College and Research Libraries Foreign Area Studies and Their Effect On Library Development AREA STUDY PROGRAMS, as now under- stood, are for the most part a post-World ·War II development. While it is true that long-standing programs of classical studies in many of our universities had all the interdisciplinary aspects of the contemporary area studies program-in- cluding studies in history, anthropology, political science, geography, fine arts, language and literature-these programs were clearly defined, historically limited, and based on our common Graeco-Ro- man civilization. The same cannot be said for the non-Western civilizations. While classical studies have frequently been treated in a broad manner, the basic programs in most of our institu- tions have been based on departmental or single disciplinary considerations. Our present area programs were great- ly stimulated, though not solely caused, by the needs of World War II. A limited number of active programs has existed since the early 1930's, including Michi- gan's Program in Oriental Civilization and the University of California's (Berkeley) Latin American Program. However, the lack of language training and inadequate knowledge of the his- tory, geography, politics, and cultures of the nations engaged in World War II required the immediate establishment of training and research programs on an area or regional basis. The Army special- ized training programs, the civil affairs training schools for area and language studies, and the Military Intelligence Service language schools were organized to meet these needs. These programs, plus other governmental efforts to har- ness scientific and scholarly resources in behalf of the defense effort certainly ] UL Y 1963 BY PHILIP J. McNIFF Mr. McNiff is Associate Librarian of Har- vard College. gave impetus to the postwar area pro- grams which developed in our institu- tions. Wen dell C. Bennett, in his preface to Robert B. Hall's Area Studies: With Special Reference to their Implications for Research in the Social Sciences~ May · 1947, stated: "Only recently have they [area studies] entered the universities, and many still doubt that they have enough solidity, enough scholastic core, to occupy a permanent place in higher education.''1 He also reported that: "The wartime experience of the [Etlinogeo- graphic] Board [established on the rec- ommendations of the area committees of ACLS, SSRC, National Research Coun- cil and the Smithsonian Institution] pointed up clearly the woeful lack of area experts, . however defined; the lim- ited facilities for area training; the in- adequate knowledge about many areas; and the vagueness of the criteria for area information and of the definitions for area reports.''2 Although significant progress has been made in the past fifteen years in devel- oping programs of area studies both in the interest of scholarship and the na- tional welfare, the full impact of area programs has been felt by relatively few institutions. Before examining some of the implications of these programs, let us examine the area studies situation as it existed in 1947. 1 .Hall, 1ref! Studies: .With _Special . Refere'nce to thNr Imphcahons for Research Jn the Social Sciences. Pamphlet 3. (New York : Social Science Research Co~ncp, 194?), p. iii. · • · lbJd, p. 111. 291 Hall's summary states: "We appear to be best equipped in the Latin American field, although as previously mentioned, there seems to be the beginning of a slackening of interest comparable to that which followed World War I. There are at least six institutions which have well developed programs at one or more lev- els, good staffs, and considerable library facilities. Here are included, listed al- phabetically, California at Berkeley, Duke-North Carolina ... , Michigan, New Mexico, Northwestern, and Texas. "The Far East is relatively well off. Harvard, Michigan, Washington, and Yale have , considerable resources and a good start. CaJifornia at Berkeley, Chi- cago, Columbia, and Stanford have im- portant resources _and some beginnings. A half-dozen others have ambitions and some promise .... "In the Russian field Columbia at the moment holds a near monopoly in its Russian Institute .... Stanford, well equipped in some respects, is developing a <;enter for postdoctoral and research work, Yale has in operation a Russian ar_ea . program. . . . Harvard has an ex- cellent library and some strength in per- sonnel, and is doing a great deal of very energetic . planning. Some strength in language and literature is scattered through the universities of the country and there . are a few able but isolated social scientists. All in all, qualified per- sonnel in the Russian field is decidedly short of the need .... "The Near East is completely neglect- ed and there are few scholars in the country who know anything about the area exc~pt in the field of languages. :Princeton has both pl~tns