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Caption: UI Library School Alumni Newsletter - 37
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. University of Illinois Library School "Jn comparison with what a library for a student body of 4,000 should be * e are, obviously, in a very poor way. But for the immediacy of need and energy of acquisition, we have managed superlatively. Except in our own initiative, we have no function as acquisitors, that prerogative beinassumed by the academic division of the school through which requisitions arc submitted and orders (if any) placed. We function primarily as keepers of the storehouse—but many leads we have had to private collections of Englishmen who were generously disposed have been followed to our good fortune (socially, as well as bibliophilically speaking). We hope to attain a collection of approximately 10,000 volumes which will fill the space facilities available—somewhat reminiscent in size and shape of the reference room at Illinois, the room is a converted mess hall in the most accessible building on the campus. We have most of the basic reference materials necessary for general undergraduate study, a mammoth fiction collection—but suffer through total absence of periodicals of any description whatever. Our library tools are hardly basic or adequate, but we are organized on the simplest possible lines, the catalogue (now with the handsome total of about seven feet—how many thousand is that? —of cards) is not complex with stilted and scholarly subject entries and is divided into two separate files: authors, and subjects and titles. Pressure at the "desk" has been reduced almost 75% since the catalogue has been put into oise. We are asked for such varied services as any ordinary library—from permission to use one of our girls (there are five English girls who do charges, etc.—some quite decorative!) as a model for the "live" art classes to a list of addresses of American shipping firms with offices in London, and with most of the miscellanei we customarily give satisfactory accommodations. The British are much impressed with our facilities, occasional Chinese visitors amazed at our "adequacy," and the Canadians have used us as a model for the library of their school recently established north of London. The faculty, officer-instructors as well as imported civilians, are tolerant with our short-comings and complimentary to our good qualities. Our 302 chairs are always filled as are the sixty-odd easy chairs in the loungecorridors at either end of the room, relighted and redecorated at our insistence to make the approaches to our premises more inviting. We have tried to add touches of clan to the room by exhibitions of book jackets, wall maps, and the most recent photographs from the laboratory theater productions, and are pleased to believe our facilities are enjoyed." His address is: Capt. T. E. Ratcliffe, 01168874, Library, Academic Division, Shrivenham American University, A P O 756, c/o Postmaster, New York, N.Y. Most recent address of Ruth L. Schweickart, B.S/34, on leave from the Catalog Department, University of Illinois Library is: Ruth L. Schweickart, Sp(Q)3c, WAVE Qts. D, Bk. 12-246, Washington, 16, D.C. Dwight W. Shannon, ILS/42, wrote to the Library School from the Philippines, May 19, 1945: "Being a loyal Illinois man and very much interested in the library world, 1 usually am Oil the prowl for prospective librarians. I think I have found one . . . I was a hospital librarian in the Army back in the States for 18 months, but am now doing strictly medical work, i.e., evacuating wounded «< m .v Km train ^U' *nc< mm ^
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