College Library 'Librarian, Biola College
sputniks, educational controversies, and nationalistic tensions? Our Library Committee has asked me to spend $4,000 this year on science alone—the various branches of it that would be of interest to our curriculum. We are buying heavily in education, also. In the field of soci ology we have added thousands of volumes during the past two or three years. This is such a vast field, cover ing as it does history, social science, social anthropology, political science, communism, etc. Do you mean you have books on communism in the library? Most certainly. We have many of the government reports on un-Ameri can activities and communistic organi zations. There are a goodly number of serious studies in the various aspects of totalitarianism and, of course, the history of communism and related movements. We feel we must have firsthand information on these matters. How do you know what is contin ually coming out in all these fields? That is quite easy now with the set of bibliographic publications avail able to us as librarians, and to anyone who will take the time to look at them. At the end of each month we get a magazine that lists the books that have been published during the month in all the fields of knowledge. This is arranged in subject order by the Dewey Decimal classification scheme. We get another list every two months or so of books that are to be published during the next four xponths. Of course these books are not all
good. How do you decide which of them you w ill buy? One comes to know publishers, and in many cases authors, and to some extent subjects. We submit some titles to the faculty for a decision. We can consult the Book Review Digest for scholarly opinions. Then if we find that we do make a mistake we can usually return a book for credit or re placement. Do the professors initiate orders for books? Yes, many of them do, especially Department Heads. Some of them have gone with us to other libraries and listed basic works to be purchased. We have recently done this in science, education, and literature. Do you think that the BIOLA Library is getting away from is ori ginal complexion? No, absolutely not. We have a much stronger religious collection now to support all the four religious majors, as well as the Seminary, but we have broadened out in many directions of necessity to support the entire college program. As the collection grows, each department supplements and supports the others to some extent, in addition to providing special materials for more technical studies. We feel that this is necessary not only for the curriculum but also to equip the citizen of to morrow to meet the many problems that will confront him, which we did not face in our post-student days. You are Head of a department your self, though, aren’t you? Yes, that is right, I teach Library Science and we have a Library Science Department. We issue a Certificate in
Librarianship for study in this course. What do you try to do in this Department? We try to prepare a student to do acceptable work in a school or general library or to take over a small library. We aim to make our own library a good model and provide in it a labora tory for Library Science work. It must be quite a thrill and adven ture to handle so many books in so many fields. Do you read all of them (I guess that is a silly question)? No, of course not, but there is a real value in handling these books as they go into the library. I have each book in my hand at least twice in the pro cess of cataloging and handle the cards for them several times, too. This tends to make me familiar in a general way, at least with the authors, titles, and subjects involved. It is quite thrilling when I remember later that we have a certain book on a given subject. What would you say as to the future of the BIOLA Library? I believe that every indication points to the probability that we shall have in a comparatively short time an adequate and thoroughly exciting collection for work in the subjects in which we offer majors. In the area of evangelical Christian ity, I should say that we have a col lection that cannot be overlooked, and is, in fact, not being overlooked in re search. We have had several people here recently working on doctoral dissertations from some of our univer sities. The entire purpose of our min istry is so that the man of God may be thoroughly and throughly fur nished unto all good works.
“ This fisherman represents the one of the song ‘Throw Out The Lifeline.’ It was a gift of Mrs. Lyman Ste- $ wart.”
"Professors originate orders for books. W e take depart ment heads to other Ibraries and list basic works to be purchased.”
“ Our volumes are arranged by the D ew ey Decimal classification system. Adding volumes is a continuing pro gram.”
“Our catalog-files provide the ‘brain-center’ for the library in reference work. W e have more religious books than ever before.”
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