Historical overview of academic branch libraries

Abstract:

This chapter briefly discusses the beginnings of branch libraries. First known as collegiate or departmental libraries, branch libraries are distinctive libraries separate from the main library building, but managed either independently (decentralized) or by the main library (centralized). A short overview of the two Academic Research Libraries (ARL) surveys on branch libraries (1983 and 1999) is provided and discussed. A summary of the current situation using the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) web comparison tool and an analysis of the ARL academic libraries web pages is presented. The University of Maryland Libraries, with its seven branches, represents the average academic university library in the US as far as branch library presence is concerned. A history of branch development at the University of Maryland (UM) Libraries, and the current state of the UM Libraries close the chapter.

Key words

branch libraries

departmental libraries

collegiate libraries

Academic Research Libraries (ARL)

The beginnings

There are multiple brief studies of the history of academic branch libraries. The most notable are the papers published by:

 Louis T. Ibbotson ('Departmental Libraries' in 1925),

 Laurence Thompson ('The Historical Background of Departmental and Collegiate Libraries' in 1942),

 Arthur T. Hamlin (The University Library in the United States; Its Origins and Development - more specifically the chapter 'The Problem of the Departmental Library' in 1981), and

 Robert A. Seal ('Academic Branch Libraries' in 1986).

There is no need to repeat these well-known and highly cited works. Some of their key observations, however, will be highlighted. This book will look at the status of branch libraries since these works were published. Also, as Shkolnik would say: 'A small college has less need for branches than does a large university. The debate, therefore, really pertains only to the largest and most research-oriented academic communities' (Shkolnik, 1991: 345). The emphasis of this book will be on large research libraries, more specifically ARL Academic Libraries in the US. See Appendix B for a list of ARL Academic Libraries in the US.

At the beginning of the twentieth century Mary C. Venn, in Libraries in 1929, argued:

Department libraries are the natural outgrowth of the days when libraries were mere prisons for books. These books were largely given to the library, because their usefulness was gone for their original owner. The librarians were held so strictly accountable for their care that they were afraid to lose control of them, let alone allowing one to go out of their sight

Venn continues:

[M]ore modern professors, about the Civil War days, kept his books in his office. He liberally loaned the books to his students, who came to him for reading - he was more approachable than the librarian who guarded his books as a lioness her cubs.

She concludes: 'Thus the departmental or professorial libraries became the more alive collection and grew, while the main library didn't grow so fast' (Venn, 1929: 193).

A few years before, Louis T. Ibbotson, reference librarian at Duke University, Durham, NC, in the Library Journal, in 1925, states the following:

Departmental libraries started as a protest. Nothing much was said, but now we can see that at a certain juncture in American education, books were imperatively needed - and the university library, so called, was asleep. On the whole, it had never been awake, and it was very slow in waking. (Ibbotson, 1925: 853)

The term branch libraries was for a long time associated with public libraries (Seal 1986: 176). In literature, almost to the mid-1950s, the terms collegiate or departmental libraries were used more often when referring to what we today consider branch academic libraries.

Even Shkolnik, head of reference at D'Youville College Library in Buffalo, NY, when writing in 1991, in his paper states that 'for the purposes of this paper, the terms departmental and branch library will be used interchangeably' (Shkolnik, 1991: 34).

Today, however, departmental and branch libraries mean different things, and in 1942, Lawrence Thompson wrote:

Today the general trend is away from departmental and collegiate libraries as they have existed in the past as a result of the growing instance on centralization by both faculty and libraries; but this has been possible principally because of certain conditions which were relatively unimportant or unrecognized in the early part of this century. (Thompson, 1942: 49)

Thompson goes on to list these factors as 'construction of new buildings in the 1920s, technical improvements in library service, and the increasing interdependence of all branches of knowledge' (Thompson 1942: 50).

Shkolnik, in his article 'The continuing debate over academic branch libraries', gives an excellent historical overview of the organization of branch libraries and their evolution. He argues that the concept for a branch or

distinctive departmental library separate from the main library building . grew out of the seminar movement in late nineteenth-century Germany. German faculty members found it preferable to use their own collections of books . rather than rely on . antiquated, library system. Their books were . kept in the faculty members' offices for easier access. (Shkolnik, 1991: 343)

A recent shift in the use of the term 'seminar library' is somewhat confusing. In the early American universities and still today on the Continent it is synonymous with 'departmental library'

writes Thompson 1942: 51. He continues:

Recently, however, 'seminar library' has frequently been used for small collections, sometimes only about a dozen books, charged to the seminar for its duration. Therefore, care must be taken in distinguishing departmental from seminar libraries in America during the last twenty years.

Some departmental libraries are still called seminar libraries because of tradition. (Thompson, 1991: 51)

The use of the term branch library and its organization is used in an academic setting in 1991 in Leon Shkolnik's article published in Research and College Libraries:

Over the past century, librarians have debated the organization of the academic library. Two distinct schools have developed, each advancing logical and persuasive arguments . Should the academic library be centralized in one main building or should it be decentralized into several branches based on differing divisional schemes? (Shkolnik 1991: 343)

J. C. M. Hanson, Associate Director of the Chicago Libraries from 1910 to 1928, argued during his tenure at Chicago that closing departmental libraries would save money on duplicate collections and increase efficiency. In 1943 he published in The Library Quarterly his observations of the relations of central vs. departmental libraries based on his experience at the University of Chicago Libraries. Although published in 1943, the article 'Central versus Departmental Libraries' supplements and summarizes his earlier studies, from 1912 and 1917. In closing, Hanson states:

It is my belief that, in the long run, economic considerations must decide the issue, not the personal convenience or predilections of professor or librarian. The pity is that before a definite and feasible policy has been settled upon, hundreds of thousands - perhaps millions - of dollars will have been spent on experiments that lead nowhere and on equipment and books which have served only a temporary purpose. (Hanson, 1943: 135)

For her paper 'Departmental Libraries' published in 1929, Mary C. Venn, reference librarian at Oberlin College Library, Ohio, surveyed the 33 college libraries in the Central West with more than 30,000 volumes acquisition. The questionnaire asked the following three questions:

1. What departments had libraries?

2. How were the books bought?

3. Who took care of them?

Of the 33 total libraries surveyed, 26 responded to the inquiry. Five did not have any library outside the main library (departmental or laboratory); five did not have departmental, but did have laboratory. Of the remaining 16, the most popular departments with libraries were: Chemistry (10), Physics (8), Biology (7), Mathematics (4), Astronomy (3), and General Science (3). Venn admits there were some additional subjects, but the sciences led, proving that 'the faculty in science and technical field favor departmentalization, while those in the humanities are for centralization'....