and some re- sources on this area. "It would be m~st difficult, if not impo~sible, to · build .. a single major cen:- ter on Africa. Pennsylvania, to be sure, has its African Institute . . . but it is badiy understaffed. Fisk, too, . has an institute but it is still in a highly rudi- mentary stage. There are healthy de- velopments at Northwestern in African anthropology and at Minnesota in North African languages. · "In the case of both India and Indo- nesia the lack of personnel is most ap- palling. Probably no center on either area could be adequately staffed with American personnel. No serious attempt to develop either area was encountered. ••• "3 It is perfectly obvious from the fore- going summary that our accomplish- ments in area studies in 194 7 left much to be desired. The critical needs then, as now, are competent area specialists, adequate library resources, and well sup- ported programs. The criteria set up by the SSRC's Committee on World Area Research for the ideal integrated pro- gram are: 1. Official university recognition and support of the program; 2. Adequate library resources for teach- ing and research in the area; 3. Competent instruction in the prin- ciple languages of the area; 4. Offerings in at least five pertinent subjects in addition to language in- struction; 5. Some specific mechanisms for inte- grating the area studies; 6. An area research program; 7. Emphasis on the contemporary as- pects ·of the area. All seven criteria have relevance to library activities supporting area pro- grams. While integrated area programs established during the past fifteen years are not of uniform quality and while some are more formally organized than others, all have measured up, at least partially, to the above criteria. A statis- tical account of the increase in the num- ber-of area programs in our universities is not of itself conclusive evidence of improvement, yet it does indicate in some measure the growth and vitality 8 Ibid, pp. 83-85. 292 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIB .RARIES of this type of program. In 1946, there were but thirteen operating area pro- grams: four for East Asia; six for Latin America; and three for Russia and East- ern Europe. There were no programs for Africa, South and Southeast Asia or the Near East. In 1962 there were one hundred thirty-five programs in sixty-two universities, including thirteen programs for Africa, twelve for South and South- east Asia, and seventeen for the Near East. This growth ~ertainly is indicative of the acceptance by university administra- tions and faculties of area studies pro- grams as a standard and integral part of American higher education. President Griswold of Yale, in his 1961-62 report, paid special attention to Yale's ten-year plan for international and foreign area studies; he noted that: "Perhaps the most telling fact of all, however, is that whereas in 1931 there were offered in Yale College, excluding languages, ex- actly four courses dealing with the non- Western world, and in their four years at Yale, exactly one hundred and two members of the Class of 1931 elected these courses, today there are thirty-four such courses with an average student en- rollment of 2,363."4 Our libraries' efforts to meet the needs of the various area study programs have been substantial. An accurate measure · of the extent of these efforts would re- quire a series of surveys on each of the areas similar to the Ruggles-Mostecky survey of Russian and East European Publications in the Libraries of the United States. 5 The fact that the term 'area studies' has not yet found its way into Library Literature may be indica- tive of the work that needs to be done in assessing the library implications of this postwar academic phenomenon which enjoys the concern and support 4 President's Report, 1961-1962. (New Haven: Yale University, 1962), p . 21. . 5 Melville J. Ruggles and Vaclav Mostecky, Russ~an and East European Publications in the Lt~braries of the United States. (New York : Columbia, 1960). · JULY 1963 of foundations, scholarly associations, and the government. It was also some- what disturbing to find that a check of the volumes of Library Literature for the past decade revealed no entries for African, Slavic, Middle Eastern or Far Eastern ~tudies, although there were a handful of entries under Latin A meri- can Cooperative Acquisitions Project. I do not mean to imply that one cannot find material on area studies in library publications, but the absence ·of specific references to accepted terminology may have some significance. Area programs have budgetary and fi- nancial implications for our libraries; these involve personnel, book selection, cataloging, reference services, and inter- library, as well as international, coopera- tion. Every study of area programs, whether general or spe·cific, emphasizes that a good library collection is a basic requirement, and