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

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42 The University of California Libraries The attempt to catalog and process the flood of books has likewise become an increasingly difficult task. As De Gennaro points out, the problems may originate in acquisition policies, but they "are only exacerbated by costly traditional processing routines." 13 For each locally-held book, not only must expensive bibliographic searching and cataloging take place, but the catalog cards produced must be filed and the ever-growing catalog must itself be maintained. The extent of this problem is illustrated by the fact that, despite often herculean efforts, there are backlogs of uncataloged books numbering in the hundreds of thousands within the UC system. Yet even if there were sufficient money available to pursue the traditional "acquisitions approach"--to buy ever increasing numbers of volumes, to catalog them fully, and then to house them--there is growing evidence that the approach itself does a poor job of meeting users' real needs. "As with cooking," comments Buckland, "expenditure on ingredients does not guarantee the quality of the product." 14 There are several reasons why the approach fails. In the first place as the number of volumes held increases and the size of the collection grows, it becomes more and more difficult to use. "The library goal of comprehensive collecting |and| the social impulse permanently to record events in detail," Rosenthal points out, "have added not only to the bulk of the record, but have reduced to very low levels the rate of use for any given item in many subject categories. More and more of what is collected is actually used less and less." 15 13 DeGennaro, p. 918. 14 Michael K. Buckland, Book Availability and the Library User, Pergamon Press, 1975, pp. 39-40. 15 Joseph A. Rosenthal The Research Libraries Group, 1973, p. 16.
III. The Need for a New Approach 43 On the other hand, in almost any library there are some titles that are in heavy demand, and are therefore very difficult to obtain. This is particularly true in university libraries, because, as Buckland points out, "investment in the acquisition of duplicate copies tends to be rather arbitary." 16 Indeed, many university libraries have an explicit policy that the acquisition of a title not already held is to be preferred over the acquisition of a duplicate. The combination of these two factors means that users must wade through larger and larger collections, yet still--with too high a degree of probability--be disappointed in the end. Several researchers have in fact calculated this "availability rate," as Gore dubs it, and found that in a typical university library it lies between 50 and 60 percent. To put it another way (as he does), this means that the failure rate is between 40 and 50 percent. 17 This relatively low level of success is generally attributed not only to the cumbersome nature of ever-growing collections and the lack of sufficient duplicate copies, but also to inadequate book selection in the first place and inappropriate loan periods. 18 A more impor- tant reason, however, may be that "preoccupation with collectionbuilding" has prevented sufficient attention to "better means of making the collections more accessible at time, places, quantities, and levels appropriate to the needs of the people." 19 Baumol and Marcus have also pointed out that the traditional methods of library operation lead not only to poor performance but to much of the increase in operating costs mentioned earlier. 16 Buckland, p. 4. 17 Daniel Gore, "Let Them Eat Cake While Reading Catalog Cards: An Essay on the Availability Problem," Library Journal, v. 100 (January 15, 1975), p. 94. 18 See, for example, Buckland, pp. 4, 14, 88; Gore "Let Them Eat Cake," pp. 95-97; and Gore, "The View From the Tower of Babel," Library Journal, v. 100 (September 15, 1975), pp. 1601-1602. 19 Dougherty and Blomquist, p. viii.
Page 1: A PLAN FOR DEVELOPMENT Office of th
Page 5 and 6: PREFACE The first draft of the plan
Page 7: goals of the library system on a mu
Page 11 and 12: CHAPTER I THE UNIVERSITY AND ITS LI
Page 13 and 14: I. The University and Its Libraries
Page 37 and 38: CHAPTER II THE FUNCTION OF THE LIBR
Page 39 and 40: II. The Function of the Library 29
Page 45 and 46: CHAPTER III THE NEED FOR A NEW APPR
Page 47 and 48: III. The Need for a New Approach 37
Page 49 and 50: III. The Need for a New Approach 39
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Page 55 and 56: CHAPTER IV A UNIVERSITY LIBRARY SYS
Page 57 and 58: IV. A University Library System 47
Page 67 and 68: CHAPTER V IDENTIFICATION AND LOCATI
Page 69 and 70: V. Identification and Location 59
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Page 89 and 90: CHAPTER VI DELIVERY AND USE OF MATE
Page 91 and 92: VI. Delivery and Use 81 At the depa
Page 93 and 94: VI. Delivery and Use 83 which they
Page 95 and 96: VI. Delivery and Use 85 3. "If the
Page 97 and 98: VI. Delivery and Use 87 At the camp
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VI. Delivery and Use 93 2) That int
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VI. Delivery and Use 95 At the syst
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VI. Delivery and Use 97 Several alt
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VI. Delivery and Use 99 its develop
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CHAPTER VII INFORMATION AND INSTRUC
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VII. Information and Instruction 10
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CHAPTER VIII ACQUISITION AND PROCES
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VIII. Acquisition and Processing 11
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Table 15 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA M
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138 The University of California Li
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CHAPTER X HOUSING THE LIBRARY SYSTE
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X. Housing 149 The shortage of spac
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X. Housing 151 visited each campus,
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X. Housing 153 Year Actual FTE Staf
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Table 23 X. Housing 155 Space Requi
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X. Housing 157 Total, All Campuses
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X. Housing 159 Table 26 Total New L
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X. Housing 161 asf, the low figure
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X. Housing 163 not be housed in exi
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X. Housing 165 Table 30 Cost of Sub
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X. Housing 167 that are meant. Howe
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X. Housing 169 Third! (There is a h
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X. Housing 171 that "past use" is "
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X. Housing 173 Table 32 Costs of Sh
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X. Housing 175 monographs, on the o
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X. Housing 177 For the purposes of
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X. Housing 179 degree of overlap be
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X. Housing 181 • that brief bibli
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X. Housing 183 Region. The principa
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X. Housing 185 Table 35 Estimated N
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