College and Research Libraries By NORMAN BURNS Accrediting Procedures with Special Reference to Libraries! Dr. Burns is secretary, Commission on Colleges and Universities, of the North Central Association of Colle__ges and Sec- ondary Schools. T o MANY college officials the North Cen-tral Association is just one more of the seemingly innumerable agencies, groups, and individuals asking for reports. What is your enrolment? What is your endow- ment income? How many books do you have in your library? What percentage of your income is from tuition? How many Ph.D's do you have on your faculty? These agencies, groups, and individuals ask for re- ports with complete disregard, so it seems, for the fact that filling them out takes time and costs money-time and money which the college official would much prefer to spend on developing some of his many ideas for strengthening the program of his in- stitution. Many of these requests for information come from researchers, students of educa- tion who need facts on which to base their studies. · The administrator can pick and choose among such requests, basing his se- lection on the seeming merit of the request in relation to the amount of work required. But when it comes to the accrediting agen- cies, he does not have this free choice. He must comply with all requirements set down by such associations as a condition for maintaining the academic respectability 1 Paper pres ented a t the me eting c;>f the Junior Col- lege Libraries S ection, A. C . R.L., Chicago, January 21 , 1949· . APRIL., 1949 of his institution. Therefore he makes out all the reports required. It would not be so bad if these accrediting agencies stopped . with reporting. "But," says the harried administrator, · "they don't stop there. I assemble the data they want; they analyze it; measure the results by a yardstick of preconceived notions as to what a good institution should be. Then they inform me that the chosen company of the approved is not for my institution. I don't have enough books in the library, or my staff does not have enough persons holding the Ph.D." This administrator, if he is sufficiently unorthodox, may wonder whetHer it inay possibly not be more important that the library have the books required by the cur- riculum, that they be distributed in accord- ance ~ith the relative emphasis placed on various elements in the curriculum, and that the students use the booh, rather than that there be a certain number of books in the library. If he is a complete heretic, he may even raise a question as to whether possession of the Ph.D degree is the sine qua non of good teaching. There is an even more serious conse- quence of this imposition of "standards" by outside agencies on which I should like to comment. One of the outstanding char- acteristics of American higher education- one of its greatest strengths-is institutional individuality. This individuality is pre- served only to the extent that each institu- tion is free to examine the needs of the 155 particular clientele it wishes to serve, to define its functions in the light of that area of needs which it feels it can meet effec- tively, and then to set up a program and organization designed to attain the ob- jectives which it has set for itself. The accrediting agency which sets arbi- trary minimum standards to which all in- stitutions must conform tends to force all institutions into the same mold. To the ex- tent that it enforces a set of minimum standards, it takes over the administration of the institution through limiting the free- . dom of the institution to plan its own af- fairs. This danger is so real that more than one eminent educator has called for an end to all accrediting, feeling that the evils of accrediting outweigh whatever bene- fits are to be derived. The North Central Association attempts to avoid this danger. Fundamental to its purposes is the preservation of instituj ional Initiative and individuality. I quote from the Statement of Policy Relative to the Accrediting of Institutions of Higher Edu- cation: "In its accrediting procedures the Asso- ciation intends, within the general patterns of higher education, to observe such. prin- ciples as will preserve whatever desirable individual qualities member institutions may have. While it is necessary to empha- size certain characteristics that are recog- . nized as basic, such as the competence of the faculty, the representative character of the curricul urn, effective administration, standards of student accomplishment, and financial adequacy, it is regarded as of prime importance also to protect such in- stitutional variations as appear to be edu- cationally sound. Even in these basic mat- ters it is clear that considerable divergence from average or optimum conditions may occur without perceptibly detracting from the essential educational worth of an in- stitution. Uniformity in every detail of in- stitutional policies and ,practices is believed to be not only unnecessary but undesirable. Well conceived experiments aimed to im- prove educational processes are considered essenti'al to the gr~wth of higher institu- tions and will be encouraged." It is clear, then, that in appraising the worth of an institution it is essential that one begin with the purposes of the institu- tion and proceed from there to examine its program-the curriculum, the faculty, the student personnel services, the library- in the light of the particular goals which the institution has set for itself. Implicit in this approach is the concept of a qualita- tive approach rather than reliance on merely quantitative measures. Quantitative meas- ures are, to some extent it is true, used in the N_' orth Central accrediting procedures, but only where there is evidence that such quantitative measures are related to in- stitutional quality. Furthermore, all the criteria employed are used not as separ~te and discrete measures, but are considered rather in relation first, to the purposes of the institution, and second, to all other characteristics of the institution. For ex- ample, one of the measures of faculty com- petence has to do with the extent to which the faculty holds graduate degrees, but no institution is refused North Central ac- creditation because the percentage of gradu- ate degrees falls below a set minimum. Our concern is rather with the total pattern which an institution presents in the light of its professed objectives and in comparison with other institutions of the same general type. The number of graduate degrees is only one item in the total pattern, and may be expected to vary from one institution to another. ·f An accrediting agency, like any other social institution, must continually exam- ine its purposes and procedures with a view to improvement; must be flexible enough to make the adjustments called 'for 156 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES by changing conditions. Failure to do so may mean that the agency acts to exert a ·retarding influence on educational progress rather than as a constructive force lending its weight to educational improvement. As one piece of evidence of North Cen- tral Association's awareness of this prob- lem, I can point to the study of the junior or community college now underway under the sponsorship of the association. This