ACRL College & Research Libraries News

College & Research Libraries News

LIBRARIANS OF PUBLIC HIGHER EDUCATION

At a meeting of the Council of Massachusetts State College Librarians at Provincetown on May 10, attended by representatives from the libraries of the state colleges, community colleges, Southeastern Massachusetts Technological Institute, the University of Massachusetts in Boston, and addressed by Richard M. Millard, chancellor of higher education for the Commonwealth, it was decided by unanimous action of the librarians present to form a group to be known as the Massachusetts Conference of Chief Librarians of Public Higher Educational Institutions. The group was formed in response to Chancellor Millard’s presentation of the problems facing the libraries in those institutions, and the discussion which followed. The conference will meet at least three times a year, and its mission will be to identify problems common to all the libraries and to perform appropriate research in order to bring forth recommendations for their solution.

The recommendations will be presented to the councils of the state college and the community college libraries, and to the technological institute and university library staffs for their approval and adoption. It is hoped that out of this action will come a handbook of recommended standard library practices which will help the individual libraries solve some of the problems outlined by Chancellor Millard and the discussants. Some of the most pressing problems concern the building of adequate basic book collections in the public educational institutions of the Commonwealth.

Examples of these problems are temporary storage space for the growing selections while waiting for new library facilities; standardization of library cataloging in order to take advantage of centralized acquisition and processing; definition of staffing needs in terms of work to be done; and standardization of administrative practices in such areas as materials acquisition.

The meeting was chaired by William T. Casey, head librarian, State College at Fitchburg, and chairman of the Council of Massachusetts State College Librarians. He set June 3 as the time for the first meeting of the newlyformed group.—William D. Joyce, State College at Wooster.