ACRL College & Researc Libraries News

College & Research Libraries News

Letters

College & Research Libraries Newsis published by the Association of College and Research Libraries, a division of the American Library Association, as 11 monthly (combining July-August) issues, at 50 E. Huron St., Chicago, IL 60611. Annual subscription: $5; or to members of the division, $2.50, included in dues. Single copies and back issues, $2 each. Second-class postage applied for at Chicago, Illinois, and at additional mailing offices (ISSN 0099-0086).

Editor: George M. Eberhart, ACRL/ALA, 50 E. Huron St., Chicago, IL 60611; (312) 944-6780. President, ACRL: Millicent D. Abell. Executive Director, ACRL: Julie Carroll Virgo.

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A partial list of the services indexing or abstracting the contents of C&RL News includes: Current Contents: Social & Behavior Sciences; Current Index to Journals in Education; Information Science Abstracts; Library & Information Science Abstracts; Library Literature; and Social Sciences Citation Index.

©American Library Association 1981. All material in this journal subject to copyright by the American Library Associaton may be photocopied for the noncommercial purpose of scientific or educational advancement.

Library Use Fees

To the Editor:

I read your note on “Student Fees for Library Privileges” (C&RL News, January 1981, p. 5) with interest. Indeed, “it is hard to believe that one has never been tried.” User fees were a standard means of financing the libraries of nineteenth century American colleges. These ranged from 50 cents to a few dollars a year and represented a true user fee, as it was demanded of only those students wishing to use the library. This practice was abandoned at the end of the century when the changing nature of scholarship and educational methods mandated a more stable method of financing acquisitions than user fees allowed. This practice was so widely spread that many libraries undoubtedly engaged in it during their early years.—Lee Schiflett, Assistant Professor, Graduate School of Library Science, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge.

To the Editor:

About the year 1900 Carleton College initiated a system of regular student and faculty fees for the use of the library. The practice was discontinued in 1916. At that time the fee charged was $5 per year, which amounted to 5% of the yearly tuition that was then charged. The reason for the fees was one that was common to many college libraries: they were not yet included as items in the college’s regular operating budget. Many college libraries tried to fund themselves with library endowments. All relied heavily on gifts instead of an acquisitions budget. Some, like Carleton, tried use fees which they imposed on students (and sometimes faculty also).

Since 1916 Carleton has not imposed a use fee of any kind. In my view, the imposition of use fees is a giant step backwards to the turn of the century. Let us hope that our colleagues in other institutions will not become so desperate and unimaginative as to fall into this error.—Richard E. Miller, Public Services Librarian, Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota.

To the Editor:

As long ago as 1970, the eleven colleges in the Massachusetts State College System all charged a $10 per semester library fee to all full and parttime students. These funds in each institution were placed in what was then termed the Library Development Trust Fund and was originally intended, when approved by the Board of Trustees, to supplement the meager funding provided by the state for library acquisitions. I cannot comment on how the money was used in other institutions, but at Bridgewater State College where I was Associate Director of the Library, it did not take the President of the university long to discover that there were no legal requirements that the funds be used for library acquisition. As a result, by the time I left Bridgewater State in 1973, more than half of the Library Development Trust Fund annually was being used to pay the salary of part-time staff members and some full-time staff members.—Tom Watson, University Librarian, University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee.

Editor’s Note: Massachusetts state college libraries still assess this fee, which can be used in many different ways. Massachusetts state .community college libraries do not have this fee.