ACRL College & Researc Libraries News

COLLEGE & RESEARCH LIBRARIES

From Inside the DLP

By Dr. Katharine M. Stokes

College and University Library Specialist, Library Planning and Development Branch, Division of Library Programs, Bureau of Adult, Vocational, and Library Programs, U.S. Office of Education, Washington, D.C. 20202.

Do you remember assembling, in the summer of 1967, statistics to fill in the blanks of the Office of Education’s College and University Library Resources and Facilities Higher Education General Information Survey forms? It called for a lot of figures on the percentage of your collection devoted to specified areas and on the square feet assigned to your libraries. If you’ve been wondering about whatever happened to those painfully compiled totals, look at Tables 3, 4, and 5 of the latest publication released by the Library Surveys Branch of the National Center for Educational Statistics, Library Statistics of Colleges and Universities: Data for Individual Institutions, Fall 1967, (OE-15023-67), edited by Dr. Bronson Price. A copy was sent to each institution of higher education. Additional copies may be obtained from the Superintendent of Documents, G.P.O., for $2.50.

You will recall that in 1968 only the Preliminary Report on Academic Libraries, 1966- 67 was published; that report contained partial data for a sample of 395 of the 2,157 separate institutions and five joint libraries (serving two or more institutions) which are included in the Fall 1967 issue. Although two years have passed since the space figures in this issue were submitted, they are probably still valid for most of the libraries.

The 1967 space figures for libraries in the same state, or for libraries serving student bodies of similar size and makeup, will be worth close scrutiny, especially those of the junior and community colleges, which show wide divergences. In Table 5, where the data are averaged per student, the square footage varies from one to fourteen for community colleges in one state studied.

The Higher Education Facilities Act funds are assisting many new junior colleges, some of them through their involvement in Model Cities programs. Grants are made from the federal allotments to the states. The State Commissions, established to administer state plans, receive applications and assign priorities to eligible projects. The priority list is submitted to the Office of Education’s Regional Office for review, and those projects which satisfy eligibility requirements are then approved by the Regional Director of Higher Education.

Since 1966, over 800 library facilities have been partially funded under the Higher Education Facilities Act. Of the 137 buildings that Dr. Jerrold Orne noted in his Library Journal articles in the December 1 issues of 1967 and 1968, as being occupied or dedicated in those years, only twenty-three had not been assisted by federal aid, so probably a couple of hundred privately funded libraries are either completed or under construction in addition to the 800 that received HEFA grants.