Open Collections

 The University of British Columbia
The Report
of the University Librarian
to the Senate
50
th year
September 1964 to August 1965
Vancouver
September 1965 THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA
The Report
of the University Librarian
to the Senate
50th Year
September 1964 to August 1965
Vancouver
September 1965 REPORT OF THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARIAN TO SENATE
196V65
The University of British Columbia Library has completed a half
century of operation. It is fitting that no year in it$ history has been
so marked by events of far-reaching significance.
In February the university received an outright gift of three
million dollars for the purchase of books from a long-time friend of the
library, Dr. H. R. MacMillan,  By this single act the university was
assured of a collection equal to the demands of research and graduate
study. Book purchases doubled instantly.  It is possible to predict that
the library will treble in size within a decade.
In the previous year a gift from the Mr. and Mrs. P. A. Woodward
Foundation made possible the construction of a major branch library serving
the biomedical sciences. This handsome facility opened its doors in
September, and in a year of successful operation demonstrated that a
system of such libraries serving allied disciplines would be the solution
to the information needs of a university large in physical size, enrollment and program.
By the end of August, work was completed on an important application of data-processing machinery to library routines: an automated
system for lending books.  During the year other applications had been
introduced in the listing of periodicals and the production of catalogue
cards. Planning for future use of computers was accelerated by the
addition to the staff of an experienced systems analyst.
These threee^ents, out of dozens that filled the library's
fiftieth year, were the most portentous, and the character of the
library's future was implicit in them. Greatly increased book funds Would make possible the creation of a large and distinguished collection.
The size of this collection, combined with the general growth of the
university in respect to both curriculum and plant, would necessitate the
development of a decentralized system of large branch libraries serving
broad areas of need, such as the undergraduate students, the Faculties of
Science, Applied Science, and Education.  This system of libraries would
be rendered as efficient as possible through applications of computers to
library routines and to the storage and retrieval of information.  The
challenges of this period of rapid growth would be met by a staff increasing in size and in degree of specialization.  This half century mark is
no mere anniversary: it is a starting point.
Col lections
In the past few years the library has been able to report significant
increases in expenditures for books and periodicals and corresponding
increases in the size of the collections. This year was no exception.
An examination of the statistics appended to this report reveals that if
one included in the total of our resources the hundreds of thousands of
individual unlisted items in the documents and microtext collections, we
could boast of a collection containing well over a million titles.  By
custom libraries are measured by their book collections, and of physical
volumes this library held over 700,000 by the end of the report year,
double the number held just seven years ago.
This rapid development has been attributable to the unfaltering
and increasing support and cooperation of the university administration,
members of faculty and many friends of the university, and to unstinting effort on the part of the library staff. Dramatic as such growth may be,
however, it will not bear comparison with the growth of the next few years,
when the effects of Dr. H. R. MacMillan's generosity will be felt.  For in
fact within this report year it was clear that the intake of books alone
would double in 1965/66: in the period January - August 1964, 24,789
volumes were acquired, and in the same period in 1965; 40,604. At the end
of a decade our book collection will contain over two million volumes, a
size we might not have attained under normal circumstances within a
quarter century.
Reflected in every line of the book budget was the fact that
the library had joined the ranks of Harvard and the University of California
in purchasing power. Allocations to academic departments were vastly
increased or completely eliminated, permitting faculty members to take
advantage of opportunities in the out-of-print book market which have
been forsaken too often in the past. The library arranged with bookdealers
around the globe for prompt delivery of new academic publications in English
and in major European and Asian languages.  Over 2,000 new subscriptions
to scholarly and scientific journals were provided for by an increased
periodicals budget.
But riches can be the source of complications, as was and will
be the case in the Processing Divisions, where the sudden doubling of the
workload has created problems of staffing. Additional personnel were
added to the Serials, Acquisitions, Cataloguing, Government Documents and
Asian Studies Divisions, and to the Pre-Bindery, but even with further
additions in the 1966/67 fiscal year the increase in staff will not be
proportionate to the increase in work.  Intensive efforts are being made
to improve the efficiency of the Processing Division through the elimination, simplification and automation of routines. However, at the time of writing
a backlog of unprocessed material has developed, and will continue to grow
until an adequate staff can be formed.
