College and Research Libraries


Crisis in Our University Libraries 
BY R O B E R T B. DOWNS 

r T ~ , H E G R E A T U N A N S W E R E D Q U E S T I O N i n 
the minds of American librarians, as 

they attempt to peer a mere decade into 
the future, is whether they can run fast 
enough to stand still. There is consider-
able evidence that they are beginning to 
slip back two paces for every step forward. 
One need not be a Cassandra to view the 
period ahead with trepidation. 

One basic factor in the situation—af-
fecting, of course, the whole world of 
higher education—is the mounting tide 
of student enrollment threatening to in-
undate the colleges and universities of 
the country. T h e growth in recent years 
has been almost geometrical. In 1946-47, 
reflecting the large influx of returning 
war veterans, the number of college stu-
dents in the United States for the fitst 
time exceeded 2,000,000. T h e tide re-
ceded somewhat five years later, as the 
wartime generation moved out, but in 
1952 the growth curve started a sharp and 
uninterrupted ascent, with every indica-
tion that it will end in the stratosphere. 
In 1957, enrollment went past the 3,000,-
000 mark, and in the^current year, 1960-
61, only three years later, the figure is ap-
proximately 4,000,000. A conservative 
estimate by the American Council on Ed-
ucation projects a total of 5,000,000 
for 1965, and an enrollment of 6,500,000 
by 1970.1 

Meanwhile, confronted by expanding 
demands on every front, university li-
braries have been caught in an upward 
spiral of inflation. They have seen sal-
aries, wages, books, periodical subscrip-
tions, binding, equipment, and supplies 
in a virtually unbroken rise. Faculties 

1 American Universities and Colleges, 8th ed., (Wash-
ington, D. C., American Council on Education, 1 9 6 0 ) , 
p. 27. 

Dr. Downs is Dean of Library Administra-
tion, University of Illinois. 

and staffs have doubled, or even trebled, 
in many institutions. New departments 
have been created, requiring additional 
library facilities. T h e rate of publishing 
and the variety of materials published 
are being stepped up dramatically. 

As they struggle to cope with the in-
sistent pressures upon them, are the li-
braries receiving appropriate financial 
support? In individual instances, yes, 
though from an overall standpoint, the 
answer, unfortunately, is in the negative. 

A standard measuring stick isr'the rela-
tionship between expenditures for li-
brary resources and services and for total 
educational purposes. For 1945-46, the 
annual compilation of "College and Uni-
versity Library Statistics", sponsored by 
ACRL, included thirty institutions in 
Group I, "University-Type" libraries. 
Fifteen years ago, these institutions were 
devoting a median of 4.86 per cent of 
their total educational expenditures to 
the maintenance and development of 
their libraries. By 1958-59, however, the 
median figure for libraries in the same 
group had declined to 3.7 per cent.2 In 
only a handful of institutions was there 
a contrary trend—principally universi-
ties where a combination of a library-
minded president and dynamic library 
leadership were affecting a rejuvenation 
of a moribund library system. 

A further analysis was assayed recently 
by Frank Lundy, director of Libraries at 
the University of Nebraska, on the basis 

2CRI., V I I I ( 1 9 4 7 ) , 2 6 1 ; X X I ( 1 9 5 9 ) . 31. 



of the ACRL statistics.3 Summarizing 
data provided by 106 universities, ar-
ranged in order of library support, Lundy 
reported a range from a generous 7.8 per 
cent at Rice Institute to a miserly 1.2 per 
cent at New York University. Percentage-
wise, state institutions seemed to fare 
rather less well than the privately sup-
ported universities; actually, both types 
were well represented among the highs 
and the lows. As a point of reference it 
should be noted that university library 
surveyors have almost invariably recom-
mended 4 per cent as the minimum level 
of support for the provision of reason-
ably adequate library service. 

One of the most conspicuous areas in 
which much is expected of libraries, with-
out corresponding reciprocity on the part 
of the receivers, is in the broad field of 
research, especially contract research in 
science and technology. Expenditures for 
organized research in American univer-
sities increased by nearly 900 per cent in 
the decade from 1940 to 1950 and has 
continued to rise year by year. Consider 
the following figures supplied by the Na-
tional Science Foundation: 

Engineering 
Physical Sciences 
Life Sciences 
Social Sciences 

$186,400,000 
262,300,000 
251,500,000 

35,600,000 

1953-54 $450,000,000 
1954-55 480,000,000 
1955-56 530,000,000 
1956-57 600,000,000 
1957-58 720,000,000 
1958-59 840,000,000 
1959-60 1,000,000,000 

T h e percentage increase, 1953-1960, 
was 126.4 

From the same source, in a tabulation 
of "Expenditures for Separately Budgeted 
Research and Development in Colleges 
and Universities by Field of Science, 
Character of Work, and Source of Sup-
port, Fiscal Year 1958", total expendi-
tures of $735,800,000 were reported, di-
vided among four major fields: 

3 University Library Statistics of Interest to You, 
( L i n c o l n : University of Nebraska Libraries, April 5, 
1960), Processed., 4 pp. 

