College and Research Libraries


By LESTER ASHEIM 

What Kind of Books? 
What Kind of Readers?! 

Mr. A sheim is assistant professorj Gradu-
ate Library Schoolj University of Chicago. 

W HEN THE SUBJECT of the present conference-" More Books; More 
Readers"-was told to me, and I was asked 
to present a paper which would relate in 
some way to the topic at hand, it seemed to 
me ' that the only possible reaction that I 
could voice would be one of skepticism con-
cerning the implicit assumption underly-
ing the conference theme. As it hardly 
seemed proper for me, as invited guest, to 
accept the invitation and then promptly to 
question the beliefs of my hosts, I was in 
a quandary as to how to approach the sub-
ject of my paper. It was a great relief 
when I discovered that the title sugges-
ted for the paper seemed to support my be-
lief that the theme of the conference cannot 
mean what it says. "What kind of books? 
What kind of readers?" poses some basic 
questions ~oncerning the starry-eyed ideal-
ism of the official statement-questions 
which came immediately to -my mind when 
the theme was announced. Apparently, 
then I should not be completely out of 
'tune' with my listeners if I should enlarge 
upon those questions in the body of my 
paper. 

Strictly speaking, it would seem that 
any attack upon the "more books-more 
readers" ideal should be directed at the 
public library rather than at the academic 
library. The drives for larger circulation, 
for new registrants and for wider appeals 

t Paper presented at the Conference of the Illinois 
Library Association, November 1948. 

to the public are mainly the concern of 
the public library. After all, the public 
to whom the college and university library 
caters is limited by definition: it consists of 
the student body, the faculty, and the 
alumni of the particular institution. I 
think it has never been seriously proposed 
that the college library make a concerted 
effort to attract to its collection the mem-
bers of the community-at-large who are not 
in some way connected with the school. 
More books may be a problem in the col-

. b " d "? ' lege library, ut are more rea ers . 
In three very important ways the college 

and university libraries have an interest in 
the "more readers" question which makes 
it pertinent to evaluate that goal even be-
fore such a group as this. First, the col-
lege2 librarians are keenly aware that all of 
their potential users are not reached; that 
even within the limits which the special 
nature of the library imposes, there is not 
a 100 per cent response from its community. 
Therefore many college librarians consider 
the drive for more readers to be a legiti-
mate goal as long as any part of the student 
body or the faculty remains unreached by 
the library. The first goalj then, is to 
reach those students who are not now pa-
trons of the library. 

Secondly, college librarians are even 
more concerned with . the fact that library 
use is merely a mandatory chore for many 
students. They know that a great majority 
of their patrons read only assigned pages 

2 For the sake of convenience. the terms "c<?llege 
library" and "university library" will be useq mt~r­
changeably thro1;1gh<;mt .this pape: to denote. all hbranes 
connected with mstttuttons of htgher learntng. 

242 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES 



in prescribed books; that many never set 
foot in any part of the library except the 
reserve room; and that the few nonassigned 
titles which do circulate are seldom free-
reading, but are generally used for the writ-
ing of term papers or in some other connec-
tion with assigned class work. Librarians 
feel that such grudging and disinterested 
use of library materials is the le.ast desirable 
use to which its facilities can be put. They 
should like to see their students really in-
terested in the book, reading with pleasure, 
however serious the purpose served. The 
college librarian is interested in enticing 
students to read on their own-for recrea-
tion, for information, for self-education-
without the imposition of class assignment 
to rob the reading act of the benefits of 
spontaneous choice and desire. The second 
goal~ then~ is not just to reach new readers~ 
but to make real readers of those we al-
ready have. 

Thirdly, college librarians know that 
while students and young people in their 
teens form a large proportion of the library 
clientele even in the public library, that 
neither the college nor the public library 
retains more than a fraction of them as pa-
trons five or ten years later. They rea-
lize that once formal schooling is dropped, 
book reading is also dropped by the great 
majority. That these young people have 
taken occup'ations as self-supporting adults, 
that they have assumed family responsibili-
ties, that other rival interests vie for their 
time is acknowledged. These are all good 
reasons for failure to read, but librarians · 
doubt that they are the real reasons. For 
those who do continue to read are also sub-
ject to the same demands upon their atten-
tion and rivals for their time. "No time" 
is the reason given by people who do not 
want to read. Invariably it has been found 
that time exists for many other noncom-
pulsory activities in which the repondent 
has a greater interest. Librarians fear that 

JULY~ 1949~ PART I 

they, along with our modern educational 
system, are partially responsible for this 
condition. If reading were made more at-
tractive to the students; if they were taught 
to turn to the book almost as second 
nature; if a more concentrated effort were 
made to make lifelong book-users, perhaps 
school-leaving would not automatically 
mean book-leaving. Thus, the third goal 
is not merely the extension of reading to 

nonreaders~ nor the enrichment of the 
readers whom we now have~ but the reten-

tion of current readers as library users 
after they are no longer members of the col-
lege student body. 