In the fiscal year 1964/65 the library spent more than half a
million dollars on books and periodicals: $516,153.44, a 31% increase over
the previous year. The Cataloguing Division was plagued with difficulties
and extra duties during the year: building alterations played havoc with
working conditions, thirty-four new staff members including replacements
required training, almost a month was lost in taking a complete inventory
of the book collection, and a new card catalogue had to be created for
the Woodward Library. Nevertheless, output increased by about 11%. The
Bindery broke previous records by turning out more than 20,000 volumes,
24.2% more than in the previous year.
Increases in output have outstripped staff increases for many
years, and the point has been reached where our processing costs are among
the lowe&t in North America, The difference in price has too often been
paid by staff members who consistently overwork.
BuiIdings
In September the biomedical collection was moved from the Main Library to
the new Woodward Library.  From the outset it was apparent that this
facility WOuld be a success. The building, furniture and equipment met
the highest standards of utility and beauty. Access to collections was
so much improved that recorded use doubled. The quality of research and
education in the biomedical sciences has been improved by the existence
of this library. Throughout the fall and spring terms work proceeded on additions
and alterations to the Main Library.  Conditions for study and work were at
the best of times unsatisfactory, and at the worst, nearly impossible. The
entire book collection had to be moved twice, inevitably disarranging the
order of books and ultimately necessitating a total inventory before Summer
Session.  It is not surprising that this was the first year in a decade
when no major increase in borrowing from the Main Library was recorded. On
the positive side the completed building was more logically arranged from
the point of view of the user, large enough to accomodate a growing collection, and able to offer many new specialized services.  To diminish the
flow of traffic through the building the Circulation Division, Xerox Service,
Upper Year Reserve Book Room and main stack entry were placed on the main
floor, and the north wing on that floor was given over to an enlarged Fine
Arts Division. The Social Sciences, Humanities and Science Reference
Divisions were brought together on the concourse floor, adjacent to the
union catalogue, the bibliographic and reference collection and the unbound
periodicals. The book collection, formerly housed on seven floors, was
arranged on four, to reduce the vertical traffic. On the sixth floor of
stacks, a new Government Documents Division was created to maintain, develop
and service a collection of over 300,000 publications. At the south end
of the Division, all microtext and microtext readers were brought together
to permit easier access to a form of publication which is of growing
importance to modern scholarship. The Asian Studies Division occupied new
quarters in the South Wing of the sixth floor. The seventh floor was
occupied by the Processing Divisions.  On the top floor of the South Wing
a new Map Division joined the Special Collections Division. At ground level, In the north wing, a phonograph record loan
collection was formed, using the collection of the Extension Department as
a nucleus. A gift from Dr. and Mrs. Wallace Wilson made possible the
installation of listening equipment, and the result was the largest and
best such facility in a Canadian University.
Yet the expanded Main Library, the new Woodward Library and other
library and study areas around the campus did not begin to meet the real
needs of the university community. This was clearly indicated by a survey
of traffic which was made on March 1st and 2nd, two fine days of the kind
that prompt students to stay away from the library. The weather notwithstanding, libraries were heavily visited.
Total
21,325
18,976
Total Number of People Entering All Libraries
Main Library Sedgewick Curriculum Lab. Woodward
Monday 11,405    6,098     2,669       1,153
Tuesday        10,401    5,366     2,040       1,169
Total Number of People Entering Main Library Stacks
Monday    4,811
Tuesday   4,748
It was not possible to tell whether all of those who entered the
libraries came to use or borrow books, but it is obvious that with just
over 2,600 seats in all libraries, competition for a place to study was
keen. At any time of year, the need for seating js acute in every corner
of the campus. Prior to examinations, librarians are witnesses to the
sorry sight of students wandering about the library in search of a vacant
place. 7
In the immediate future two new branch libraries are assured, one
in the new Forestry-Agriculture Building, and another in the new Music
Building, These are both highly specialized libraries, designed to meet the
needs of the departments concerned. They will not go very far in solving
the general seating problem. The new reading rooms in the Angus and
Buchanan Buildings will similarly do little to alleviate the larger
difficulties.
