The University of California Libraries: A Plan for Development (1977)

I. The University and Its Libraries 17
• Reproduction of the catalogs of the Berkeley and Los Angeles
libraries for use on the other campuses.
• Funds for additional clerical and other services at Berkeley and
Los Angeles to facilitate intercampus library lending.
• Funds for the purchase and operation of suitable vehicles for the
Santa Barbara, Riverside, and Davis campuses to expedite interlibrary
lending between those campuses and the Los Angeles and Berkeley libraries.
• Funds for the intercampus exchange of faculty and advanced graduate
students to provide for study and research on other campuses.
One additional significant provision in the plan was that the collections
for the new campuses "may initially be acquired for these campuses
by the staff of the San Diego library." The San Diego Librarian,
Melvin Voigt, had calculated that by selecting, ordering, and cataloging
three copies of an identical 75,000-volume undergraduate collection at
once, approximately $400,000 could be saved in processing costs. The
project was approved, and the New Campuses Program, as it was called,
began in the San Diego library in the fall of 1961. Titles for the
collections were determined with great care, and reviewed by specialists
around the country. The resulting list was subsequently published by
the American Library Association, and became the first standard list of
books for college libraries in forty years. The books were ordered,
cataloged, and ready for use when the new campuses opened, San Diego in
1964, and Irvine and Santa Cruz in 1965.
By that time, the 1960 Library Plan was being re-examined in the
light of work on the 1966 Growth Plan for the University. Berkeley had
already reached 3,000,000 and was beginning to transfer volumes to the
storage facility, but in light of the new projections the goal for the
size of collections at both Berkeley and Los Angeles was raised from
3 million to 4.1 million. The policies of intercampus cooperation and
"complementarity" were strongly reaffirmed. A revised library plan was
then approved by The Regents and incorporated in the 1966 Academic Plan.
Meanwhile, all campuses struggled to meet the goals. "When the
1960 plan was adopted, the University was acquiring about 273,000 volumes
per year; by 1965, when the plan was revised, the acquisition rate
had been increased to 665,000 per year. And by 1971, all of the 1960