Administration of the University of Chicago Libraries, 1910-28

Administration of the University of Chicago Libraries, 1910-28Author(s): Haynes McMullenSource: The Library Quarterly, Vol. 23, No. 1 (Jan., 1953), pp. 23-32Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4304168 .

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ADMINISTRATION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO LIBRARIES, 1910-281

HAYNES MCMULLEN

University of Chicago Librar- ies stood in 1910 on the threshold

. of what everyone on the campus hoped would be a glorious new day. For the first time the library system was to be under the direction of a person with authority sufficient for the needs of the situation. For the first time a considerable portion of the collections was to be housed in a large and handsome building. And for the first time there was to be a catalog which would eventually embrace all the books on the campus.

The year 1910 was not significant to the University of Chicago as a whole. When Harry Pratt Judson had succeeded the brilliant William Rainey Harper as president of the University in 1907, a steady hand was needed. The hand of the new president was so steady that John D. Rockefeller, Sr., was pleased to contribute generously to the support of the institution during Judson's administration, which ended in 1923. The Uni- versity grew in size during these years, but there were only a few departures from the educational ideas which Harper had put into practice.

The year 1910 was not significant in American universities and their libraries as a whole. The period between 1910 and 1928 was one of rapid growth, but it was growth that had begun before 1910. The only aspect of university

libraries which changed around 1910 was housing. From about that time forward library construction for almost all major American universities was on a noticeably grander scale. The University of California, in 1912, built the first unit of a plan which called for the eventual construction of a library building to be much larger than any that had been planned before. Later libraries, though varying considerably in shape, were usually large, like the California building, instead of small like its predecessors.2

GENERAL ADMINISTRATION

Until 1910 no single officer at the Uni- versity of Chicago was given authority over all the library services. Mrs. Zella Allen Dixson, who resigned in the spring of that year, had operated the General Library; and a faculty library committee, called the Board of Libraries, had exercised a measure of supervision over the General Library and over fifteen or twenty departmental libraries.

Soon after Mrs. Dixson's resignation, Ernest D. Burton, a member of the faculty, was appointed acting director of the Libraries. In the fall of 1910 Burton's appointment was made permanent, and the appointment of an associate librarian was announced. The new man was James Christian Meinich Hanson, who had been chief of the Catalogue Depart- ment of the Library of Congress.

I A summary of part of a dissertation submitted to the Graduate Library School of the University of Chicago in September, 1949, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philoso- phy. The period from 1892 to 1910 was covered in an article in the Library Quarterly, XXII (1952), 325-34.

' The evolution of the size, shape, and function of the American university library is traced in detail in Helen Margaret Reynolds' "University Library Buildings in the United States, 1890-1939," an un- published Master's thesis written for the Library School, University of Illinois, in 1946.

23



24 THE LIBRARY QUARTERLY

The two men who, together, were to direct the Libraries for fifteen years came from widely differing backgrounds and held differing views about the proper place of the library in a university. Bur- ton had taught at Chicago from the open- ing of the University in 1892 and had become a popular leader on the faculty. He had maintained a reputation as a productive New Testament scholar but had taken time to serve his University through committee work in which he had displayed an unusual amount of tact and willingness to compromise, characteristics which had their source in his deep respect for the personality and opinions of other people. He had led in the attempts to improve library service before 1910 and was fully aware of the strengths and weaknesses of the Libraries.

Hanson had been connected with research libraries for twenty years, but in all his library career he had been engaged in cataloging. In recent years he had of necessity acquired administrative experience because, at the Library of Con- gress, he had been directing the work of a staff of about ninety members. He came to the University with a firm belief in the prime value of an elaborate catalog as a tool for research. He had the ability to construct such a catalog and had been invited to the University mainly because the members of the faculty felt the need of such an index to the book resources on the campus.

Hanson was soon in virtual charge of the "internal" administration of the Li- braries. Burton's special interest was long-range planning, and he was particularly interested in architectural matters. He took great pleasure in estimating the amount of space needed for books and readers and in such activities as the de- sign of stacks or elevators.