It is a logistic necessity that further study space be provided,
and this is best accomplished by the further decentralization of the library
collections and services. Moreover, the increased rate of acquisitions will
cause the book collections to overflow existing stack areas in both the Main
and Woodward libraries. The need for other branch libraries similar to the
Woodward Library exists now, and additional stack, public and work areas
will be needed in the Main Library by 1968. The satisfaction of that need
must wait upon the availability of funds for construction, and beyond that
funds for operation, neither of which are generally plentiful at the time
of writing.
Services
Much has been written in recent years about the massive increase
in knowledge in our century and its effect on society.  It has been aptly
called the information explosion, and since the printed word is still the
principal vehicle for recording and transmitting information, libraries
are at the very heart of the explosion.  They are growing in size and
complexity, and as they grow they present greater difficulties for the
person untrained in their use and unfamiliar with the bewildering amount
of bibliographic apparatus by which information is organized and controlled. 8
In this situation the librarian has become less the mere caretaker of books
and more the specialist In the retrieval of information.
Large libraries have responded to this change of dimension by
developing services around areas of knowledge or types of material. At
this library divisions exist for the Social Sciences, Humanities, Science,
Fine Arts, Biomedical Sciences, Asian Studies, Government Documents, Maps,
Rare books and Manuscripts, Within those divisions individual librarians
have concentrated on narrower fields of material; the day of the general
librarian is over.  It is upon these specialists that the public must often
rely in finding answers to questions relating to the nature, existence and
location of information.  It is also the task of librarians to provide most
students with assistance and instruction in locating information for
themselves.
That our staff of librarians rises to the challenge of the day has
been well attested to in the letters and words of praise and commendation
received by the librarian and staff members throughout the year.  Such
testimonials are a better measure of success than statistics, or a recital
of individual tasks and records. However, it is a fact that while we provide
the quality of reference service desired, we can not provide the quantity
required.  It is not possible, for instance, to staff all reference service
points with librarians over the hundred hours that the library is open each
week.  Nor can the present staff undertake all of the projects which faculty
members wish them to do. Most serious of all, students are graduating
without an adequate understanding of research methods, which will ultimately
limit their access to the information in their own specialty.>
One solution to the problem touched upon here is to continue
the processes of specialization and decentralization.  Implicit it* this is an increase in staff and in operating budget.
Computers seem to offer another solution to the now Immense
problems of storing and retrieving information, and the hope exists that
electronic equipment can to some extent replace or diminish the need for
librarians. The evidence so far does little to support the hope, for in
those few instances where computers have been used for information retrieval,
the need for highly trained personnel has been accentuated. The U. S.
National Library of Medicine is developing the Medical Literature Analysis
and Retrieval System (MEDLARS), and this system Is already used to compile
the Index Medicus and to execute separate searches of the medical literature
for individuals with specialized interests. While the system is able to
provide superior retrieval of information due to a greater depth of indexing, it has not saved personnel.  In fact, six months are required to
train a librarian to write search formulas for the system. The day will
probably never come when we can press a button and get the answer.
The importance of the library and librarians in the crisis of
information is not remaining constant, but growing dally. The library
will therefore claim an increasingly larger share of the university budget,
but it will do so not because it is important to itself, but because it
is essential to the university.
Staff
After ten years as Director of the Harvard University Libraries,
Paul Buck set down these words as part of what he termed his administrative
credo,
"Books are essential, but they must be. selected and organized
for use and made available by people.  Buildings are necessary, but their 10
purpose is to house the people who operate the library and the people who
use it,..The importance of personnel cannot be exaggerated. An informed
staff with high morale, working together harmoniously, is indispensable;
without it, no library can be good...."
This is a simple truth, but one worth restating, since it is
so frequently lost sight of in the shadow of books and buildings. One
of the library's primary concerns must be to attract and retain staff
members of the highest possible order of ability and training.
In the past year the library met with fair success in retaining
its excellent staff of professional librarians, in the face of shortages
in both Canada and the U. S. The turnover in a group of fifty-five
librarians was slightly over 9%. Partly due to the existence of a School
of Librarianship at this university, little difficulty was encountered in
filling vacant positions.  Continued stability in this group will hinge
on the usual considerations of salary, working conditions and opportunity.
Librarians should share in any extraordinary salary increases enjoyed by
other groups on campus, and within their salary scales provision must be
made for rewarding special competence or knowledge as well as administrative
responsibility. Otherwise the rate of turnover will rise, and we wi11
merely serve as a training depot upon which other institutions can draw.
Two-thirds of the library staff are not librarians, but high-
school and university graduates trained within the library to perform
special duties. They compose for the most part the operating staff of the
library, and it is upon them that the continuity and smoothness of daily
operation must depend.  In this one year the turnover within this group
of 116 persons was 46.5%.  No organization can hope to render effective
service when one half the staff members are new and the rest are engaged 11
in instruction. What continuity exists must be supplied by librarians and
other long-term employees, a situation which tends to load clerical detail
on the shoulders of higher paid employees. The evils of wasteful operation
and poor service can not be wholly eliminated by any amount of intelligence
and good will on the part of staff, or by any number of library guides and
staff handbooks.  Improvement in present conditions must wait upon an
improvement in salary scales for clerical employees, for it is a plain
fact that university salaries are not competitive in the local market.
Beginning salaries are lower, and the ranges are so limited as to offer no
prospects for a career. Students come and go, but the library operates
around the year. As much as any business or industry, it needs a stable
corps of employees to see to its continuous successful operation.
At the end of June, Mr, Roland J. Lanning completed thirty-
seven years of service at this library. As the Head of the Serials Division
he had been concerned with that form of publication which is Of the foremost
importance in the history of ideas, the periodical literature.  It can be
conservatively estimated that he personally supervised the collections of
as much as a quarter of our present stock of volumes.  His wide-ranging
knowledge has often impressed and astounded his colleagues on the faculty
and in the library, and the fruits of his effort will be enjoyed through
centuries of scholarship at this campus.  Happily, his retirement was
quickly followed by his re-appointment as a Bibliographer, and his concern
will continue to be the development of an already superb collection of
learned journals.
The Second Fifty Years
As the University Library begins its second half century, its 12
aims - service and the development of collections - will remain the same.
But the methods of achievement will differ. The establishment, in the
Library's fiftieth year, of a Bibliography Division staffed by language,
subject and materials specialists and drawing strength from specialists
in other divisions, indicates the greater emphasis on the coordinated
development of collections. The opening of the Woodward Biomedical
Library is Indicative of the Improved service that will be provided from
a system of subject libraries by a staff of subject librarians. And the
application of data-processing techniques to the routines of circulation
and acquisitions points the way, however modestly, to on-line librarian-
computer communication for information retrieval in the electronic
library of the future.
Basil Stuart-Stubbs
University Librarian APPENDIX A
LIBRARY EXPENDITURES
Fiscal Years, April-March
1962/63    1963/64 1964/65 1965/66*
Salaries and Wages       $ 491,290 $ 594,177 . $ 685,040 $ 841,927
Books and Periodicals       292,247   393,838 516,153 1,000,000
Binding                  37,820    50,307 55,135 55,098
Supplies. Equipment/Etc.     63,350    78,237 94,299 119,230
$ 884,707 $1,116,559 $1,350,627 $2,016,255
Estimated Expenditures APPENDIX B
SIZE AND 1
3R0WTH
OF COLLECTIONS
March 31
1964
Additions
1964/65
Withdrawals
1964/65
March 31
1965
Volumes
613,878
63,130
1,562
675,446
Documents
266,911*
40,304
-
307,215
MlcrofIlm
4,701
508
-
5,209
Microcard
8,977
13
-
8,990
Microprint
55,654
5,476
-
61,130
Microfiche
692
5,199
-
5,891
Maps
40,539*
2,500*
150*
42,889*
Manuscripts
136 ft.**
262 ft.**
-
398 ft
* Figures approximate
**    Thickness of files APPENDIX C
RECORDED USE OF LIBRARY RESOURCES
September 1964 - August 1965
1961/62
General Circulation
Main Loan Desk
238,554
Sedgewick Library
148,963
Woodward Library
22,990
Fine Arts Room
15,789
Humanities Division
4,651
Science Division
2,354
Social Sciences Division
8,571
Special Collections
2,067
Asian Studies Division
1,317
Curriculum Laboratory
51,729
Biomedical Branch, V. G, H,
—•*—
496,985
1962/6?