At present, the college library's most 
typical approach to all three of these prob-
lems has been through the establishment of 
browsing rooms, ·or general reading collec-
tions. Most collections of this type are 
admittedly and deliberately stocked with 
noncurricular reading to attract those 
whose classwork does not force them to use 
library materials; to supplement class as-
signments with recreational reading which 
will cater to personal interests; and to 
demonstrate the many-faceted appeals and 
services which the book can provide in 
addition to the purely educational ones. In 
such a collection, colleges and universities 
attempt to provide attractive and friendly 
personnel in an atttractive and friendly at-
mosphere stocked with, if you will pardon 
the pathetic fallacy, attractive and friendly 
books. These, they feel, are the three basic 
requirements for luring in new readers, 
broadening the interests of the readers it 
has, and establishing a habit of book read-
ing which will be lasting. 

The theory behind such a collection ap-
pears logical enough. Most university li-
b~aries have closed stacks and complicated 
charging and request procedures. Many 
students do not even know what kinds of 
things are available in the ·collection. It is 
assumed that many of them might read 

243 



much more if materials meeting their needs 
and coinciding with their interests were 
brought to their attention and made accessi-
ble. The establishment of a collection of 
books of general interest which are readily 
accessible when wanted, and which may be 
examined by the reader and easily charged 
out, eliminates an unnecessary barrier be-
tween reader and book and guards against 
the loss of many potential readers who 
otherwise might never find the useful and 
worthwhile titles for which, all uncon-
sciously, they may be seeking. And the 
student who learns to turn to the library 
for his leisure reading-the student who 
learns what pleasure can be obtained from 
the book, even though his use of it may be 
educational or informational rather than 
recreational-will be the · student, it is be-
lieved, who forms a life long habit of good 
reading which school-leaving will not 
break. 

The widespread approval of such collec-
tions by librarians is not shared by all edu-
cators or educational systems. There are 
those who would deny the responsibility of 
the college library to step outside the cur-
riculum to win readers; who would insist 
that extracurricular activities and interests 
are sufficiently met by nonacademic agen-
cies and that the problem of what kind of 
reading people do I o years after they 
leave school can best be tackled by an edu-
cational system which teaches serious read-
ing habits rather than by one which 
strengthens nonintellectual predispositions. 

The college of the University of Chicago 
represents a case in point. Under the 
Chicago plan, the college students are pre-
sented with a heavy program of prescribed 
reading which covers the "best that is known 
and thought" in the major intellectual disci-
plines. It is a heavy schedule, stringently 
selected and rigorously imposed. The basic 
readings must be purchased, in symposia of 
selections gathered into syllabi. The addi-

tional readings are classical and standard 
titles available on reserve and in the stacks 
of the several university libraries. The 
assignments are such that the student is not 
left with much leisure in which to browse 
through the popular titles of the day. If 
he has time to read, there is a program of 
reading waiting for him. U,nder such a 
system there is no logical place for a brows-
ing collection in the usual sense. The sys-
tem has no faith in the educational benefits 
to be derived from reading which cannot 
be defended as contributing to the purposes 
of its prescribed curriculum. 3 Therefore, 
with space at a premium and the need to 
justify the use made of every available 
room in the library building, the abandon-
ment of the "browsing collection" is a logi-
cal step. Today, the University of Chi-
cago Library no longer has a browsing col-
lection-for the· Universitr of Chicago is 
an educational, not a recreational, institu-
tion. 