institution is developing in response to so- cial demands for an extension of educa- tional opportunities on the post high school level and .is assuming a place of growing importance in the American education scene. The association would be derelict in its responsibilities if it were to ignore, in connection with its accrediting activiti~s , the unique character of this institution and were to continue to think solely in terms of the standard college and university. The study which is being carried on seeks to define the characteristics of the effective junior college and to develop appropriate criteria of excellence. What I have said so far is by way of explanation of the North Central Associa- tion's general approach to the matter of accrediting. Let us see how these general principles are applied in the evaluation of . the college library. First, I am glad to say that we do not ' ask how ' many volumes are in the library. Having made this state- ment with justifiable pride, I must then admit that we are not wholly satisfied with our evaluative techniques in the area of the library (or, for that matter, in other areas). I hope we never become completely satis- fied. With complacency comes the end of progress. Though the number of volumes is not a matter of importance we are, of course, concerned wit_h the adequacy of the hold- in~ Under present procedures we attempt to get at this matter in several ways. For one thing, we are concerned with the ade- APRIL~ 1949 quacy of the holdings of standard works of general reference and special reference where pertinent to the curriculum of the institution. It is also obviously important that the library receive and make accessible the better general magazines, together with the standard periodicals in the fields in- cluded in the curriculum. Checklists are employed for measuring the holdings of reference books and periodi- cals. These checklists were carefully con- structed by a committee of librarians rep- resenting various types of institutions. But the checklist technique has, as you all know, serious weaknesses. In the first place , checklists get o'ut of date very soon and practical considerations preclude as fre- quent revisions as would be necessary to keep them up-to-date. Then, too, since institutions are rated on the basis of the checklists, it is hardly surprising that they are sometimes used as buying guides. This not only destroys the value of the checklist as a measuring instrument, but-and this is even more serious-the institution is then buying the books it needs to secure a high rating rather than the books it needs for the institutional program. Before proceeding further, I should re- port that our procedures for the evaluation of libraries are being re-examined by · a rep- resentative committee of librarians, revised report forms are being prepared, and mem- ber institutions will be asked to make a report on their libraries next autumn. The checklist device will be subjected to particu- larly searching scrutiny, and may be aban- . cloned. I cannot say what will be sub- stituted for the checklists, should their use be discontinued. It may be found that expenditures for library purposes, for books, periodicals, visual aids, and other materials correlate highly with adequacy of holdings; if this were the case it would not be neces- sary to attempt to measure adequacy of holdings directly. 157 Whether or not this turns out to be the case, it is clear that the level of expendi- tures is an important factor, since good in- tensions can hardly be realized unless funds are available for library purposes. Infor- mation is therefore secured on expenditures for books over a five year period and on library salaries. Expenditures for library purposes and library holdings contribute only to the po- tential effectiveness of the library; they do not directly measure its actual effectiveness. The best of facilities, library or otherwise, are of little value unless they are used. Clearly, the effectiveness of a library is reflected in large part by · the manner in which and the extent to which it is used by the students. This is, admittedly, a difficult matter to get at directly. I am sure you would agree that there is no sta- tistical measure of student ·use which is wholly satisfactory. It is also important in this connection that there be evidence of efforts to encour- age student use; sufficient copies of reserved books ; direct access to books, such . as open stacks, at least where the institution is small ' enough to permit easy supervision; special facilities for leisure reading; exten- sion of library materials to student housing facilities; advertising of bo.oks for displays and notices. The effective college library must of cours~ serve the faculty as well as the stu- dents. Is provision made for supplying books and professional journals which will contribute to the professional growth of the faculty member even though they are too technical or specialized to be useful to most of the students? Does the librarian assume the responsibility for the prepara- tion of lists of new and important publica- tions for distribution among the teachers? Is regular provision made for informing teachers of the receipt of new publications? Are teachers permitted to withdraw and keep for a long period of time books which are not in demand by students? These are among the questions that are asked. Also of importance is the extent to which faculty members actually take advantage of the provisions made to facilitate their use of the library. Faculty use, like student use, is difficult to measure directly, but institu- tions are encouraged to keep records. Let me return for a moment to the mat- ter of holdings. As in other aspects of institutional appraisal, ~he North Central Association's concern is that the holdings reflect the purposes of the institution, and, since the library is important only in rela- tion to the total institutional pattern, that the holdings be appropriate to the curricu- lums offered and the courses taught. Clearly, an institution should have the mos complete collection possible of library ma- terials in those fields in which it has the most students studying. A large collection of materials relating to subjects not considered in the courses offered is not regarded as contributory to the effectiveness of the li- brary. In setting up the budget, funds should be allocated in terms of some sys- tematic procedure for determining the rela- tive needs of the various areas. I have tried to set forth briefly the gen- eral point of view underlying the North Central Association's accrediting proce- dures and to indicate the kinds of things we look at in appraising the library. As you can see, there are weaknesses in these proce- dures, and there are also omissions-for example, there is no reference in the present statement of criteria to audio-visual ma- terials. As conditions change in the world of . education we must re-examine our pro- cedures and do what we can to remedy the deficiencies. But if the general principles of accrediting under which we operate are sound-and I believe they are-the asso- ciation can be a constructive force for the improvement of educational practice. 158 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES