Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1896 [PAGE 19]

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UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS.

than that of general drudge and man of all work. With a skilled assistant under him, he could enlarge the scope of his usefulness, and, by offering instruction and practical training in bibliography, library economy, and the use of books, vastly increase the mutual benefit to be derived both by the students from the library and by the library from the students. Much valuable voluntary assistance might in this way be secured, although it would in no wise obviate the necessity of employing a professional cataloguer. In a number of our sister universities and colleges, where the librarian has, in some instances, been constituted professor of bibliography and library economy, instruction, more or less detailed, is offered by him in those branches. Such is the case at the University of Colorado, at Amherst College, Bowdoin College, the University of California, Cornell University, the Iowa State College, the University of Michigan, Wellesley College, and* the Maine State College. The employment of a trained cataloguer, unless we look for a high grade of experience and efficiency, would not cost over six hundred or eight hundred dollars a year, or somewhat less than that if the term of service were limited to the academic year. The Librarian wishes to call attention to the very considerable and wholly unnecessary additional expense which will be incurred if the proper classification of the library is delayed until after its removal to the new building which we expect to occupy within the next year or two. Such a delay would necessitate moving twice each one of our 26,000 volumes, whereas, if the proper marking and labeling is completed as the books stand at present, they will be ready for immediate and correct arrangement upon the transference to the new library. That the adoption of a systematic classification and designation of each book must come in the end, is obvious when it is considered how much time is now consumed in hunting for any desired volume from among the 26,000 on the shelves. As the library grows, this difficulty will increase unless the collection is at once put in proper order and carefully re-catalogued. If, for any reason, it should be found impossible to grant the library a liberal appropriation at this time, it will prove of far greater advantage to spend the money assigned to that department in the manner indicated above than in the purchase of new books for which our cramped quarters allow us no room. The time for expansion will come with the new building. Until then there is enough to do in preparing the present collection for removal and re-arrangement. (3) So far as the appropriation for books will allow, a certain sum of money, for the purchase of general works of reference, should be placed at the disposal of the Librarian. These works, not falling within the department of any one instructor, often fail of being ordered, to the subsequent serious inconvenience of those using the library. Their expense sometimes deters an instructor from including them in his list, as their purchase would consume so large a portion of the sum assigned him for books. An annual appropriation of at least two or three hundred dollars should be at the command of the Librarian for the purchase of this class of books as well as of such new or necessary publications, manuals, aids, or appliances as fall within his own special line of work. This application for an appropriation, inconsiderable in amount, but most urgently needed, is most respectfully submitted.

PERCY F . BICKNELL, Librarian.

URBANA, I I I . , Sept. 21, 1894.

I also submit the following report of the President of the Board of Direction of the Agricultural Experiment Station:

EXPERIMENT STATION REPORT.

Dr. A. S.. Draper, President University of Illinois. DEAR SIR:—Having been a n o i n t e d , for the time being, President of the Board of Direction of the Agricultural Experiment Station, I have undertaken to perform the not very well defined duties of the office.