Such a viewpoint, resulting as it does in 
the reduction of the number of libraries 
rather than in their multiplication, is a 
shocking one to mpst librarians. They 
point out that reading, even of books out-
side the prescribed list of "greats," is an 
important activity, and that the provision 
of materials for such reading and the in-
culcation of reading habits for whatever 
purposes they might serve the • reader, are · 
responsibilities of the library. They en-
large upon the benefits of recreational read-
ing for which no scholarly justification may 
be found at all. They indicate that "free" 

· reading, in the sense of reading to which 
the student turns of his own free will 
rather than because of prescribed assign-
ment, often has a· greater effect upon the 

a Note the wording of the phrase "contributing- to 
the purposes of its prescribed curriculum," which tndi -
cates that reading is not limited merely to that which 
is assigned. If is limited to that which will serve 
the same high and serious purposes as the curriculum 
itself; and it is not part of the school's program to 
strengthen, foster 1 and p erfetuate the undiscriminating 
and unenltghtenea tastes o preuniversity days. 

244 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES 



student just because it is not prescribed. 
They deplore the implicit intellectual 
snobbery which would place beyond the 
pale everything which does not fit the 
particular standards set by a selfappointed 
group of experts. 

The University of Chicago approach, 
• however, does not deny the benefits of 

purely recreational reading. It willingly 
admits that there are other aspects of life 
in addition to the academic, and that a well-
rounded individual does not limit himself 
to the single one. It recognizes that rental 

. libraries, popular bookstores, corner news-
stands and drugstore book departments 
serve useful functions in our society. But 
it takes the stand that the university's func-
tion (and therefore the function of the 
university's library) is educational, and 
that noneducational needs should be filled 
elsewhere. The very fact that other media 
and other agencies are established · which 
effectively rival the library in these areas of 
the noneducational underlines the special 
responsibility of the university library for 
concentrating upon that area of communi-
cation which is its special province and in 
which no other agency does exist. The 
uncritical, the recreational, the standard-
ized materials are multiplied through all 
the several popular agencies of communi-
cation. The serious and permanent ma-
terials which supply the range and depth 
of content to which the scholar should 
address himself are nowhere made available 
except in the library. The library should 
not lose its distinctive character by trying 
to take over responsibilities which more 
properly adhere to other agencies. The 
library of the university should be just 
that; not another curbservice collection of 
popular ephemera. 

The immediate objection to such a cir-
cumscribed program is that it will result in 
a loss of patronage, and that the library 
will soon be serving only the few select 

JULY~ 1949~ PART I 

students who are already capable of appre-
ciating the advantages which good reading 
has to offer. There is no denying that a 
library following such a policy would lose 
some of its patrons. But it would lose 
mainly those who do not want a university 
library to be a university library, but 
rather a more accessible department store. 
If it is the function . of the university 
library to lead students to the best read-
ing, t~n the best reading is what it should 
collect. It is not its business to increase 
the number of patrons for that kind of 
casual reading which Coleridge called one 
of the great destroyers of intellect. 

There is a good practical objection which 
immediately enters the debate at this point. 
It does no good, the argument runs, to have 
a well-selected collection, chosen with taste 
and discrimination, if no one ever uses it. 
The library can only lead those to better 
reading who are present to be led. The 
first step must be taken where the reader 
is, not where you wish he were, before the 
second step toward better reading can be 
taken. It is a case of immediate vs. ulti-
mate goals. The important thing is to get 
the patron into the library and then to 
teach him to choose wisely and well. 
Therefore, and this argument is put for-
ward by college libraries as well as by 
public libraries, the provision of much that 
is second rate and mediocre is necessary in 
order to lure the reader into the library. 
After he is in, reading his Thorne Smith, 
we can introduce him to wr•iters of greater 
literary and cultural significance. 

Unfortunately we have no proof that 
the reader who is not interested in signifi-
cance can be led to it. We have no good 
studies which trace through time the devel-
opment of literary taste in a user of a 
library. We need some good intensive 
case histories which follow a patron 
through his library career, to see if it is 
really true that the devotee of Thorne 

245 



Smith automatically learns to enjoy Her-
man Melville-or even Mark Twain-
just because of the physical presence of 
titles by these writers on adjoining library 
shelves. The cynics are of the opinion 
that the patron who starts as a reader of 
Thorne Smith will, after 20 years, be read-
ing the latest Thorne Smith, or reasonable 
facsimile. They point out that the Kath-
leen Norris fans who showed a sudden in-
terest in Emily Bronte were led to the 
classic, not by the cultural influence of the 
library, but by a fanatic addiction to 
Laurence Olivier's cleft chin. The burden 
of proof rests with those who claim that, 
in order to raise the standards of the pa-
tron, we must lower the standards of the 
library. 