Since the two men agreed about many policies, many of the important deci- sions were joint ones. However, they disagreed about one of the fundamental ideas in university library administration. When Burton had become director, he had felt that the University needed a somewhat stronger General Library than it had had in the past; but he wished to move slowly in the direction of centralization. He believed that any sudden re- duction in the quality of service in the departmental libraries could harm the University by upsetting the working habits of men who were making important contributions to knowledge. He knew that the University's tastes in library service were expensive, but that situation did not concern him unduly. Once, when away from the campus, he wrote to Hanson:

That our method is expensive, is not with me a decisive argument against it. I believe in the strong development of departmental libraries in the interest of research, even though this is much more expensive than the policy of extreme centralization. To get such development, I believe we at headquarters must, through the Ad- ministration, Acquisition, and Cataloging De- partments, do a great deal for the departmental libraries, and exercise a large measure of control over them; but all this is in the interest of their development, not of their suppression.3

Hanson, probably because of his experience in a different library, saw the problem differently. To him, efficiency could not be attained without strict economy. He was disturbed to see money being spent for the duplication of books and services which could have been spent to bring the University a richer variety of books and a higher quality of services by a smaller staff. He felt that it was his moral duty to oppose the views of many faculty members. It may be well to pre-

I Thel etter, dated August 1, 1917, is in the Uni- versity of Chicago Archives.



UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO LIBRARIES 25

sent his position in his own words, although the construction of the following passage from a letter to Burton indicates that it was not intended for publication:

I fear that the time may come when the Uni- versity authorities may blame, particularly me, for not having pointed out more effectually the dangers of duplication in the matter of books, equipment, help, etc. Are they not likely to say that here was a person who had devoted thirty years of his life to special study of library problems and was, therefore, called here for the par- ticular purpose of pointing out possible improve- ments in library administration, and that he had failed to make it clear to members of the Library Board and Committees of the Faculty just what certain policies, now in force, might in time lead to?4

The administration of the Libraries was a matter which was left almost entirely in the hands of Burton and Han- son. Neither President Judson nor any faculty committee attempted to take part in the internal management of library affairs. The president and the faculty seem to have had complete confi- dence in Burton's ability to see that library service followed the general pattern of University policy, and everyone had respect for Hanson's ability as an expert in dealing with books.

This situation was unchanged until 1923, when, upon Judson's retirement, the trustees were unable to find a suitable younger man and appointed Burton as president. Burton's relationship to the Libraries changed only slightly when he became president because he had been giving the Libraries little attention in the past few years. In addition to his duties as director of libraries, he had continued his teaching, writing, and committee work and had been active in governmen- tal affairs of the Baptist church. As president, Burton, already in his seventies, at- tacked his new duties with vigor and was

beginning to effect marked changes in the University when he died in 1925. During his two years as president he maintained general oversight over the Libraries, but Hanson actually made almost all deci- sions.

Within a few months after Burton's death, Max Mason, who had been professor of mathematical physics at the Uni- versity of Wisconsin, became president of the University, serving until 1928, the year with which this study ends. The selection of a director of the Libraries proved to be a much slower process than the selection of a president. Hanson was unacceptable as a chief librarian because his basic theories of library organization differed so widely from those held by many faculty members.5 During the three years 1925-28 Hanson was in virtual charge of the Libraries, although from 1925 to 1927 he had some guidance from a reactivated Board of Libraries and from 1927 to 1928 from M. Llewelyn Raney, whose appointment as director of the Libraries began in 1927. Raney did not take active control of the Libraries until 1928; at his request, Hanson was made acting director for a few months in the fall and winter of 1927-28. He spent the spring of 1928 in Rome as a member of a group of American librarians sent by the Carnegie Endowment for Interna- tional Peace to advise officials of the Vat- ican in planning procedures for recataloging the Vatican Library. During Han- son's absence from the United States, Edward A. Henry, who had held a position of responsibility on the library staff for a number of years, served as acting director. In the fall of 1928 Hanson began new duties as professor in the Gradu- ate Library School of the University of

4Letter of July 23, 1917, in the University of Chicago Archives.

rLetter in the University of Chicago Archives, dated April 17, 1924, from Hanson to Jacob Hodne- field, of the Minnesota Historical Society Library.




Chicago, and Henry left to become director of libraries at the University of Cin- cinnati. An era had come to an end.

STAFF

The staff which operated the Univer- sity of Chicago Libraries during the Burton-Hanson regime was quite different from the one which preceded it. And the changes which took place between 1910 and 1928 were not altogether like those which were taking place in other American university library staffs.

