Two explanations of the reversion to what President Pusey calls the "tradition of scholar-librarians" are apparent. The new President has taken an important step in winning his faculty by returning the library to a professor. More important, the appointment shows the Metcalf has brought library administration to the point where the University is able to dispense with professional direction.

Traditionally, the librarianship is the office of a scholar. Administrators are his assistants, but administration is meticulously subordinated to the library as an instrument of scholarship and education. When administrative complications threatened the usefulness of the library, the solution has been to get more money, build new buildings, hire a large staff.

Only twice has this approach been modified: in 1877 when Justin Winsor was called from the Boston Public Library, and in 1937 when Metcalf came from New York. In both cases the problem was simple: the library was doubling in size every twenty years, and funds to administer this collection were not available. In both cases the professionals found ways of containing library growth within the financial limits imposed by the University, and preventing a decline of the library's position in the University.

While the faculty often forgets the value of this administrative work, without it the University would not have the finest research library in America today.

More Books, Less Money

Metcalf's greatness as a librarian lies in his willingness to go beyond the academic tradition, placing his knowledge of library techniques at the disposal of the scholars. He is the first to admit that no administrative solution can be permanent, and that Buck will face the same problems he has faced. But if the durability of Winsor's work is a guide, Metcalf has laid the foundations of library administrative development for many years to come.

The aim of Metcalf's work is simple: make more and more books available to the University on proportionally less and less money. Every year the purchasing less and less money. Every year the purchasing power of the endowment has decreased, and every years more books are published. How a University library can keep pace with the ever growing volumes of literature is every librarian's ultimate problem.

The difficulty is accentuated by the nature of libraries. A University can graduate students, retire professors, and tear down outdated buildings. The library on the other hand must find more and more elaborate means for preserving books as they grow older and older.

In an era when private individuals like Mrs. George D. Widener could give money for buildings, books, and endowments, the librarian had a convenient escape from these problems. But only foundations can contemplate such gifts today, and the scholar must find administrative assistance if he is to maintain his collection.

Metcalf's solutions to the problem of growth have been diverse, but to a large degree successful. Today, the staff is under paid, the catalogues are inadequate, reader service has been cut to the bare minimum, and acquisition funds are not sufficient to keep many collections up to date, but the scholar can obtain a larger percentage of the world's books than he did when Metcalf arrived.

Lost in the Catalogue

As a result of administrative economics, the library has, to a large degree, kept working collections in those fields which the University emphasizes. But Metcalf explains that this has been done by cutting into other fields of service, and that Buck will still have to decide in what way the library should be inadequate.

Such choices are not easy. The staff is under paid in a university accustomed to offering the highest salaries in its field. Not only does this disturb the librarian, but the continual effort to keep a capable staff is handicapped when some universities have a median salary $1000 a year higher than Harvard's.

In the 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.

The catalogue is another large administrative expense, which occupies more librarians than any other single item. But the catalogue has already been simplified more than in any other large library, too far, the overseers claim. Buck will be under pressure to expand rather than contract this department.