ACRL College & Research Libraries News

College & Research Libraries News

From Inside the DLSEF

By Dr. Katharine M. Stokes

College and University Library Specialist, Library Planning and Development Branch, Division of Library Services and Educational Facilities, U.S. Office of Education, Washington, D.C. 20202.

A compilation of the statistics of the 1967 grants awarded under the Higher Education Act of 1965, Title II-A, revealed the following proportions of the $25 million appropriation going to three categories of libraries: junior colleges with an enrollment of 901,290 fulltime equivalent (FTE) students, 17.4 per cent of the total college population, received 20.1 per cent; four-year colleges with an FTE enrollment of 1,958,298 or 37.9 per cent of the total college population, received 44.5 per cent; and universities with an enrollment of 2,310,050 FTE students, 44.7 per cent of the total college population, received only 35.4 per cent.

The staff of DLSEF’s Library Training and Resources Branch, which is responsible for administering the College Resources Program, was concerned that the universities had apparently not received a share of the grants proportionate to their enrollments. Although this group appears to have been slighted, a further analysis of the individual grants showed that eight universities got almost a third of the $25 million appropriation. Three of the eight applied only for basic and supplemental grants, but because of their large enrollments one was awarded over $150,000 as a supplemental grant, and the other two each received about $100,000. Three other universities were awarded $100,000 special purpose grants requiring non-federal matching money of 33's per cent, but with their supplemental grants their “free money” amounted to $98,890, $97,183 and $92,738 respectively. Another university with a special purpose grant of $75,000, still cleared, with its supplemental, somewhat more than $92,000. The remaining university received a special purpose grant of only $10,296, but its supplemental grant brought its total to almost $91,000 that required no matching.

An examination of the grant applications of a selected group of sixty-nine libraries showed that twenty-six of them had made no request for supplemental grants. Several of these twenty-six

7th Collective Index to Chemical Abstracts 1962-1966

Your guide to nearlydid apply for special purpose grants and a few failed to receive them. But they may have missed an opportunity to be awarded a substantial supplemental grant if they had tried for whatever points they could earn of the ten possible. Only five institutions earned that high score of ten points, while most of the libraries receiving supplemental grants earned them on five points or even less. For any institution with a big enrollment, the supplemental grant should be a big attraction. ¦ ¦