Papers and Proceedings of the Thirty-Fourth Annual Meeting of the American Library Association: Held at Ottawa, Canada, June 26-July 2, 1912
Science
Papers and Proceedings of the Thirty-Fourth Annual Meeting of the American Library Association: Held at Ottawa, Canada, June 26-July 2, 1912
American Library Association; Library science -- Congresses
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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