College and Research Libraries By R O B E R T H . M U L L E R A Program for Staff Reading Dr. Muller is director of libraries, South- ern Illinois University. WE L L - R E A D librarians seem to be in danger of becoming extinct. T h i s trend might be related to the widely ac- cepted policy of not permitting any pro- tracted library staff reading on paid library time, with the exception of the reading of professional library literature, such as book reviews, catalogs, and articles on library techniques. I t has been suggested that the responsibility for preventing the extinction of well-read librarians rests with the li- brary administrator rather than with his staff. However, the policy that all library staff reading must be done outside library walls seems rather deeply entrenched. Hence, any library administrator who dared to deviate f r o m t h a t policy by requiring his staff to read during working hours would invite censure from his superiors. For the sake of clarifying the issue, let us assume that a head librarian did decide to take a chance and proceeded to establish an official reading program for his staff. Let us assume that the program will be lim- ited to the professional staff, with no dif- ferentiation between those assigned to reader services and technical processing services, respectively. I t is conceivable that a reading specialist or a committee composed of top-ranking library staff members would select the most significant titles from the point of view of the actual or desirable reading interests of library users. Such titles might then be as- signed to the staff for reading. A visible file catalog or posters might make it known to the public what titles have been read and by whom on the library staff. If a library user wished to obtain a first-hand reaction to a book, he would attempt to locate the librarian who appeared in the file or catalog as having read the book. Staff-written book annotations could be posted in the library and staff members would be urged to seek opportunities for giving book talks both in the library and before organized groups. Such immediate service, however, repre- sents only a minor benefit of a reading program. Published reviews written by pro- fessional reviewers will often be superior in quality to annotations written by members of a library staff. ' T h e more important re- sult of a staff reading program is less tangi- ble than providing immediate service. W h a t the program would create is a staff of librarians who read and who know books and who may thus be in a better position to stimulate reading in others. T h r o u g h genuine enthusiasm for some of the books they have personally read, they may infect library patrons with a desire for reading; and it is the book-steeped atmosphere thus engendered that would also save the soul of many a library employee and encourage oth- ers to join the profession. Cost O n e - f o u r t h of the available professional staff time, although obviously an arbitrary fraction, is probably the minimum time to be set aside for consecutive reading if re- sults are to be noticeable. U n d e r the plan whereby the reading is distributed among all members of the professional staff, each would spend no more than thirty hours a week performing regular library duties, such as book selection, cataloging, reference serv- ice, scheduling and supervising of clerks, publicity, preparing bibliographies, secur- ing inter-library loans, preparing statistical reports, analyzing circulation trends, pro- moting audio-visual materials, etc. T h e remaining ten hours of a normal work week would be devoted to reading behind the scenes in the most comfortable surround- ings, and completely undisturbed. If the present work load of a library cannot be reduced, the introduction of a staff reading program, consuming 2 5 % of staff time, would require an increase of about 3 3 % in the professional salary budget of the library. For instance, a library em- ploying six librarians would have to add two librarians if every member of the en- larged staff were required to spend one- f o u r t h of her or his scheduled library time as a participant in the officially sanctioned reading program. Assuming that the li- brary spends around 4 0 % of its total budget for salaries of professional librari- ans, the required increase in the total library budget would amount to about 1 3 % . Budget divisions vary, of course, from li- brary to library. In college and university libraries, the spending of 50 to 6 0 % of the total library budget for salaries and wages is considered normal. 1 Of this percentage, about two-thirds would be spent for pro- fessional salaries and one-third for clerk- typists and student help. An official read- ing program would cover only the professional staff. In public libraries, the percentage of the budget assigned to pro- fessional salaries is probably lower than in college libraries of the same size. Hence the percentage increase required to pay for an official reading program would probably be less than 13% of the total budget in public libraries. As long as a forty-hour week is ac- 1 G u y R. L y l e , The Administration of the College Library, 2nd ed., New Y o r k , H. W . Wilson, 1949, p. 462. cepted as the standard for most professional library employees, the creation of a well- read professional library staff requires either a substantial curtailment of the general library program or a sharp increase in the library staff.2 U r g i n g librarians to read more during their leisure hours is not likely to be too f r u i t f u l and can hardly be de- fended as a sound personnel policy. I t goes without saying that most librari- ans have always devoted a much larger than average portion of their leisure hours to the pursuit of reading. Such reading, however, should not be of the kind that is required as essential equipment for satis- factory work performance. A children's librarian should not be required to peruse children's books at home; a business li- brarian should not have to spend her leisure hours browsing through books and maga- zines related to business. Leisure hours should be devoted to the kind of reading f r o m which