Changes in the size of the staff at Chicago were what one might have expected. During the four years which followed the reorganization of the Libraries in 1910, the staff increased from about twenty to about ninety members. There was a much slower increase after 1914, but by 1928 there were well over a hun- dred. A surprising change in the characteristics of the staff was the steady decrease in the average amount of formal education of its members. Records exist for almost all of them and indicate that about 35 per cent of the staff (other than janitors and pages) employed in 1909 had attended a library school, either as undergraduates or as graduates. In 1914, when the staff had reached the number it was to maintain for some time, 30 per cent had attended library school. Five years later, 25 per cent had attended library school, and by 1924 only 16 per cent had had formal library training.

An examination of the records for staff members who combined college degrees with graduate work in some field other than librarianship indicates a similar trend. The available records indicate that in 1909 about 24 per cent of the staff had these qualifications. In 1914, 19 per cent belonged in this category; and by 1924 only 10 per cent had engaged in this type of graduate study.

There seem to have been two reasons for the decrease in the formal educational attainments of the staff over the years. The first of these was Hanson's feeling that the students of library schools did not emerge from those institutions with the kind of general or technical knowledge that would best suit them for posi- tions in university libraries. He therefore instituted an apprentice system in 1912, taking people with or without college degrees and teaching them what he considered to be the essentials for work in a scholarly library.

However, the presence of these ap- prentices does not seem to have been the major factor in causing the decrease in educational level, since they never constituted more than 15 per cent of the staff. The available employment records indicate that the Libraries simply did not pay salaries high enough to attract new workers with as much educational back- ground as those who left. Just before Burton's death in 1925, he and Hanson made a determined effort to persuade the board of trustees to raise library salaries to the level of a scale which had been re- cently adopted at the Library of Con- gress. They were not immediately successful; but the average library salary at Chicago rose from $1,402 in 1924-25 to $1,616 in 1927-28, an increase of 15 per cent.

HOUSING

At the University of Chicago the situation in regard to the housing of the Li- braries in the years between 1910 and 1928 was like that in most American colleges and universities of the time. There was almost constant pressure for more space for books; administrators and staff members alike were constantly drawing plans, making calculations, and shifting books in order to prevent library materials from clogging the available space.




There were other characteristics of the housing situation at Chicago which were far from typical. The Harper Memorial Library, completed in 1912, was markedly unlike any academic library building erected in the United States before or since. Some of its features were borrowed from library buildings of the past, but its new features have seldom been imitated.

The Harper Library was like a number of other American university library buildings in that it was a large and handsome example of "academic Gothic" ar- chitecture. Even the elevators rose and descended at a stately pace behind wrought-iron grillwork of an ancient pattern. And it was like other large libraries in having the main reading room on an upper floor-on the third, in its case.

But the Harper building was unlike other libraries in that it was planned to adjoin a group of buildings which were to contain departmental reading rooms connected with its general reading room. A weakness of this plan became evident when members of the University began to use the reading rooms as hallways because they provided the most direct routes between buildings. When other buildings in this "library group" were erected without connecting reading rooms, library service again suffered because library officers and materials could not move back and forth easily.

The placement of two levels of stacks below ground level was a feature of the Harper Library which was at first quite unpopular with students and faculty. An obstruction in one of the two large ex- haust air ducts was not discovered and removed until 1919, seven years after the building was occupied.6 In the meantime, books had suffered from mildew during

the summers; and staff and students had become convinced that they would suffer from some similar disability if they passed much time in these dank sur- roundings. The improved ventilation after 1919 seems to have benefited the books, but it did not entirely overcome the aversion which some people held for this part of the building.

The erection, from time to time, of classroom buildings in the "library group" and elsewhere on the campus sometimes relieved the pressure for space for books and readers because almost every new building contained some kind of departmental library which constituted a small addition to the total amount of library space on the campus. However, the only building which afforded relief for any length of time was the Hiram Kelly Hall for the Classics Department, completed in 1915. The needs of that department were so modest, in comparison with the funds available for its home, that space for 200,000 volumes was provided in addition to space for the Classics Li- brary itself.