Advocates of this position should recog-
nize the serious responsibility that such a 
view places upon them. If it is true that 
the library establishes habits of' reading 
which the student carries with him through-
out his life, then is there not the danger 
that the library actually teaches him to turn 
to t.he second rate and the mediocre rather 
than to the best? For note the interesting 
contradiction in terms. While such a view 
acknowledges the library's ultimate func-
tion to be the provision of the good (how-
ever defined), it advocates the acceptance of 
the less good as the means to attain it. 
Such a stand can be justified, it seems to 
me, only if you believe that book reading 
per se, is a better activity than any other. 
Advocates of reading though we be, I think 
that even librarians would not claim that 
reading is always ~ better for everyone than 
something else would be. 

The American Library Association, in 
its statement of postwar standards/ lists 
five objectives of library service (and I 
presume, of the book) which are conceived 
of as the library's primary areas of concen-

4 America n Libra ry Association. Committee on Post-
war Plannin g. Postw ar Standards f or Public L i bra-
ries. Chicago, A.L.A ., 19 4 3, p. 2 0. 

tration. These five are: (I) education, 
( 2) information, ( 3) research, ( 4) recre-
ation, and ( 5) esthetic appreciation. Let 
us ask a question or two concerning these 
areas to see if even here the book is indis-
putably the most important source to 
which to turn. First-education. Is it 
always better for the seeker after educa- • 
tion to read a book rather than to hear a 
lecture, or view a practical laboratory 
demonstration? Second-information. Is 
a book a more satisfactory source of infor-
mation of all kinds, or are there occasions 
when it might be better to consult, let us 
say, a physician, or a clergyman, or a 
plumber? Third-research. Does the 
book supersede controlled laboratory experi-
mentation, operational verification and 
empirical demonstration? Fourth-recrea-
tion. Is it always better to read a book-
especially in the ill ventilated and dimly 
lighted mausoleums which libraries too 
often provide for that purpose-than to 
take a hike, or play a game of tennis or 
putter in the garden? And fifth-esthetic 
apprec1atwn. If you could only do one or 
the other, would it be better to hear a 
symphony, look at a statue, attend an art 
exhibit-or read books about them? I do 
not stay for an answer, but obviously the· 
superiority of book reading depends upon 
the purpose to be served, the circumstances 
surrounding the reading situation, the indi-
vidual concerned-and the excellence of the 
book. 

All of which leads us back to a position 
outlined earlier: that the function of the. 
college . library , is not merely to provide 
reading, but to provide the best reading. 
Reading in. itself is not a better thing un-
less it contributes something worthwhile 
which no other source can contribute. The 
case for the book cannot be made on the 
grounds that it is just as good as a movie 
or a soap opera, but that it is very much 
better. Let those who want soap operas 

246 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES 



listen to them, but do not pretend to be 
improving their tastes just because you 
put the soap opera in a buckram binding. 
For the kind of thing it does, the soap 
opera is supreme; the book cannot and 
should not try to vie with it on its home 
grounds. It would do better frankly to 
admit that it serves another public. 

The corollary of this conclusion is that 
our libraries then will be the haven of the 
few rather than of the many, and that we 
may be deliberately sending patrons else-
where instead of trying to attract them to 
the library. But if you have admitted that 
book reading is not always the preferable 
activity in all cases, why should there be an 
objection to sending people to that agency 
which will serve their needs better? The· 
library will just have to become reconciled 
to the hard fact that the services it offers, 
however excellent, are desired by an atypi-
cal minority. 

To many this appears to be a kind of 
intellectual idealism, but actually it is less 
idealism than it is realism. The library, 
even now, is a minority institution. We do 
not serve the majority of our population 
anywhere; or if we do serve the majority 
in numbers (as we do on most college 
campuses) we serve them only because 
under the compulsion of class assignment 
they must come to us. That a majority 
would not do so voluntarily is attested by 
the fact that such a large porportion of 
them leave the library when they leave the 
school. 

What about our goal of winning per-
manent users for the library? If we limit 
our patronage to the select few, do we 
not limit the possibilities for making last-
ing habits of library use among our poten-
tial clientele? Again it must be admitted 
that we are limiting our potential public, 
but the limitation is placed upon quantity, 
and our quantitative impact upon the com-
munity has never been our most notable 

JULYJ 1949J PART I 

contribution to society. Since we are al-· 
ready selective, would it harm us to be 
slightly more so? 