273,465
163,908
23,389
19,622
3,858
2,066
6,443
2,659
1,880
49,981
547,271
1963/64
307,383
164,577
27,494
27,737
3,466
2,228
7,957
2,785
2,370
77,228
623,225
1964/65
257,530
175,923
54,527
28,457
2,200
1,925
9,457
4,636
1,593
106,860
17,988
661,096
Reserve Circulation
97,255 "   102,139
115,372
127,561
Inter-Library Loans
To Other Libraries
From Other Libraries
2,417
650
1,914
657
1,215
1,160
1,213
1,662
3,067
2,571
2,375
2,275
Photocopies
To Other Libraries
From Other Libraries
272
248
520
655
455
1,110
1,505
678
2,183
1,173
813
1,986
Grand Total
597,827
653,091
743,155
792,918 APPENDIX D
LIBRARY ORGANIZATION
ADMINISTRATION
Stuart-Stubbs, Basil
Bell, Inglis F.
Hamilton, Robert M.
Watson, William
McDonald, Robin
ACQUISITIONS
Butterfield, Rita
Shields, Dorothy
ASIAN STUDIES
Ng, Tung King
BIBLIOGRAPHY DIVISION
Lanning, Roland J.
CATALOGUE DIVISION
Dobbin, Gerry
CIRCULATION DIVISION
Harris, Robert
CURRICULUM LABORATORY
Woodwa rd, Em i1y
EXTENSION LIBRARY
Mercer, Eleanor
FINE ARTS DIVISION
Dwyer, Melva
GOVERNMENT PUBLICATIONS
Dodson, Suzanne
HUMANITIES DIVISION
Selby, Joan
LAW LIBRARY
University Librarian
Associate Librarian
Assistant Librarian
Assistant Librarian
Systems Analyst
Funds & Invoicing Librarian III
Orders Librarian I I I
Head, Librarian IV
Head, Librarian IV
Head, Librarian IV
Head, Librarian III
Head, Librarian I I
Head, Librarian IV
Head, Librarian IV
Head, Librarian I I I
Head, Librarian I I I
Ingram, Doreen
Head, Librarian I I I APPENDIX D Continued
RECORDINGS COLLECTION
Kaye, Douglas Recordings Librarian
SCIENCE DIVISION
Lelth, Anna Head, Librarian IV
SEDGEWICK LIBRARY
Erickson, Ture Head, Librarian III
SERIALS DIVISION
Johnson, Steven Acting Head
BINDING SECTION
Fryer, Percy Sr. Foreman
SOCIAL SCIENCES DIVISION
Brearley, Anne Head, Librarian IV
SPECIAL COLLECTIONS
Carson, Anne Head, Librarian III
WOODWARD LIBRARY
Mclnnes, Douglas Head, Librarian IV APPENDIX E
Senate Library Committee
1964/65
Dr, I, McT. Cowan, Chairman
Mr. F. E. Walden
Dr. S. M. Friedman
Dr. M. F. McGregor
Dr. K. Mann
Dr. S. Rothstein
Dr. J. Norris
Chancellor Phyllis G. Ross (ex officio)
President J. B. Macdonald (ex officio)
Mr, J. E. A„ Parnall (ex officio)
Mr. Basil Stuart*Stubbs (ex officio)
Terms of Reference:
The Senate Library Committee shall advise and assist the
Librarian in:
{])     Formulating a library policy in relation to the
development of resources for instruction and research;
(2) Allocating book funds to the fields of instruction
and research;
(3) Developing a general program of library service
for all the interests of the University;
(4) Keeping the Librarian informed concerning the
library needs of instructional and research staffs;
(5) Interpreting the Library to the University,