The housing problem became so acute after the first World War that the board of trustees, in 1922, authorized President Judson to appoint a Commission on the Future Policy of the University Li- braries. The commission was composed of trustees and faculty members; Burton was a member, but Hanson was not. The members of the commission were unable to agree on the building plan to be followed in the future. Some felt that the University should continue to follow its plan, as adopted in 1902, of erecting buildings which combined classroom, of- fice, and library facilities under the same roof. They were willing to revise the long- range program approved by the board of trustees in 1902, but they were opposed to abandoning it. Their view was based

B Memorandum by L. R. Flook, superintendent of buildings and grounds, August 21, 1919, in the University of Chicago Archives.




somewhat on studies and plans drawn up by Burton and by Edward A. Henry, head of the Readers' Department in the Libraries. Other faculty members, who felt that the University needed a large new building, were supplied with ammu- nition by Hanson and librarians in other universities who were familiar with large central libraries which they considered to be efficient in operation. The opinions of the outside librarians consulted by the commission were overwhelmingly on the side of a single large building.

The division of opinion within the commission was to be expected, for it merely reflected a split which had been present in the faculty for many years. One side, perhaps numerically the stronger, was unimpressed by statistics or argu- ments derived from experience on other campuses but was satisfied with the basic pattern of decentralized library service which had grown up at Chicago. Faculty members of the opposing camp were certain that the University would be better served if it would profit by the example of other large universities and would build a library which embodied the proved benefits of central buildings in use elsewhere.

Since the members of the Commission on the Future Policy of the Libraries were unable to agree, they issued a pre- liminary report of ninety-two pages which stated the two points of view together with supporting data and argu- ments.7 The commission was never to have the opportunity of issuing a final report because its Tentative Report ap- peared while a campaign was being conducted to raise a large amount of money for the University. Funds for

some of the buildings in the library group were already at hand when the report ap- peared, and the chairman of the commission feared that further agitation leading to possible changes in building plans for the University would interfere with the campaign then in progress.8 The cham- pions of the 1902 plan had won without a fight, and the University was to follow a somewhat garbled version of that plan for many years.

CATALOGS

The administration of the University of Chicago Libraries between 1910 and 1928 was more successful in its efforts to improve the indexes to its book collection than it was in improving the housing of its books. In the first place, there was almost complete agreement in the faculty that the situation was desperate and re- quired heroic measures which could most properly be taken by trained librarians. In the second place, they could not have picked a better equipped person than Hanson to direct the work. He had recataloged the University of Wisconsin library in the 1890's and had directed the rebuilding of the catalogs at the Library of Congress between 1897 and 1910. There he had headed the largest catalog department in the country, a department whose products, in the form of printed cards, were being used and imitated in an ever increasing number of libraries.

Hanson came to Chicago at a time when the dictionary card catalog, with all kinds of entries in a single alphabet, had established itself in the hearts of most American librarians. And he came at a time when the climate of opinion around research libraries was favorable

7 The University of Chicago, Commission on the Future Policy of the University Libraries, Tentative Report, January, 1924 (Chicago: University of Chi- cago Press, 1924).

8 Letter from Harold H. Swift, chairman of the commission, to Ernest H. Wilkins, vice-chairman, February 26, 1925. A copy of this letter is in the University of Chicago Archives.




to the production of catalog cards which described each book in considerable detail. The rate of book acquisition in such libraries had for several years been so high that library catalogs in book form were considered too slow and expensive. Printed bibliographical aids of other kinds were not yet so numerous and efficient as to become serious rivals to the card index. Administrators in some larger libraries were still reluctant to de- scribe their books as fully as did the Li- brary of Congress, but the loud cries for economy in cataloging were not to be heard for several years to come.

In the matter of classification, too, Hanson came to Chicago straight from headquarters. Most American libraries which did not have their own classification schemes were using the Dewey Deci- mal Classification; but a few were beginning to adopt the Library of Congress classification, which was, in 1910, partly completed. Hanson and other members of the Library of Congress staff responsible for the new scheme had not intended it for general adoption, but they were by no means downhearted when a library decided to use their plan for the arrangement of its books.

When Hanson arrived at Chicago in 1910, he found that more than half of the books in the Libraries were not classified and that the rest were classified according to about fifteen different systems.9 More books were arranged according to the Dewey Classification than according to any other system, and the extension of this scheme to the other books had been started just before his arrival. He quickly wrote a memorandum to the faculty committee which had authorized the use of the Dewey system in the reclassifica-

tion project. The memorandum set forth the relative merits of the Decimal and the Library of Congress systems as Han- son saw them. When the faculty committee read this communication, it called a halt to the reclassification then in progress and authorized the library authorities to begin again according to the scheme in use in the Library of Congress.

Although the alphabetical dictionary arrangement was the most popular in American libraries in 1910, there seem to have been many research workers who preferred a classed catalog, in which cards on related subjects were filed near each other. Hanson's solution to the problem of arrangement was a simple one: to provide two catalogs, one arranged al- phabetically and the other with subject cards arranged by classes.

The work of recataloging and reclassification was begun on this basis. The cataloging staff was augmented to carry this work forward while handling current acquisitions, but, even so, progress was slow. Fifteen years later a few departmental libraries still contained books needing reclassification.

Progress was slow, but the work was thoroughly done. The recataloging process was made to serve the ends of centralization in two ways. First, the books, after being recataloged, could be found most easily through consultation of the catalogs in Harper Library. The cata- logers sent only author and title cards to departmental libraries; but all books could be located in the Harper catalogs under authors, titles, and specific subject headings or, through the classed catalog there, under broad subject headings which placed cards for books on similar subjects together.

A second way in which recataloging had a centralizing effect was through the elimination of seven of the smaller de-

"Letter from Hanson to Nella J. Martin, of the University of California Library, October 21, 1914. A copy is in the University of Chicago Archives.




partmental libraries. When a small collection was being recataloged, Burton and Hanson were sometimes able to con- vince departmental authorities of the ad- vantages to be derived from the union of their books with similar books in the main stacks.

Between 1910 and 1928 the mechani- cal reproduction of cards for the catalogs at Chicago was a serious problem. Han- son came to the University Libraries hop- ing that cards could be printed. In 1910 cards were being printed not only at the Library of Congress but also at the Har- vard College Library and the John Crerar Library. Printing began at the University of Chicago in 1913, but costs were high and went higher. Economies were effected from time to time by changes in printing methods, but Hanson was unwilling to agree to any changes that would reduce the amount or accuracy of the information on each card. Printing was discontinued once; but during most of the period Hanson and Bur- ton found enough money for the printing of at least part of the cards. Multigraph- ing was used to some extent.

SERVICE TO READERS

The duty of aiding the members of the University in the use of the Libraries was largely intrusted to the Readers' Depart- ment. This department, created by Bur- ton in his reorganization of the Libraries in 1910, was responsible for reference and circulation service in the Main Library and exercised a certain amount of control over similar services in the departmental libraries. Hanson had charge of this department until 1911, when E. N. Man- chester was hired as its first full-time head. Manchester occupied this position during the early years of this study, and Edward A. Henry occupied it during the later years.

Service to readers moved in the same direction at Chicago in which it was mov- ing in other American university libraries. As the years passed, it became easier for students to use the boolks because restrictions on circulation were gradually being relaxed, while the catalogs were being developed so as to index an increasingly larger part of the book collection with greater accuracy.

Not everything was going well for the users of the library, however. Faculty and graduate students competed hotly for the small amount of study space which was available near the stacks, but, even so, they were better served than were undergraduates. The University was planning separate quadrangles for undergraduates where they would have their own living quarters, classrooms, and libraries. In the meantime these students found the main reading room in Harper to be a fairly adequate social cen- ter but an unsatisfactory study hall. Various administrative devices to reduce the noise were only moderately successful. Printed cards requesting silence fre- quently disappeared, and the student newspaper reported that they had been "tastefully framed" and hung on dor- mitory walls.

During these years changes in methods of instruction by faculty members and changes in circulation rules for libraries were causing a marked increase at Chica- go and in other American colleges and universities in the use of the reserve-book system. Until the latter part of the nine- teenth century the rules governing the use of the entire collection in a typical college library were about as strict as were the rules which later were applied only to booLs in special demand. In the early days all the books were, in effect, "on reserve." Then, too, the need for a reserve system involving the segregation




of books in heavy demand did not arise until college teachers began to move away from dependence on a single text and to require students to become familiar with the contents of several books in connection with each course.

Library administrators at Chicago and in similar institutions were slow to meet the demands which the new teaching methods made on libraries. One of the important reasons for their tardiness in providing reserve-book service was mental and another was physical. They had grown up in an educational system where one copy of each title was sufficient, and they found it difficult to think comforta- bly about purchasing the duplicate copies demanded by the new teaching methods. To them a book was either useful in research or it was a textbook. University libraries should purchase research materials, and students should purchase texts.