4 U . S . National Science Foundation, Reviews of Data 
on Research and Development, No. 16 (December 1 9 5 9 ) , 
3. 

Of the total, $537,800,000 was derived 
from federal funds, and $198,100,000 
from non-federal sources (institutions' 
own funds, foundations, health agencies, 
industry, gifts and grants)—proof of the 
dominant role of the federal government 
in financing present-day research.5 A sim-
ilar report noted total expenditures of 
$105,500,000 for scientific research, 1957-
58, in the nation's medical schools.6 

By nature, research is constantly chang-
ing, dividing, and extending. As a corol-
lary, the library on which research pri-
marily depends must be highly adaptable, 
modifying its program to meet changing 
requirements. New departments are 
created and research interests in estab-
lished departments undergo radical revi-
sions—all causing an immediate impact 
on the library, its resources, and its serv-
ices. T h e library can hardly fulfill its 
proper role as a dynamic, living organ-
ism capable of growing to meet multiple 
demands, without the life blood of strong 
financial backing. 

While federal agencies, foundations, 
industries, and other organizations are 
pouring funds into colleges and univer-
sities for pure and applied research—al-
most beyond the capacity, in some cases, 
of the institutions to absorb them—the 
libraries on which such research has to 
be based are too frequently accorded nig-
gardly treatment. In essence, the libraries 
are being called upon to do more and 
more on less and less, proportionately 
speaking. Seldom is any specific provi-
sion made, in the many rich research 
grants, for library materials and services, 
lacking which the planned investigations 
would be seriously handicapped if not 
brought to a complete standstill. 

Among the troublesome aspects of uni-

r> Idem, No. 19 (April 1 9 6 0 ) , 6. 
0 Idem, No. 17 ( J a n u a r y 1 9 6 0 ) , 3. 

8 C O L L E G E A N D R E S E A R C H L I B R A R I E S 



versity and research library financing is 
the inflation in costs of materials. Using 
1947-49 prices for an index dollar, and 
based on 2,347 titles in a total of twenty-
four subject areas, a recent survey shows 
that the average subscription price for 
serial publications has increased from 
$3.55 in 1946-47 to $5.27 in 1960, or 48.5 
per cent. Broken down by fields, the aver-
age subscription prices had jumped from 
31.5 to 70.7 per cent, with the largest in-
creases occurring in mathematics, chem-
istry, physics, botany, geology, and other 
branches of science.7 Noteworthy ex-
amples are Chemical Abstracts, which in 
the past five years has increased from $60 
to $200 per year; Chemisches Zentralblatt 
from $90 to $240; Biochimica et Bio-
physica Acta from $36 to $144; and Bio-
logical Abstracts from $50 to $136. 

More alarming and breeding more in-
soluble dilemmas for libraries is the 
phenomenal growth of the book world. 
Books, magazines, newspapers, and other 
types of printed matter are produced by 
the presses at a rate that would have ap-
peared miraculous even a generation ago. 
T h e average annual world book produc-
tion has risen from about 156,000 titles 
in 1940 to 240,000 today and has reached 
an astronomical total of five billion 
copies.8 Quantities are equally stagger-
ing in the fields of serial and government 
publications. Science, the most prolific 
field in serials, is authoritatively estimated 
to account for 50,000 current periodicals. 
In biology alone, 21,000 journals are 
presently being issued. T h e standard 
guide to the literature of chemistry, 
Chemical Abstracts, regularly analyzes 
the contents of more than 7,000 journals 
from some ninety different countries. 
T h e figures for mathematics, physics, and 
other sciences are comparable. 

7 Helen M. Welch, " C o s t Indexes for U . S . Periodi-
c a l s , " Library Resources and Technical Services, I V 
(I960"), 1S0-S7. S e e also: William H. Huff, and Nor-
man B . Brown. " S e r i a l Services Cost I n d e x e s . " Idem, 
TV ( 1 9 6 0 ) . 158-60. and William H. Kurth. " U . S. 
Book and Periodical P r i c e , " Library Journal, L X X X V 
( 1 9 6 0 1 . 54-57. 