For note: the selectivity is not imposed 
by the library, which is open to all. It is a 
process of selfselection which operates 
among the public themselves. The public 
library's clientele is topheavy with the 
better educated, far out of proportion to 
their numbers in the population. The 
learned and the skilled professions use the 
library much more than their pro~ortion 
of the population warrants. The commun-
ity and opinion leaders are much more 
likely to be library users than are the people 
they lead. That being so, it would seem 
that the college library and college educa-
tion have not failed as badly as we think; 
by and large, the better educated are the 
library users. If we have failed, our fail-
ure lies in ignoring our natural clientele in 
a vain attempt to pull into our libraries 
those who do not want what we are best 
equipped to give. For as we demonstrated 
earlier, for some people in some circum-
stances, the book is not the best and most 
useful medium. The book serves best only 
those who seriously seek the kind of knowl-
edge, understanding and growth that it and 
it alone provides. The blame for our 
minority appeal, if it be blameworthy, be-
longs not to the library but to the very 
process of reading itself, for its appeal, 
naturally and inevitably, is limited to the 
few. 

What of the influence of the library? 
Are we going to limit our impact upon 
society by serving the few instead of the 
many? Again we must recognize that 
even if the public library served every 
single person in the community who ever 
reads as much as a book a month, it would 
still reach only about 30 per cent of the 
adult population. The influence of the 
book, and of the library as the agency for 
distributing the book, has always been an 

247 



indirect one. The books that have changed 
our minds-the Darwins, the Freuds, the 
Marxes-have never reached the great 
majority directly, even though the lives of 
that majority have been colored and re-
shaped by them. It is always the leader, 
the teacher, the expert, who has acted as 
intermediary between the majority and the 
printed word. Jf we serve these real 
readers with the best, will we not, by 
training the natural leaders to be more 

· enlightened leaders, be doing a greater in-
direct service to the majority than if we 
sacrificed the leadership in favor of the 
most backward in the parade? It seems 
to me that it cannot be denied that we will. 

I should like to anticipate two objections 
which are usually raised when such sug-
gestions as this are put forward. The first 
is that nobody really knows what the best 
and the good are; that excellence is judged 
solely on subjective stilndards and what is 
good for one is not for another. Grant-
ing that differences of opinion exist, and 
different purposes are served in differ-
ent ways, still we do have standards upon 
which excellence can be judged. There 
are good books and poor ones; worthwhile 
and worthless ones-and we know it. The 
standards may require sharper definition 
and more precise delimitation, but stand-
ards have been devised, and librarians, even 
now, act upon some of them. That we 
cannot buy everything that is published 
means that we must be selective. A value 
judgment is exercised every time one book 
is purchased while another is not. But 
under our present system of book selection, 
we act on the premise that we should place 
our minimum level of merit as low as we 

possibly can, and I am advocating merely 
that we place· it as high as we possibly can. 

The second traditional objection is that 
the librarian does not have the right to 
dictate what other people shall and shall 
not read. I agree heartily with that state-
ment, but I think that the librarian does 
have the right to decide what shall be 
placed on the library's shelves (which is 
an enti~ely different thing). It is the right 
of his office~-the right that permits the 
conductor of the symphony to select Hinde-
mith and eschew the Hit Parade-the right 
which allows the curator of the museum 
to accept Gaugin for exhibition and reject 
George · Petty; the right of the corner 
drug store, indeed, to stock The Babe 
Ruth Story~ but not the Bhagavad Gita. 
It is a right which even the objecting 
librarians themselves exercise every time 
they reject a pornographic title for library 
purchase. Again it is merely a matter of 
deciding whether the critical floor we estab-
lish shall be as low as we can possibly 
allow it to be-or as high. 

The latter objective does not rule out 
fiction, humor or reading for pleasure. It 
does not rule out, for university libraries, 
the provision of many second-rate materials 
needed for research, analysis and compari-
son. It does rule out those titles which 
can be defended on no other grounds than 
that a popular and completely uncritical 
demand for them exists. It rules out-as · 
patrons of the college library-those whose 
only reading interest is in the inferior and 
the unsound. 

More books, more readers? Quite prob-
ably not. But better books and better 
readers, certainly. 

248 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES