ACRL College & Research Libraries News

College & Research Libraries News

From Inside the DLP

By Dr. Katharine M. Stokes

College and University Library Specialist, Training and Resources Branch‚ Division of Library Programs, Bureau of Libraries and Educational Technology, U.S. Office of Education, Washington, D.C. 20202.

In reading a library annual report recently, I noticed the following wistful statement:

Faculty status for librarians so often seems like a paper status. As faculty, librarians should have the option of taking course work. Because it takes all of us just to man the building, no one can ever be spared to take work. Our work year should take this fact into consideration.

This is an all too familiar situation among small college libraries, and I’d like to suggest one substitute for course work that has been subsidized in part by Title II-B (Higher Education Act) funds for library training.

I monitored officially for the first time this summer two of the institutes for library training funded by Title II-B. I found them both so stimulating that I would like to urge college library staff members to try to attend whatever kinds of continuing education projects may be funded in the future which are in line with their particular interests or their libraries’ activities.

The first institute I visited was at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, directed by Fisk’s librarian, Dr. Jessie Carney Smith. Its subject was the selection, organization, and use of materials by and about the Negro. It was planned for twenty-five participants from June 10 to July 28. Most of those attending were from academic libraries which were particularly concerned with building collections for black studies. They came from sixteen states and the District of Columbia. One special library participant was from the Schomburg Collection of the New York Public Library. Two school librarians building black studies collections provided interesting viewpoints. The setting was Fisk’s handsome new library building with its rich and valuable Negro studies collection that includes manuscripts, archives, and materials in various forms vital to the needs of such an institute.

A distinguished succession of visiting lecturers supplemented the faculty members from Fisk. During my two days in attendance the visiting lecturer was Dr. Annette Phinazee, dean of the library school of North Carolina Central College in Durham, with whom I was happy to renew an acquaintance dating back several years to the time when we were board members of Beta Phi Mu.

A Handbook for the Administration of Special Negro Collections, compiled by Mrs. Ann Allen Shockley, Associate Librarian and Associate Director of the Institute, and Books for Black Americans by Dr. L. M. Collins, Professor of English at Fisk, were prepared for the institute participants. They will be useful aids for librarians who did not have the opportunity to experience the courses taught by these two members of the Institute faculty. If you are interested in obtaining copies, write to Dr. Smith.

The second institute I visited was on Training for Service in Undergraduate Libraries. It was held at the University of California, San Diego, on the campus in La Jolla. This was a one-week institute, August 17-21, and was directed by the university librarian, Melvin J. Voigt. John Haak, the undergraduate librarian, was assistant director. The thirty participants came from eighteen states with one observer from the University of British Columbia. All of them were either working in undergraduate libraries or planning undergraduate facilities in their libraries. The visiting lecturers, Dr. Irene Braden Hoadley, Dr. Patricia Knapp, Warren B. Kuhn, and Billy R. Wilkinson, as well as the director and associate director, had prepared papers which were sent to the participants preceding the institute.

My three-and-a-half days with this group gave me an opportunity to become acquainted with the participants even more thoroughly than I had with those at Fisk, but at both institutes I was much impressed with the quality of the individuals accepted from the great number of applicants. I suspect that many of them gave up at least part of their vacation plans for this enlarging of their professional experience. Participants at both institutes received a stipend of $75 a week, with an additional $15 for each dependent. Living accommodations in a university residence hall for participants and their families were provided at nominal rates. No reimbursement for travel expenses was provided, but the experience of visiting a strange campus, seeing the beautiful new libraries at Fisk and NCSD, and meeting other librarians working in their area of interest provided a rewarding busman’s holiday.