ACRL College & Research Libraries News

College & Research Libraries News

College Libraries and Networking

Networking is certainly included on virtually everyone’s list of recent significant developments in librarianship. The ACRL College Libraries Section’s Impact of National Library Policy and National Library Developments on the College Library Committee concurred with this view when developing an agenda of topics to pursue recently.

The impact, experienced or expected, on networks in a variety of settings—urban main libraries, research libraries, small law libraries, rural public libraries, school media centers, etc.—has already been discussed. However, only a few how-we-done-it-good articles concerning college libraries could be found.

The Committee decided the first step should be to determine what percentage of college libraries¹ belong to a network.² The table below offers the percentage of participation and number of libraries by Carnegie category and type of control.

These results suggest a few questions which might be explored and some further analysis which might be applied.

• How much of the low participation by private Liberal Arts II colleges is due to costs and how much is attributable to a choice not to join?

• What percentage of current college cataloging is being entered into network databases? A few years ago it was estimated that 75% of all academic libraries’ new acquisitions were put online.

• Would a project to enter the special colleetions of libraries which are not in networks be feasible?

• With much attention turning toward integrated systems, is it acceptable to move on to the next generation of automation when almost onethird of college libraries have not yet joined a network?

• Are there significant variations among the percentages of participation by state or region? If so, how are fixed and prorated costs allocated in the various state and regional networks?

• What share of contributed cataloging comes from college libraries? How much is it used?

• What percentage of network-based interlibrary requests are filled by college libraries?

• What effect has the reduced HEA Title II-A grants had on college libraries’ contributions to national shared cataloging and interlibrary loan efforts? What might be the effects of zero funding?

TABLE

Percentage of Participation in Networks and Number of Colleges

Type of Control	I	Comprehensive
II	I and II	I	Liberal Arts II	I and II	Total
Public
Private	87.8% (245) 76.6% (128)	68.3% (101) 77.3% (106)	82.1% (346) 76.9% (234)	NA (0) 82.1% (123)	90.9% (11) 51.3% (433)	90.9% (11) 58.1% (556)	82.4% (357) 63.7% (790)
Public and Private	83.9% (373)	72.9% (207)	80.0% (580)	82.1% (123)	52.3% (444)	58.7% (567)	69.5% (1147)

Any group or individual interested in sharing additional information or concerns should contact the Chair of the CLS Impact Committee, John

Sheridan, Head Librarian, Transylvania University Library, Lexington, KY 40508; or the Chair of the College Libraries Section, Thomas G. Kirk, College Librarian, Berea College, Berea, KY 40404.—John Sheridan. ■■

Notes

1. This study includes those institutions in the classifications Comprehensive Universities and Colleges (I and II) and Liberal Arts Colleges (I and II) in Carnegie Commission on Higher Education, A Classification of Institutions of Higher Education (Berkeley, Calif.: The Commission, 1976). The “Standards for College Libraries,” C&RL News, October 1975, p. 277, state that colleges in these Carnegie classifications are the target institutions for the standards.
2. I wish to thank Neal Kaske of the OCLC Research Department for providing me with a listing of OCLC college members by state.