Volume XXV · Spring 1970 · Number 3

The History of the University of Rochester Libraries--120 Years

--CATHERINE D. HAYES

 

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Enter the Nineteen Sixties

As he surveyed the condition of the University libraries in 1960, Russell may have been reminded of a bookman's comment that "the most conspicuous feature of our college library service . . . has been its devoted sacrifice. Librarians have been making bricks without straw . . . have been all things to all men, but with the usual result of satisfying no one--themselves included. . . . Most conspicuously have the librarians of colleges been obliged to lag behind . . . chiefly because of lack of funds. . . ." 

The years had taken their toll: the severe restrictions of the war years of the forties and fifties, the impact of the merger, and the meagre annual budgets, plus rising prices and living costs, had combined to hamper the growth of the library. Library buildings were beginning to show their inadequacies; in only a few years the lack of library space for books and readers would be critical in the medical and music libraries and in Rush Rhees. Staffs were inadequate and staff salaries were woefully low. Book funds were desperately low, far too scanty to meet the demands of the fast-developing academic and research programs and increasing undergraduate and graduate enrollments. Russell, who had made do with all of these inadequate resources for twenty years, voiced his alarm, and in the ensuing years he doggedly persisted in his efforts to create new building programs and to bring about an upgrading of library funds. 

Essentially the problem was money, and Russell noted this in 1967 when he reviewed library growth and expenditures for President W. Allen Wallis:

"While the expenditures for 1962-1967 show an increase of 146 per cent over those for 1957-1962, the percentage of increase during 1962-1967 was only a little higher than it was in 1957-1962, 79 per cent in the more recent period and 77 per cent in the earlier period. One of the most interesting indications of growth . . . is the percentage of the total expenditures of the university devoted to the library. This percentage (at Rochester) has always been low, but has been gradually increasing. From 1962 to 1966 it rose from 2.08 per cent to 2.57 per cent, an improvement over the rate in 1957-1962, which varied from 1.44 per cent to 1.8 per cent. However, our rate of 2.57 per cent last year does not compare favorably with the rates of a number of other institutions, such as Brown University (6 per cent); Dartmouth College (5.3 per cent); Duke University (4.4 per cent); Stanford University (4.4 per cent); Princeton University (3.9 per cent); Washington University, St. Louis (3.8 per cent); and Tulane University (3.7 per cent). Since our ratio was so low in the years before 1962, the library was not able to build up the strong research library that is now needed; hence, the ratio must be higher in the years ahead to make up for this slow rate of growth in the past."

As each year of the early 1960's passed, the desperate space situation in all library buildings became more and more apparent. In1961, the total holdings of the library system were 721,119 volumes. From 1962 to 1967 the number of volumes in the library system increased from 749,217 to 1,048,429, not counting the multiplying of the library's holdings in manuscript collections and uncataloged government publications. Space for readers dwindled as enrollments rose. As a result, studies of space needs were conducted, and Keyes D. Metcalf, former librarian of Harvard University and a recognized expert on university library buildings, was appointed as a consultant on planning the expansion of Rush Rhees library in 1963. Metcalf's report recommended immediate steps to reclaim library space then used for non-library purposes and to construct six levels of stacks in Rush Rhees. In addition, he recommended construction of a new and separate library building to serve as the main research library for the campus. Rush Rhees would then become primarily an undergraduate library. 

Between 1962 and 1965 there was some success at Rush Rhees and the medical libraries. An addition to the medical library was completed in 1962. At Rush Rhees some space being used for non-library purposes was converted to library use. A small addition was constructed to house the offices of the President, the provosts and their staffs, but instead was assigned to library purposes, and a storage library was established and soon was filled with some 50,000 volumes from Rush Rhees library. And, in 1964 work began on a preliminary building program for Rush Rhees library. There were budget improvements too, notably in the book budget which was boosted from an awkward low of $83,700 in 1960 to a more flexible $200,700 in 1965. However, all was not on the bright side; the space situation at Sibley music library was still critical and continued in that state throughout the sixties, and the science libraries on the River Campus outgrew their accommodations, although it was hoped that a new science complex on the campus would provide space for a new science library. 

The University administration had opted in favor of a building addition to Rush Rhees instead of an entirely new structure, and at last, in 1965, the firm of Murphy and Mackey of St. Louis, architects, was chosen for the addition and remodeling projects. Their plans were completed in November, 1966, and ground for a $6,500,000 addition to Rush Rhees library and remodeling project was broken in February, 1967. The following two and one-half years was a story of such routine hazards as dirt, noise, relocations, fires, floods, excessive heat, and chilling cold; but the library staff, the students, and the faculty valiantly attempted to conduct business as usual. There was despair, but by the spring of 1969 there were obvious results, and various library departments began to move into new quarters. All of the departments were relocated by the end of 1969 and all initial furnishings were in place. 

The story of the sixties was not all space problems, construction, and money, however. There were other, and possibly just as significant developments in the areas of automation and cooperative library programs. Russell, aware of the demand for more sophisticated library operations and techniques, established in1966 an Information Systems Office which was to be concerned with any methods, equipment, theory or practice involving mechanization or improvement of library functions through the use of modern scientific and technical approaches. Technological advances also were noticeable at the medical library where that library system was linked via leased telephone line and IBM communication terminals to eleven other medical libraries in the State University of New York Biomedical Communication Network, the system providing a computerized information retrieval system. 

Russell also saw to it that the community served by the University of Rochester libraries was greatly expanded in 1966 and 1967 by virtue of the library's joining in two new cooperatives, the Rochester Regional Research Library Council and the Five Associated University Libraries. These cooperative ventures soon exhibited their potential for increasing library growth and development through shared resources and services among various institutions. 

With his retirement approaching in 1969, Russell left the University of Rochester to accept appointment as librarian of the American College of Switzerland at Leysin, Switzerland. His vacancy was filled by the appointment of Ben Cook Bowman, chief librarian at Hunter College in New York City. Bowman, a native of California, was educated at the University of Oregon and University of Chicago. From 1945 to 1961 he was on the staff of Chicago's Newberry Library where he was head of the reference department and later assistant librarian. In 1961 he was appointed director of libraries at the University of Vermont and from there went to Hunter College. 

John Russell retired after 25 years as director of University libraries. Though his years were marked by struggle in the face of low budgets, shrinking library space, and inadequate staff, he was a make do man in the same sense as were the early founders of the University--creating from very little the essentials of a fine university library. Despite budgets which at best could be described as barely adequate, he patiently applied what funds he did have in such a fashion that depth was added to the collections, making them more responsive to the increasing research and scholarship of the university. His active role in attracting friends for the library was rewarded by the accumulation of a great number of gifts, particularly in the area of rare books and manuscripts, providing original source materials so essential to advanced students in many fields of study. He surrounded himself with able librarians, developed their interest in professional education and methods and fought for their increased salaries and benefits, inspiring an unusual degree of loyalty and respect from them. He eventually won his case for the libraries, and by the nineteen sixties had encouraged building programs and more generous allotments for books and people. And, most importantly, he was not just interested in maintaining the status quo; instead, as his administration came to a close, he was creating new programs for technological advances and inter-library cooperation. He had created the foundation and the atmosphere for what promised to be the even more sophisticated library age of the nineteen-seventies.


Library History continued >>