" " W o r l d Production; 5,000 Million Books a Y e a r , " 
UNESCO Courier, (February 1957), pp. 20-21. 

J A N U A R Y 1 9 6 1 

T h e area of government publishing is 
another striking illustration of the ac-
celerated production of printed matter. 
From international, national, provincial, 
state, and local governments throughout 
the world comes a tidal wave of books, 
pamphlets, journals, and reports. 

Still another highly significant factor 
in the situation is the ever-widening scope 
of library collecting activities. With few 
exceptions, American libraries have tra-
ditionally limited their procurement ef-
forts to materials in western European 
languages. But with the increasingly im-
portant role played by the United States 
in world politics, the recognition of cer-
tain critical areas of the world, and the 
numerous area-study programs being de-
veloped in colleges and universities, the 
nation's research libraries are undertak-
ing aggressive and ambitious acquisition 
plans in languages and regions previously 
unknown to or neglected by them. For ex-
ample, the Association of Research Li-
braries' Farmington Plan Committee 
charged with obtaining on a cooperative 
basis at least one copy of every significant 
book published abroad—has established 
seven area sub-committees to insure 
thorough coverage of all countries. These 
efforts could be strengthened substanti-
ally by implementation of Public Law 
480, to set up machinery and to provide 
funds for the procurement of library ma-
terials from certain difficult parts of the 
world. 

In reviewing the resources of libraries 
and their ability to support advanced 
study and research, attention should be 
directed also at the existing inequitable 
distribution of facilities among the major 
regions of the country. T h e scholar and 
the research worker in certain areas are 
badly handicapped by the absence of ad-
equate materials close at hand and must 
depend upon richer libraries elsewhere. 
Of 109 centers containing more than 
500,000 volumes within a fifty-mile ra-
dius, seventy are in the northeastern 
quarter of the United States. There are 

9 



held in these 109 centers 290,000,000 vol-
umes, of which only 65,000,000 are out-
side the Northeast.9 

Closely allied to the problem of mal-
distribution is the inadequacy of numer-
ous university libraries attempting to 
support doctoral programs. A cursory ex-
amination of expenditures for books and 
volume holdings of the more than a hun-
dred American universities now granting 
the doctorate in various fields offers con-
vincing evidence that some institutions 
simply lack sufficient library resources to 
support anything beyond undergraduate, 
or at most master's level, work. 

An obvious conclusion to be drawn 
from the conditions described in the fore-
going discussion is that university li-
braries must find additional sources of 
financial assistance if quality and strength 
are to be maintained in higher education 
and educational standards not permitted 
to sink into mediocrity. Increased ap-
propriations from their parent institu-
tions, federal aid, foundation grants, and 
a proper share of research contract funds 
seem the most logical and promising 

9 Robert B . Downs. "Distribution of American Li-
brary Resou rces," C R L , X V I I I ( 1 9 5 7 ) , 183-89, 235-37. 

sources from which to meet a rapidly de-
veloping crisis. 

There will doubtless be a temptation, 
as huge student enrollments begin to 
swamp university campuses, to cheapen 
the quality of educational programs. 
Confronted by multitudes of students, 
some colleges and universities will resort 
to mass methods of instruction. Their 
faculties may return to the old single-
textbook plan for undergraduates. Insti-
tutions concerned with producing well-
educated citizens, however, will avoid 
such techniques. In every way possible 
they will encourage independent work 
and study on the part of students, and 
for them the library will be the heart of 
the educational process. Certainly, at 
more advanced levels, scholars and grad-
uate students in the humanities and 
social sciences recognize libraries as in-
dispensable laboratories. Books and jour-
nals are equally essential to the pure and 
applied sciences, for the scientist, like 
the humanist and social scientist, requires 
records of previous investigations and ex-
periments to save him from duplication 
of effort and to provide a foundation for 
further progress. 

Quality Comes From Service 
Rather Than From Size 

Size [of a library's collection] is less important than service. T h e way the col-
lection is housed and used, through the administrative competence of a professional 
staff, makes the difference in quality. In turn, the strength of the library is beyond 
question a reliable gauge for measuring the excellence of the total program of 
higher education in a given institution—Wake Up and Read, a Few Facts About 
College and University Libraries (New York, Council on Financial Aid to Educa-
tion, Inc. [I960]). 

10 C O L L E G E A N D R E S E A R C H L I B R A R I E S