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

IV. A University Library System 49
In the chapters which follow, six levels of organization are
proposed, with a desired response time at each level. For each, appropriate
methods of identification and location of material, delivery
and use of material, acquisition and processing of material, information
services, staffing, housing, organization and governance
are also described. Each of these topics is treated in a separate
chapter, but the general characteristics of the system are outlined in
Table 11 and described briefly below.
Department and College. On all campuses, there are libraries that
exist primarily for the purpose of serving particular departments and
colleges. They range in size from a few hundred randomly-assembled
volumes and current issues of key journals to organized research collections
with hundreds of thousands of volumes. Organization and governance
of these libraries vary, but in general they fall into two
types: departmental reading rooms, supported normally by departmental
funds and donations, and branch libraries, usually (but not always) a
part of the campus library system.
Departmental reading rooms are described in more detail in Chapter
VI, but their primary function should be noted here. Because they
typically house basic reference works, standard monographs, and current
issues of key journals, they provide an important means of access to
library materials needed immediately. As Dougherty and Blomquist have
shown, the distance from a researcher's office to a library has a
marked and demonstrable effect on his use of the library, 10 and a
small departmental library or reading room is often the only feasible
way to provide effective access to materials in the "immediate" category.
On large campuses, some decentralization of the campus library
system may also be necessary to provide effective service to users.
Normally this decentralization is accomplished through the development
of branch libraries, either for large and relatively well-defined
subject areas (such as medicine) or for general disciplinary areas
(such as the sciences).
10 Richard M. Dougherty and Laura L. Blomquist, Improving Access to
Library Resources, Scarecrow Press, 1974, pp. 44, 49, 78.