Word: metcalf
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...field of reader service, Metcalf argues that the inadequacies are partially product of educational philosophy ("We try to put the reader on the right track, not find the answer."). But he admits that economic pressures are pushing service below the acceptable level...
...late '40s, Metcalf proposed a scheme for cutting cataloguing costs by combining the union catalogue which lists the holdings of the University by author, and the public catalogue (which lists the Widener collection by subject, title and author). The faculty objected and he abandoned the plan...
...that expenses will rise rather than decline. All indications are for a smaller proportion of the budget going to books as the size of the library increases. Thus the need for more and more economical ways of making books available will increase rather than diminish. It is here that Metcalf has done his most significant work. By placing the catalogues of the world's great libraries in Widner, and refining the interlibrary loan, Metcalf has made almost any book in the world available to the patron of the University library...
Regardless of whether Buck refines interlibrary cooperation to reduce the number of books needed annually, or finds money with which to swell the current acquisition, he will have to find space in which to store them. Metcalf has cut the rate of growth from a four percent annually to a constant 125,000 volumes each year, but even these fill almost three miles of new shelving...
Long-term planning has always failed in the past. Gore Hall was supposed to last for sixty years, and was full in twenty. Widener was to house the central collection for fifty years, and was full in 25. Today's planning is perhaps more realistic and Metcalf has held down acquisitions for 18 years. One of Buck's problems will be to continue this effort. Metcalf has devised a four way censure to crowding the central collection. When he arrived in 1937, there was room for three years growth. Since then he has realized an undergraduate library, a rare book...