In many institutions librarians were unable to render adequate reserve-book service because library buildings did not provide as much space as readers needed. Library buildings erected before the 1920's typically did not provide separate rooms for this kind of service, so that growing reserve collections had to be cared for in a variety of makeshift ways.

The Harper Library at Chicago was not built to house a reserve collection. When it was erected, a few shelves behind a circulation desK sufficed, but soon there was need of counters and chutes in a separate room. The collection moved from room to room as increasing use made larger quarters necessary.

The most effective device for the re- duction of pressure on the reserve-book machinery was the rental system inaugu- rated in 1913 at the request of the Eng- lish Department. The rental system flourished because it was popular with both students and librarians. Students

were glad to pay a modest charge in order to keep books longer, and librarians, by the simple device of omitting salary costs in their reckoning, were able to provide what was apparently a self-liquidating form of book service. During several years in the 1920's receipts in rentals ex- ceeded expenditures for additions to the rental collection. By 1928 the annual vol- ume of business had risen to about $10,000. Apparently no one was disposed to question the educational philosophy underlying a system whereby under- graduate students contributed several thousand dollars a year toward the purchase of the library materials they used while faculty and graduate students were using research materials bought entirely from library funds.

FINANCES

The pattern of expenditures for library service at the University of Chicago between 1910 and 1928 was similar to the pattern in other American universities during those years. Expenditures at Chicago, like expenditures elsewhere, rose steadily until the time of the first World War and then rose even more rapidly. In 1911-12, the first year for which complete figures are available, $109,000 was spent for library purposes; the amount rose to $153,000 in the war year 1917-18 and to $378,000 by 1927- 28.

The relationship between two major divisions of the library funds at Chicago changed somewhat during these years. The expenditures for books, periodicals, and binding, taken as a whole, stayed about the same until the time of the first World War and then began to climb rapidly. Expenditures in this division of the library budget were $34,315 in 1911-12 and only $34,462 in 1917-18. In 1927-28 the figure had reached $127,428.




In the other major division of the budget, salary expenditures, the amount started at $51,477 in 1911-12 and rose each year until 1917-18, when it reached $88,662. During the 1920's the figure for salaries rose at about the same rate as did the figure for books, periodicals, and binding. By 1927-28 the annual salary expense was $195,824.

The relation of the cost of operating the Libraries to the cost of operating the entire University was not unlike that prevailing in other institutions of higher education. In all except two of the years between 1910 and 1928 the relationship of the cost of operating the Chicago Li- braries varied within a range of 1 per cent when compared with the total University expenditures for "budget" items-that is, for all except nonrecurring items such as building construction. The expenditures for the Libraries remained between 6.7 and 7.7 per cent of the budget expenditures for the University except in 1921-22, when they dropped to 6.4, and in the transitional year 1927-28, when they rose to 8.1 per cent.

The financial historv of the University of Chicago Libraries during this period suggests that the relation of expenditures for libraries to total expenditures of an institution may be an important factor in determining adequacy of support, even though the variation in that relationship is small when expressed in a percentage figure. The years before the first World War, when expenditures for the Libraries constituted a slightly higher percentage of University expenditures, were those when, in general, annual reports had less to say about the need for additional

financial support for library services. After the war, when expenditures for the Libraries were increasing much more rapidly than ever before, but when they were falling behind the increases for the entire University, the library authorities seem to have called attention more fre- quently to projects which could not be carried out because of the lack of funds.

SUMMARY

Tn most ways the administration of the University of Chicago Libraries between 1910 and 1928 was like that in other American university libraries. Problems such as those caused by rapid growth of the student body, changes in teaching methods, and the increasing cost of living were approximately the same in other institutions. But the University of Chicago Libraries chose means of meeting these problems which were not always typical. The chief administrative officers were a director chosen from the faculty and an associate director who was an experi- enced librarian with special competence in the field of cataloging. The housing problem, too, was met in an unusual way at Chicago. The Harper Memorial Li- brary, completed in 1912, was unlike other university libraries mainly because it was planned to adjoin other buildings which contained departmental reading rooms connected with its general reading room.

The administrative organization and procedures which had been new in 1910 were little changed when the era ended in 1928. In that year a new director of the Libraries began to put a fresh set of administrative theories into practice.



Documents

Administration of the University of Chicago Libraries, 1910-28