University of Virginia Library

Soundings

Librarian Views Literary Scene

By John Casteen

This is the first part of a two-part
series. Next week Mr. Fantz
will talk about plans for an undergraduate
library, for improvement
of such services as the Reserve
Book Room, and about other aspects
of library services to students.

University Librarian Ray. W.
Frantz, Jr., is a tall, lean man whose
athletic appearance almost belies
his constant involvement in the University's
intellectual and cultural
life. He is a middle westerner, the
son of a university professor, and
the product of an essentially middle-western
education. (Most of his
graduate work was at the University
of Illinois.) His interests range from
Mark Twain's literary career to dry
fly trout fishing, his hobby. But his
greatest interest is the University
Library and its growth.

We went to see Mr. Frantz in his
Alderman building office last
Thursday and asked him to tell us
something about what is going on
in the Library. This column, and
the next, will report some of his
comments on that subject.

"In a way," he began, "the
Library is a large business with an
annual volume of well over
$1,000,000 including book purchases,
salaries, and other expenses.
We have to operate on sound business
and organizational principles.
Mr. Peterson (the Associate Librarian)
and I spend quite a lot of
our time on matters related to the
Library's business dealings, and
business demands become greater as
the Library becomes larger and
more complicated. But the Library
cannot become merely a parts warehouse.
It would be altogether too
easy for librarians to be overwhelmed
by the business aspects of
operating the Library - by inventories,
orders, check-outs, and shelving
- and to lose sight of what the
Library is all about. The Library
must be a research and reference
center, the laboratory for the humanist
as well as the scientist.

"The humanist needs access to
his research materials just as much
as the scientist needs access to his
laboratory and apparatus.

To make the Library a useful
laboratory, we have to put as few
obstacles in the user's way as possible.
Open order purchasing is one
way to case the user's task. There
are other ways. Catalogs should not
be mysteries. We know that there
are difficulties with the catalog, and
our cataloguers are working now on
remedies. The Library is going to
have to develop ways to make
books available even before they
are catalogued. Users often need to
examine books as soon as they are
printed, before they are reviewed,
while their contents are fresh and
exciting. But all this requires staff
and money.

He talked next about the Library's
financial position. "A good
library is an expensive business because
it requires constant purchasing
and care of large numbers
of books, a large, well trained staff
to process and preserve its books,
and a large expandable physical
plant. University, libraries are especially
costly because they cannot
concentrate their purchasing in
some single field or in a small range
of fields. The University Library
has to provide both basic and advanced
research facilities for
scholars and students in almost
every field. We serve theoretical
physicists, textual scholars, first-year
undergraduates, and just about
everyone else. This costs money,
and one problem here is that we
have had altogether too little
money.

"Until recently the state did not
furnish supporting funds for book
purchases. The Library had to use
endowment funds, occasional Federal
grants, gifts, and whatever else it
could scrape together to buy books.
These funds are excellent in their
way, but they tend to be restricted
in use to the purchase of particular
types of materials. The individual
donor generally specifies the area in
which he wants his money spent.
These funds have allowed the Library
to build up strong collections
in certain areas, but not in others.
Now with state support, we are
surveying our general collections
and building them up. This year the
state increased its support, and we
are continuing to expand what we
started last year."

We asked Mr. Frantz whether
the Library can depend on the state
to continue granting funds for general
book purchases. "Yes, I thing
so," he answered. "The University
administration is aware of our problems
and unusually sympathetic.
The President and his staff have
worked hard to gain Legislative
support for general purchasing
funds, as have many University
alumni. And we have been able to
make a strong case for continuing
support.

"But the other side of this
matter is that book prices and
related costs are going up constantly.
We have to run to even
stand still. Our total book budget is
below $500,000 this year. In simple
dollars and cents, that total is less
than Duke spends, and less than
many of our neighbors spend." We
asked Mr. Frantz to name some
other universities that spend more
for books than does the University.
Referring to the 1968-1969 budget
report of the Association of Southeastern
Research Libraries, he read
us a list of schools. Among them
were VPI, South Florida University,
the University of North Carolina,
Louisiana State University, the University
of Kentucky, and Auburn
University. "That's the way it is,"
he continued. "We rank below
many of our neighbors in book
budget, often far below. We are
moving ahead now, and I believe
that we can move ahead much
faster in the future. But right now
we are behind several of them by
totals of up to $1,000,000 - and
after all they are not going to stand
still for us to catch up."

What happens if supporting
funds disappear? "One very obvious
effect is that faculty recruitment
becomes difficult in areas where we
are weak. Good scholars will not
come here to work in areas where
our holdings are thin and where we
lack money to improve them. Many
top scholars simply lack time to
build up weak collections even
when money is available and the
interest, if they have to do it once
before. We have to be able to offer
our people - the men who are now
working in the Center for Advanced
Studies, for example - strong, flexible,
growing collections in their
fields. And there would be other
effects too. Undergraduates would
find it, frustrating and needlessly
difficult to use the Library because
necessary materials would often not
be here. Graduate students would
have to depend on other libraries to
provide their materials. The entire
University community would suffer
from a weakened book purchasing
program. As I said before, however,
I don't think that we face a
weakened program. What we have
before us now is a challenge to
develop sources of more funds and
means of investing them wisely in
materials that will benefit all of the
University.

"Our great strength" - we had
moved into another topic - "is in
special collections. The Barrett Library
of American literature and
the McGregor Library of history are
remarkable collections. Our manuscript
holdings exceed 5 million
items. These and other collections
attract scholars to the University's
faculty and draw visiting scholars
for research. Our manuscript and
rare books collections have given
the University a national, and international,
recognition of which it
can be very proud.

"With increasing financial support,
we have been able to take
advantage of open order purchasing
for current books, so that the
books are likely to be here when a
faculty member reads about it in a
review. The Library protects itself
. . . The Library protects itself
here by maintaining return privileges
on all open order purchase
plans, and by using these privileges
whenever necessary. We now use
only those purchase programs that
have passed cost investigations
within the Library and investigations
by the various academic
departments. Current standing orders
include the publications of all
American university presses and
most major American commercial
presses. We do a certain amount of
international buying on open order
now, and we hope this year to offer
general European coverage through
agents in Great Britain and
Germany."

What about non-current books?
What does the University do to fill
out its holdings of items that do
not come in through standing order
plans? "We depend a great deal on
faculty advice. The departments
have allocated funds for book purchases
in their special fields of
research and instruction, and these
funds enable faculty members to
order materials in the areas that
they know best. We hope to cover
current publications through
standing orders, leaving departmental
allocations for out-of-print
books and items not covered by
open orders.

This will mean that students will
have broader and more timely resources
for assignments and for
their own research, and that they
will have to spend less time looking
for materials which should - and
will - be right at their finger tips."