to furnish welcome relief to the university libraries, its recent extension had threatened seriously to cripple them.
It was perhaps the lack of funds on the part of the university libraries which had caused the difficulty in the first place. The departments finding that certain expensive books could not be obtained through the university library began to purchase them for their own use. As the funds of the departments were too small to permit of extensive purchases, every effort was made to increase them by special and extra appropriations, this being so much the easier as the directors of the departments were frequently the most influential and powerful men in the faculties, and funds which otherwise would have fallen to the university library were thus diverted to the departments, extending the size and scope of their working collections far beyond the bounds originally intended.
Dr. Erman states that many professors have according to his own experience sought to secure practically all new accessions of value for the departmental library, leaving for the general library only the books seldom or never asked for. To discontinue the university library altogether and divide its collections among the departments would seem a far simpler and more logical plan, and there should be no hesitation in considering its realization provided there seemed any hope that forty departmental libraries would replace the university library and perform its functions in a satisfactory manner. Unfortunately, such a solution seems out of the question. It would prove disastrous to the university in various ways. There would be lost to it the one department alike common to all members of the faculty and to the student body. Very few work in so narrow a field that they would be served by consulting only one of the departmental libraries. The younger instructors and students who might not have any department, would be at a great disadvantage. If the university libraries were ever discontinued Dr. Erman thinks that there would soon arise an irresistible demand for their restoration. He also thinks that the increase in the administrative expense resulting from a departmental system would be so great as to be practically prohibitive.
In Germany as with us, the desirability of some modus vivendi by which university libraries and the departments could be made to work in harmony and mutually assist one another, has repeatedly been emphasized. As it is, the professor to whom a general library was once a vital question, but who has now at hand a well equipped departmental collection, is likely to lose all interest in the former and devote himself entirely to the development of the latter. Here in America the separation may not as yet have reached the point where, as in a case cited by Dr. Erman, a professor on being elected to the library council said to him that this was the first intimation he had had of the existence of a university library. At the same time, we have here and there evidence of a strong drift in this direction, particularly so in universities where the departmental system has been most fully developed.
Another eminent German librarian who touches on this problem is Dr. Milkau. In Kultur der Gegenwart, Abt. 1, p. 579, he states that in certain universities the total appropriation of all departmental libraries sometimes equals or even exceeds that of the general library. Originally intended as collections of reference books to be used in connection with instruction, they have gradually grown to considerable size, so that their supervision and regulation is year by year becoming more difficult. Dr. Milkau would not abolish the departmental libraries; on the contrary he freely grants their great value and superiority in some respects to the university library. There must, however, be co-operation between the departmental libraries one with another, and with the university library. Purchase of sets and expensive books must not be decided upon regardless of what is already in the university. Each department must limit itself strictly to its own particular field and omit all works not urgently needed, or of some permanent value. He offers as a remedy for the problem the following: To limit the size of the departmental collection, setting a maximum number of volumes not to be exceeded, a cure which seems a little too radical to find favor with all parties concerned.
In the discussion on the report of Dr. Naetebus referred to above, Dr. Gerhard, of Halle, insisted that the only way to secure relief would be through radical measures on the part of the government, viz., to cut down the departmental appropriations to a point where they would be forced to restrict purchases to the books most urgently needed for use in connection with instruction, the appropriations thus saved to be turned over to the university library. Dr. Roth, of Halle, complained of the lack of system in the development of the departmental libraries due to the frequent change of directors. He, however, considered the power of departments to secure books through gift and exchange an important and valuable factor, one not to be underestimated. Dr. Erman, Breslau, agreed with Dr. Gerhard and stated that there must be a readjustment of the funds appropriated for the purchase of books for the university and departmental libraries. There could be no complaint with the development of large and comprehensive collections in the departments, if at the same time the university libraries received enough to secure at least a small part of the books needed to keep their collections up to date. There would never have been so large a development of the departmental libraries if the university libraries had been in a position to answer the demands made on them. As it is, when an expensive book is wanted and the university library has not the funds to secure it, there immediately appear from two to three copies in as many departmental libraries, while there is no copy in the university library. The situation which results is intolerable. If in Breslau instead of 31,000 marks a year for the university library and 31,000 for the departmental libraries, the former had 40,000 and the latter 20,000, it would mean an immense improvement for all concerned.
Dr. Geiger, Tübingen, and Dr. Frankfurter of Vienna, reported that essentially the same or even a worse state of affairs exists in Wurtemburg and in Austria.