that adequate support must ·be made available so that Iibrary resources can be built up. The Hall survey indicated that · few libraries had collections sufficient for serious study of major areas and, although it has been said time and again, it is still necessary to stress that availability and develop- ment of library resources should be giv- en first consideration ·before a new pro- gram is started. It takes time and money to build up a collection adequate to support an area study program. This is true even when one starts with a good general basic collection. ·The magnitude of the problem facing our libraries in the development of area resources was indicated by Richard H. Logsdon in his talk on The Need for Re- search in the Library Field at the forty- sixth Annual Conference of Eastern Col- lege Librarians two years ago. H _e stated: "Our faculties are demanding more breadth and depth of collecting; not many years ago our Slavic acquisitions were less than I per cent of the total. · Today, approximately one book in every . fifteen is related to this new area of con- 293 cern, but we must be concerned with China, too, and India and Pakistan and the whole Middle Eastern area and East Central Europe and now Africa, while at the same time [and this is most im- portant] not lessening our representation of Western European and, of course, American materials. This is bringing us new problems in range and diversity of languages, interpolation of bibliographi- cal information into our catalogs, and is even raising havoc with some of our classification systems."6 The rapid growth of Columbia's Slavic collection is typical of the development of many of our university libraries in this important area. The Slavic collec- tion of the Harvard University library contained 65,000 titles in 1957 and by 1962 had increased to 150,000 titles; the expenditures for the past year for the Harvard University library, in this field totaled approximately $178,000. The col- lege library has added well over fifty thousand volumes in the past five years, and a s·pecial Slavic section, made up of three librarians, one intern, five and one- half clerical assistants, plus student help, is organized to handle the selection, ac- quisition, and cataloging of Slavic rna- e Logsdon, "The Need for Research in the Library Field," CRL, XXII (1961), 364. terials and to give reference assistance as needed to supplement the services of- fered in the reference department. This staff can be contrasted with the one full- time and one part-time person working on Slavic materials in 1948. Another ex- ample of accelerated activity in this field is offered by the University of Illinois library which, in the past year, acquired almost one-third of its entire Slavic col- lection of fifty thousand volumes. Illi- nois, two years ago, established a special Slavic section in its library in response to the needs of its Center for Russian Language and Area Studies. It now has a staff of seven bibliographers and cata- logers, two clerical assistants, and sev- eral part-time student assistants; it "is charged with bringing the Slavic hold- ings of this library ... up to the standard of the library's long established collec- tions.''7 Similar developments are taking place on many campuses in regard to the other areas of the world. The Nunn-Tsien Survey of Far Eastern Resources in American Libraries noted in 1957: "Since the end of World War II, Harvard has almost doubled its Far Eastern holdings, and the Library of Congress and the ,. A .nnual Report, University of Illinois Library, 1961-1962. DEPARTMENT OF STATE SURVEY REPORTS Programs in Universities Bennett Hall 1962 1959 1956 1954 1951 1946 Number of Universities 62 45 40 30 19 Africa . 13 6 4 3 1 0 Asia General 15 6 East Asia 12 17 18 12 8 4 South and Southeast Asia . 12 12 9 10 3 0 Latin America 29 19 16 11 6 6 Near East 17 13 9 7 2 0 Rus~ia and Eastern Europe 29 19 19 16 6 3 Western Eu_rope 8 5 6 5 3 0 Multi-area . . 5 -- -- -- -- -- -- Totals 135 102 81 64 29 13 - 6• -~ 96 * Six programs provided offerings in more than one foreign area or culture. 294 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES University of California at Berkeley have tripled theirs. Many new collections are known to have been established in other universities .... " 8 The demands made on many of our institutions by the programs of the Joint Committee on Contempo- rary China and the establishment of centers for the study of contemporary China by the Ford Foundation at several of our universities have heightened li- brary activity in this vital area. And this comes at a time when identification and procurement of research materials from mainland China have been seriously im- peded by the 1959 prohibition on the export of most Chinese language publi- cations. The Hazard report on the Biblio- graphical Resources and Needs in the Social Sciences Relating to