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

CHAPTER VI
DELIVERY AND USE OF MATERIALS
Once the user has identified the materials he needs, the next
task of the library is to provide for their delivery and use. Again,
the methods should be tailored to the level of response, which in
turn should correspond to the immediacy of need.
Department and College. Materials which are likely to be needed
immediately should be available where they can be delivered or
used immediately, or at least momentarily. On large campuses, this
may require a departmental library or reading room, at least for
certain types of materials, such as basic reference works in the
discipline and current issues of key journals.
Dougherty and Blomquist have described what is probably the
typical reading room situation.
Departmental reading rooms are generally supported through
donations, either monetary or material, from members of
the faculty, from departmental supply budgets, or from
research grant overheads. If staffed at all, the rooms
are entrusted to the care of the secretarial staff and/or
graduate students. 1
The most common functions performed by the rooms are:
• to house basic reference works and treatises in the field,
and to provide a place where they can be consulted quickly and conveniently;
• to allow faculty and students to keep abreast of publications
in key professional journals;
• to provide a place to put material on reserve for classes,
especially material that belongs to a faculty member rather than to
1 Richard M. Dougherty and Laura L. Blomquist, Improving Access to
Library Resources, Scarecrow Press, 1974, p. 69.