the librarian derives personal pleasure; and such reading is not necessarily related to the requirements of the job. Library administrators are unrealistic if they think they can maintain a literate library staff without added financial sup- port. W h e t h e r an increase of 13% in a library's budget is too high a price to pay is, of course, for the governing authority to decide. It is up to the library administrator, however, to make the necessary recom- mendation. In the past, when increased funds have become available, librarians as well as their professional associations have usually been interested in extension of library service. T h e time may soon be here when efforts will instead be devoted to qualitative improve- 2 According to Economic Status of Library Personnel, IQ49 (Chicago: A m e r i c a n L i b r a r y Association, 1 9 5 0 ) , pp. 1 1 and 78, 68 per cent of all professional library employees in the U . S . observed a scheduled work week of 38 to 40 hours; 21 per cent worked f e w e r than 38 hours a week; and 1 1 per cent worked 41 hours or more a week. The 40-hour week was the most common single s-hedule in libraries not connected with schools or colleges. 236 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES ment of existing library service rather than the cultivation of new territory. An au- thorized staff reading program, costly as it is, may be expected to raise the quality of library service. Benefits Lest illusions be created, it is well to be as specific as possible about the benefits to be derived from a staff reading program. If we assume a work year of 48 weeks, 10 hours of reading a week add up to 480 hours a year for each professional librarian. H o w much reading could be accomplished in 480 hours would depend on the kinds of books read. A t a reading rate of 40 pages an hour for ordinary fiction and assuming an average length of 400 pages per book, 48 books of fiction could perhaps be read in a year. F o r nonaction, the number of books might be between 30 and 35. A selection that included nonfiction as well as fiction might result in an average of about 40 books a year read on library time. A t first sight, this figure of 40 books a year does not seem very impressive in rela- tion to the annual output of American pub- lishers.3 However, if 40 books are multi- plied by the number of staff members in a given library, it is conceivable that a plan could be worked out whereby all the most noteworthy new books could be read by even a relatively small staff, provided that no two staff members would read the same book on library time. O u r hypothetical staff of eight professional librarians could read 320 different books a year, which would cover quite a respectable range of literary form and subject matter. T h e details of assignment would, of course, have to be worked out differently for each dif- ferent library. 3 The total number of new books, exclusive of new editions, published in the U . S. was 8,634 IN JQ5o and 8,460 in 1949, as reported in Publishers' Weekly, 1 5 9 : 240 ( J a n . 20, 1 9 5 1 ) . T h e conscientious individual librarian, who reads 40 books on library time, could not reasonably be expected to read more than another 60 books on his own time; such reading would be of the unrequired and non-occupational type, which I r w i n Edman recently extolled in the Fifteenth Bowker Lecture.4 Estimates as to how much an individual working person can read during a year vary. Dean J o h n E. Burchard, an ex-librarian, recently estimated that a person reading 12 hours every week, 3 hours an evening, 4 evenings a week, could digest 100 volumes a year, although he indicated that the aver- age professional person probably devotes perhaps two-fifths of such reading time or the equivalent of 40 volumes, to profes- sional reading and news magazines.5 T h u s 60 volumes would seem to be a fair estimate for independent recreational and cultural reading. T h e average college-educated person probably reads fewer than 60 vol- umes a year by f a r ; but many librarians, dedicated as they are professionally to the promotion of the pursuit of recreational and educational reading, might be inclined to read more than the average. By carefully observing a reading schedule during their leisure hours, they could be expected to digest 60 volumes a year in addition to the 40 volumes read on library time, thus chalk- ing up a total reading record of 100 vol- umes a year. A total of 100 volumes a year represents a reasonable rather than a maximum esti- mate of a person's likely consumption of reading matter. A figure of 500 volumes a year was reported for Donald Gordon, a professional book appraiser of the world's largest book wholesale firm for over 20 4 Publishers' Weekly, 1 5 8 : 1 8 5 2 (Oct. 2 1 , 1 9 5 0 ) : " T h e inability, and lack of time, to read is especially to be noticed," Professor Edman said, "among those whose professional concern is with books." 5 "Multum in P a r v o " in M. I. T. Library Annual, 1 9 4 8 , p. 1 1 . JULY1953 2 37 years. Gordon has managed to go through at least one book and often two books, every day.6 Librarians could hardly be expected to have so high an absorptive capacity, since they do have a few other chores to do than reading. I t is anybody's guess as to how many books are read by the average college- educated person in the United States a year. But it is doubtful whether he cur- rently reads more than two or three volumes a month, or about 30 volumes a year. At this rate, a librarian, reading a total of 100 volumes a year, would read well over three times as much. A f t e r 25 years of employ- ment, a librarian would have outstripped the average college-educated person by about 1750 volumes (see T a b l e I ) . T h u s by the time he approached the ripe age of 50, he could truly claim to be well-read on the basis of quantity alone (2500) and in con- trast to his college-educated fellow citizens who had read less (750 volumes). If authorized library reading programs should become universal, even those li- brarians who wished to read on their own time no more than the average college- educated person (30 volumes a year) could be expected to