the Near and Middle East;9 the Wilder report on the Acquisition and Control of Publications from the Middle East; 10 the working papers prepared for the 1957 conference sponsored by the Librarian of Congress and the Committee on South Asia of the Association for Asian Studies set up to examine problems of acquisition, cata- loging, and bibliographic needs with respect to American library resources on South Asia; the reports of the Seminars on the Acquisition of Latin American Materials; and the accounts of American library resources for African studies as reported in the African Studies Bulletin) all point up the problems facing· our libraries. Common to all or most of these areas are the following: I. Lack of bibliographical control neces- sary for the selection of materials; 2. General lack of central or efficient book trade organizations; a G. Raymond Nunn and Tsuen-Hsuin Tsien, "Far Eastern Resources in American Libraries," Library Qu arterly, XXIX (January 1959) , 29-3 0 . e Harry W. Hazard, Bibliographical R esou rces and Needs in the Social Sciences Relating to the Near and Middle East; A Working Paper Based on a Report Sub m itted to the Committee (New York: Social Science Research Council, Committee on the Near and Middle East , 1957). to David Wilder, Acquisition an d Con tr ol of Publica-- tions from the Middle East ; A R eport Prep ared for the Social Science Research Co u ncil Committee on the Near and Middle East (New York, 1958). jULY 1963 3. Lack of systematic book selection pol- icies; 4. Cataloging difficulties resulting from extended programs encompassing ma- terials in a multiplicity of languages; 5. Dearth of selective bibliographical guides to current monographic and serial publications; 6. Problems involved in attracting or training an adequate staff to service area materials; · 7. Lack of funds for the purchase, proc- essing, and housing of these materials; 8. Need for up-to-date descriptions. of American library resources in each of the areas. The need for trained librarians with the necessary area, subject, and language competences is fairly obvious. The key library person responsible for the de- velopment of the library's area resources should have knowledge not only of the pertinent language . or languages, but also of the bibliography of the area, something of the history, literature, and culture of the countries concerned, and of the various means of acquiring ma- terials. The need for joint faculty-library planning and the developing of the re- sources necessary to sustain the research program calls for a great deal of mutual understanding. The in-service and other training of staff members would also be an important function of the librarian responsible for the area program. We are faced with a serious problem of staffing our libraries with people ade- quately qualified to process and service area materials. In many instances, librar- ies are forced to establish in-service train- ing programs-either by taking people with the necessary language competences and instructing them in library tech- niques, or by arranging for trained li- brarians to obtain the desired language backgrounds. In some areas, notably in South Asia, language alone is not suf- ficient, as is pointed out by H. A. Glea- son, Jr., in Varieties of Language Com- petences: "Each of these many .,varieties 295 of language has its own social value and role. Everyone of them functions as much more than merely a channel of linguistic communication. Their use de- fines the social situation and so commu- nicates on a different level. Effective use of the language demands not only lin- guistic competence, but also cultural co.mpetence." 11 Basic to the problem of recruiting qualified personnel is the need to establish what is the optimum back- ground and training required of people responsible for developing resources for area programs. While beginnings in spe- cialized area librarianship have been made by some of our library schools, much remains to be done. The Joint Subcommittee on Middle East Library Resources of the Joint Committee on the -Near and Middle East (ACLS, SSRC, and ARL) has had a draft memorandum prepared on the need for a study which would survey the situation in Middle East centers, identify the education re- quired for area librarians, and explore the possibility of developing the desired curricula cooperatively between area pro- grams and library schools in the same or nearby institutions. While linguistic competence · is a sine qua non) prospective staff members for our area sections, even those who meet the standard qualifications for the posi- tions to which they are assigned, should be offered the opportunity to enrich their language and subject backgrounds by at- tendance at appropriate courses, semi- nars, and institutes. The establishment of new programs and the expansion of existing ones should provide opportuni- ties for