ACRL College & Researc Libraries News

Association of College & Research Libraries

Hearings Held on Standards Revision

ACRL members discussed the revision of the 1959 Standards for College Libraries during the Midwinter Meeting of ALA in Chicago, January 20-25.

During its first six months the revision committee, chaired by Johnnie Givens, Austin Peay State University, Clarksville, Tennessee, has studied typologies currently being used to classify colleges and universities in the United States. Typologies developed by the Office of Education (the Federal Interagency Committee on Education), the American Council on Education, the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education, the Academy for Educational Development, and James Cass and Max Bernbaum (Selectivity Index of Colleges and Universities) have been compared by the committee. The committee intends to select the most useful typology available in order to define the college as an institution separate and distinct from the two-year college, the community college, and the university. The committee expects to select its typology on the basis of a classification of homogeneous groupings which have characteristics that are easily identified and defensible.

A background paper on typologies, prepared by James Pirie and David Perkins, a paper on elements presently found in existing standards, prepared by Herman Totten, and a review of library standards used in other countries, by David Kaser, also were discussed with the membership. Sets of these papers can be obtained by writing Beverly P. Lynch, Executive Secretary, ACRL, 50 E. Huron St., Chicago, IL 60611. Hearings on later working papers will be held July 10 and 11 during the annual meeting of the American Library Association in New York.