accumulate a reading record 6 Merle Miller, " ! ! ! aba? ? ?" Saturday Review of Literature, 34:20-21 (Feb. 10, 1 9 5 1 ) . of 70 volumes a year. At the age of 50, such a librarian would have read 1000 vol- umes more than the average college-edu- cated person, or a total of 1750 volumes, which is probably several times as many as an average high school graduate reads in a life-time. In stressing quantity, we should not un- derestimate the importance of quality of consumption. I t would be assumed that the books had been carefully read and with adequate comprehension, that the bulk of the titles would fall outside the categories of mystery, detective, Western stories, and light romances, and that, in public libraries, a fair balance between good fiction and nonfiction had been maintained. Being col- lege graduates, professional librarians could be expected to be judicious in the choice of their reading matter for their hours of lei- sure. As for the 40 books a year to be read on library time, careful selection is impera- tive. At the average 1952 salary of $3,768 a year for a professional librarian, the cost of the reading program to the library would be $942 per librarian per year or $23.55 P e r book read.7 Such a relatively high unit cost can be defended only if books are se- 7 The median monthly salary of professional librarians in the U . S . , in effect March i , 1952, was reported to be $ 3 1 4 , which would amount to $3,768 per year if the Table I Estimated Reading Records Volumes Read Annually Total Volumes Read after 25 years Gain over average college graduate after 25 years Type of Reader During Leisure Hours On Paid Time Total Total Volumes Read after 25 years Gain over average college graduate after 25 years Average College Graduate 30 — " 3° 750 — No Reading Program Authorized Non-Ambitious Librarian 30 Ambitious Librarian 60 — 3 ° 60 750 1,500 750 Reading Program Authorized Non-Ambitious Librarian 30 Ambitious Librarian 60 40 40 70 100 * i , 7 5 o 2,500 1,000 1 , 7 5 ° Professional Book Reviewer — 500 500 12,500 11,750 238 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES lected according to a clearly formulated policy appropriate to the library in question. T h e difficulty of selecting the relevant titles f r o m the multitude of publications has probably been one of the major hurdles in the inauguration and operation of any staff reading program. However, this difficulty should constitute a challenge to the alert administrator rather than an unsurmounta- ble obstacle. ^About fifty years ago, it was quite popu- lar to quote the paradoxical epigram, " T h e librarian who reads is lost."8 T h e epigram is still occasionally quoted among librarians today to cover up the deep frustration felt as a result of the lack of the time for read- ing among librarians.9 I t has been sug- gested that the phrase be reworded to r e a d : " T h e librarian is lost who does not read wisely."10 Both the original and the re- phrased versions reflect the common experi- ence of librarians who are overwhelmed by the never-ending flow of publications; li- brarians cannot possibly expect to digest very much of it. It is perhaps natural to react to such an unmanageable situation by feel- ing that, no matter how much an individ- ual librarian may read, he can at best cover only an infinitesimal fraction of the total publishing output or of the acquisitions of librarian worked 1 2 months in a year (Hazel B . Tim- merman, " L i b r a r y Salaries, 1952'," ALA Bulletin, 46: 340, November 1 9 5 2 ) . 8 G. M. Walton, " T h e Lost L i b r a r i a n , " New York Public Library. Bulletin, 29:530 ( 1 9 2 5 ) . 0 The epigram was first applied to Isaac Casaubon, the learned librarian of K i n g Henry the Fourth of France, by his. biographer, the Rev. Mark Pattison, of Lincoln College, Oxford. Casaubon was accused of hav- ing neglected his library duties in the pursuit of studies that were not related to his professional library work. 1 0 Wilberforce Eames, " W h a t Should Librarians R e a d ? " Library Journal, 25:60 (Feb. 1900). any given library. T h e larger the library, the greater the frustration, until a point is reached where reading almost nothing at all seems, superficially, to have no deleteri- ous effect on his assigned library duties. T h e little reading an ambitious library as- sistant may find time for during his leisure hours does not seem to have any very no- ticeable beneficial effect on his work per- formance in a busy library, either. F r o m such observations it is easy enough to con- clude that, since reading seems to make so little tangible difference, librarians might as well dispense with it altogether, or, at best, read no more than the average college- educated citizen. According to the testi- mony of librarians and in the absence of any published protestations to the contrary, such appears to be the state of affairs among the vast majority of librarians today. T h e day may come when library adminis- trators will recommend a work schedule for staff members which will allow for a liberal amount of official reading under competent supervision as part of the regular work week. I t was shown that such a revolutionary change can be accomplished only by curtailing the current program of a given library or by increasing the library budget. O n the surface, such a change will not produce any immediate spectacular results. Over the years, however, the effect on service to the public, staff competence, staff morale, and recruiting for the profession of librarianship is certain to be deep and far- reaching. A C R L Microcard Series The A C R L Publications Committee announces the inauguration of an A C R L Microcard Series. It will consist of longer studies in all fields of library science (not necessarily college and university librarianship) which are not suitable for publication in any of the existing media. They will be subjected to the same editorial scrutiny that is in effect for College & Research Libraries and the ACRL Monographs. Manuscripts should be submitted to Law- rence S. Thompson, chairman, ACRL Publications Committee, University of Kentucky Li- braries, Lexington, Kentucky. JULY, 1953 24 7