growth and development for: properly qualified librarians. The forma- tion of special area sections within many of our library organizations--many with total responsibility for coordinating fac- ulty-library planning with the selection, acquisition, cataloging, and servicing of the area's research materials--provides u In Richard D. Lambert, (ed) Resou-rces for South Asia.n A-rea Studies in the United Stat es (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1962) p. 104. an increasing number of positions of suf- ficient responsibility and prestige to at- tract highly competent people who might otherwise be drawn into teaching and research. It is obvious that a library which has embarked on a vigorous area program re- quiring not only the highly trained li- brary specialists but also the added cleri- cal and subprofessional staff will require a substantially higher budget. The ever- increasing book budget necessary to sus- tain current and retrospective purchases is only the beginning of the financial responsibilities incurred by the program. Acquisitions from many sectors of the world will require binding expenses; oth- er materials will be on poor paper re- quiring either filming for preservation or special handling. The tremendous in- crease. in acquisitions when an area pro- gram Is started~and almost every survey indicates growth of area resources at a much higher rate than other fields-will present stack problems either immediate- ly or within a short period of time for most libraries. These stack space de- mands frequently will require extensive arid expensive shifting of collections, es- tablishment of new quarters for area pro- grams, or a new central building. In 1956, an additional stack was built at Harvard's former Institute of Geograph- ical Exploration, and part of the build- ing was renovated . to insure adequate housing of the Chinese-} apanese li- brary. And Columbia recently moved its four divisions dealing with East Asian studies into new quarters in Kent Hall where, "The East Asian library is to have three times the space for readers that it formerly had, as well as stack space to ac- commodate the large increase of books anticipated in the coming years."12 Added space for readers and books, whether in separate quarters as in the case of Harvard's and Columbia's Far East libraries, or in spacious quarters in (Continued on page 304) 12 East Asian Studies in Col-umbia University (New· York: Columbia University), p. 5. 296 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES The first and most important step and one that is sometimes a bit difficult to accomplish, especially if the material is not to follow a rig~dly predetermined pat~ern, is to prepare an outline in de- tail and assign a number from the cards to each topic or division. However, changes can be made, values reassigned, and topics added or dropped if material is not available on an anticipated sub- ject or if a different pattern seems more appropriate at a later stage of the re- search. The five by eight card, frequently found to be the most convenient size for note taking, has ninety-one numbers that may be assigned to divisions of the out- line for direct selection, usually an am- ple number for most projects. If more divisions are needed, additional num- bers in a second row are provided in groups of four, each group permitting up to fourteen classifications or divi- sions to be added. Obviously the possi- bilities of selection are more than ade- quate for almost any conventional un- . dertaking. Around the edge of the card are holes matching the numbers. On any given card, the material in the note de- termines the holes to be notched out. A quick glance at the master card or the numbered outline indicates the topic or topics that are covered by or related to the note, and holes opposite those numbers are notched out. To select aU the material on a given topic or division Foreign Area Studies (Continued from page 296) a new central library as at Cornell's Olin library, involves both capital outlay and a continuing annual expense. Also affected by growing area pro- grams is the availability of staff work space, increased reference and circula- tion work, and the inevitable increase in the number of undergraduate courses in the areas concerned, involving the ob- of the outline, a rod is inserted in the ap- propriate numbered hole in the stack of cards and is then raised. The cards which drop out because of the previously punched V notch are those desired. Because the cards are expensive, cost- ing four or five cents apiece, for notes that require more than both sides of one card, the thrifty scholar can use 4 in. x 6 in. blank tablet sheets, which can readily be fanned slightly on one end, tipped with glue on the fanned edges, and attached to one side of the punched card in such a way as to leave free the selector holes in the edge of the card. The advantages of this system are chiefly that no cross referring or dupli- cation of notes is necessary because the cross referring and indexing is done by punching the card according to the pre- determined plan, either as a note is completed or at the end of a period of note taking when all the notes can be punched at once. If the second method is followed, the conventional headings should probably be made on the card to serve as a guide for punching; or the numbers from the master card or the numbered outline can be jotted down on the card immediately after the note is made. An addition to the advantages already mentioned is the fact that no filing is necessary, for a note is selected by the needle regardless of its location in the stack. •• taining of hard-to-get, out-of-print works, journal articles, and necessary duplicate copies of required reading materials. . One gets involved in all these implica- tions when a planned, well-organized program is developed. But what happens when over and above the planned pro- gram one has the opportunity of acquir- ing a large bloc purchase? The process- ing of such a collection can present problems even to a large library staff with personnel trained and experienced 304 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES in handling area materials. What are the effects of such an acquisition on a library just embarking on an area study program? Can the existing staff manage its processing in a reasonable period of time, or will funds be available to add the necessary help to process the materi- al? If not, the inevitable backlog results. Questions on large block acquisitions in- clude: I. Does it fit into the long range plan- ning both of the library and the teach- ing and research staffs? 2. Does it fill an existing gap or is it to be used as the nucleus of a new pro- gram? 3. What is required in the way of retro- spective purchasing to round out the collection? 4. Can current acquisitions in the field be made without harming established programs? 5. Does the collection contain manu- scripts, papers, charts, etc. which might require special facilities for care and preservation, and if so, is the li- brary prepared to handle these special materials? The recently announced transfer of the Ames library of South Asia to the Uni- versity of Minnesota where it will be ad- ministered as a special unit of the uni- versity library is an example of a differ- ent, but potentially highly complex block acquisition. This collection of seventy- five thousand items includes : books, charts, official papers, and other materi- als relating to Pakistan, Afghanistan, In- dia, Ceylon, Burma, Tibet, Persia, and Malaya. The interpolation of biblio- graphical information on a collection of this size into one's catalog could present a substantial problem, to say nothing of the planning which might be required for the coordination of past and future acquisitions with such a substantial col- lection. · The magnitude of problems incidental to the development of area resources would seem to call for carefully planned JULY 1963 programs. Yet Patrick Wilson,I3 in his survey of South Asian collections, . noted the lack of systematic acquisition poli- cies, and Ruggles and Mostecky found ". . . that planned and systematic selec- tion policies, as applied to East Euro- pean materials ... , are simply nonexist- ent in the great majority of research li- braries of the United States." 14 However, the picture is not completely bleak. The cooperation of librarians and scholars, notably the cooperative efforts of the joint ARL-Farmington Plan-learned societies committees, have made some progress in the following fields: 1. Encouraging descriptive accounts of area resources in individual libraries. 2. The production of bibliographies and research guides. 3. Microfilming projects covering news- papers, archives, and serials. 4. Programs for the reproduction of out- of-print books. 5. Cooperative projects including the PL480 programs for the United Arab Republic, India, and Pakistan with ,the accompanying cooperative and centralized cataloging programs. 6. The working out of transliteration schemes. 7. The sharing of information via vari- ous newsletters and bulletins. Much more research needs to be done on the problems inherent in the develop- ment of non-Western library resources-- their selection, acquisition, and servicing -and in the training of personnel. Also of primary importance at this time is a study that will explore present practices in the handling of non-Western materi- als in the major centers with some assess- ment of the advantages and disadvan- tages of each. A careful analysis of the experiences of established centers should result in the definition of guidelines ap- plicable to new and changing programs. •• 13 Wilson, Survey of South Asian Collectivns com- missioned by Institute of International Studies, Uni- versity of Calif